Burundi: Farmer finds new technique for preserving tomatoes
Vital Nduwimana hated how many tomatoes he lost every season. For years, his tomatoes started rotting just three or four days after harvest. He felt frustrated.
Mr. Nduwimana explains: “I was not able to sell all my tomatoes; I lost almost half of my production. Worse still, I would sell at a low price in the market. So in 2015, I thought that maybe I should find a tomato conservation technique.”
Mr. Nduwimana grows tomatoes in eastern Burundi, on Kabuyenge hill, five kilometres from the Tanzanian border.
In eastern Burundi, tomatoes are abundant during the harvest months of August and September. But growers find it difficult to keep tomatoes for later sale, which leads to a large number of tomatoes rotting.
Mr. Nduwimana tried several techniques to solve his problem. He tried storing his tomatoes in water, in clay, underground, in cartons, and even in sand. He tried everything that came to his mind—but without success.
Then one day, he noticed that the tomatoes he had kept next to his banana trees were not rotten. Then he noticed the ash at the foot of the banana trees.
He decided to try keeping his tomatoes in ash and found that this was more effective than any of the other techniques he had tried.
He uses ash from a chimney, and sifts it three or four times to remove large residues, debris, and other foreign materials. Then, he dumps the ash into a paper carton and places the tomatoes in the carton. With this technique, Mr. Nduwimana manages to safely store his tomatoes for many months.
He explains: “I keep my tomatoes in the ash for a period of five to six months, so I can sell them in December, January, or February when the price has risen—since tomatoes are rare and become expensive during this period.“
Wow. I’ve never heard of that! He seems to be making it work! He must have to travel a long way to market.
When I helped my In-Laws with market/restaurant gardening, everything stayed on the vine until the day before we took veggies to market, or made restaurant deliveries, so we never did really ‘store’ anything, other than keeping berries refrigerated.
If anything was going bad, those were for our own consumption. I never ONCE ate a perfect tomato, pepper or cucumber during those years, LOL! ;)