Saleh Maikudi, a 35-year-old farmer from Bula community in Akko Local Government Area of Gombe State, says he earns over ₦7 million annually from growing tomatoes and pepper.
Maikudi, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in the Bula community, said he became a millionaire from growing vegetables. He said that investing in tomato and pepper farming yielded good returns.
Maikudi said he spent over ₦1.5 million on 30 hectares of farmland which he cultivated in 2023.
“In 2023, I made ₦7 million from cultivating tomato and pepper.
“I only spent ₦1.5 million as the total cost of preparing and planting the vegetables.
“I cultivated tomato, bell pepper (Tatashe), chili pepper, Cayenne pepper (shombo) and Scotch bonnet (hot pepper) on my farmland.”
Maikudi, who is also the chairman of Vegetables Farmers’ Association in the community, said he cultivated 30 hectares of the vegetables annually. He said that it took 10 weeks after cultivating the vegetables to start harvesting the commodities for another period of 10 weeks.
The farmer said that in the present wet season, farmers had started harvesting and off-takers had been coming to their community to buy the commodities for supply to various states of the country.
He said that the year’s rainfall, which he described as moderate, was good enough for his vegetables to grow and that his tomato and pepper did well.
“If the market is good this year, I am expecting nothing less than ₦10 million because my vegetables really did well.’’
Maikudi advised the government to build a modern market in the community. According to him, the facility will help standardise the marketing of vegetables and other agricultural produce as well as provide farmers with the platform to centralise the selling of the commodity.
“Also, the government can establish mini processing factories to help farmers cut post-harvest losses, boost food security and provide more jobs for youths in the state,” he added.