FCTA trains 300 women on natural tomato paste processing, preservation

Favour Ishember, Abuja

Worried by the rate at which fresh tomatoes are left to waste during harvest seasons, the FCT Administration has taken strategic steps to prevent such wastages  in the future by training women in the territory on how to process fresh tomatoes into paste for effective preservation.

The training, designed for women across the six  area councils had a stop over at the Abuja Municipal Area Council on Tuesday where  300 women drawn from Nyanya, Karu, Jikwoyi, Kurudu Karshi among others were trained on tomato paste processing and preservation.

Declaring the training open, the Mandate Secretary, Agriculture and Rural Development Secretariat, Abubakar Ibrahim said there has been tremendous gains arising from the exercise since its initiation after he assumed office as last year.

The Secretary who was represented by the Acting Director, Planning Research and Statistics, Haruna Umar explained that the training will equip the women with cost effective techniques borrowed from Japan to facilitate the attainment of food and nutrition security.

He added that the training which is a train the trainer structured programme will ensure that each of the participants is able to share her knowledge with at least ten residents in her neighbourhood.

While demonstrating the process of tomato processing and preservation to the women, The lead trainer, Oladoja Margaret noted that the main target of the training is teach the women how to prevent economic waste.

According to her, it will enable them buy tomato in large quantities while it’s cheap, process and store it against tomato off-season when it will become extremely expensive.