• Atsuku Igbadoo Phinehas
  1Centre for Food Technology and Research (CEFTER), Benue State University,
  




• Imande Michael Tyolumun*
  Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Benue State University
  




• Adeyelu Adekunle
  Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Benue State University
  

Tomato, a highly nutritious crop, is widely consumed worldwide. rnAlthough Benue State`s fertile soil and favorable climate support rnyear-round cultivation, fresh tomato supply remains limited at certain rntimes each year due to seasonal farming practices and farmers` limited rnawareness. A Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average rnModel with exogenous variables (SARIMAX) was used as a rnquantitative tool to provide realistic and reliable advisory support for rntomato production. This study employed monthly secondary data on rntomato production in Benue State (1980–2013; 408 observations) rnobtained from BNARDA, alongside monthly temperature and rainfall rndata (1980–2017; 456 observations) from the Nigerian rnMeteorological Agency. Temperature and rainfall (1980–2013) were rnincorporated as exogenous variables in a SARIMAX model to rnanalyze tomato production, while the additional years were used as rnexogenous variables for forecasting. SARIMA (1,1,2)(0,1,2)[12] rn(Xreg) outperformed the SARIMA counterpart, reducing AIC from rn8464.2 to 8126.02 and improving forecast accuracy with lower rnRMSE (6528.52 vs. 7575.78) and MAPE (74.09% vs. 87.13%), rnconfirming temperature and rainfall as significant drivers of tomato rnproduction in Benue State. Results from this work suggest that the rnsystem of tomato farming be controlled and improved upon, instead rnof allowing climatic factors decide what happens. This would enable rnsteady supply and improved quality of tomato in Benue State.