We all eat tomatoes. In fact, most people will not touch food without tomatoes.
We demand kachumbari in meat joints and even boiled egg vendors can't dare venture out without them.
But have you ever asked where your tomato comes from? Well, I tried to find out where mine comes from and visited tomato farmers in Subukia.
The first thing I learnt is that the tomato market is more unstable than water. Prices change within hours, and that's to the tune of plus or minus thousands per crate.
A tomato farmer will do anything, just anything, to sell when he feels the price is right. That makes him dangerous. Very dangerous.
You see, most pesticides have clear instructions that tomatoes should not be picked before two weeks after spraying.
But if the price is right, nothing stops a farmer from picking his tomatoes after four days. There is no one to enforce regulations. No one cares even though there are authorities to ensure quality.
The farmer sells directly to the market; to the consumer. The Kenya Bureau of Standards is yet to penetrate the fresh farm produce. I asked a farmer, let's call him Job*, about his take on the dangers they expose us to.
He told me in confidence that they look for profits. Sometimes they use pesticides meant for other things apart from edibles, such as those for ticks.
They are fleeced, he says, by brokers and therefore go for a kill when they can.
I saw brokers buy tomatoes, pack them and send them to Nakuru for sale. What I didn't see was that no one dared to check the last spray dates. The farmers don't record such dates.
I didn't say you shouldn't eat tomatoes, but the tomato I will eat, I will ask questions about it before I buy it.