Though Nigeria is in the first ten major producers of Cashew nuts in the world, the country needs to put many things in place to ensure that it improves on her production in this regard. That is why the federal government has decided to rededicate itself to support the cashew industry, as the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment pledges to create an enabling environment for investment and growth of the sector.
According to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, “The major focus has always been to support smallholders’ farmers, by building their capacities on best practices, which encourages market access, support value addition and processing, which encourage industrialisation and ensure that Raw Cashew Nuts (RCN) and other products from cashew are highly competitive at the international market.”
The minister lamented the country’s inability to add value and export processed cashew kernels, instead exporting raw cashew nuts. “We are not unaware of the numerous challenges we are being confronted with, which bothers on high cost of processing, as well as limited availability of credit for processors to support their capability to procure high volume of RCN to enable processing at optimal and installed capacity level as a precondition to remain in business and make profit,” she said.
Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu emphasised the need for policies tailored to the cashew industry, focusing on increasing production and processing within Nigeria. “Reports showed that the export price of cashew kernels from India and Vietnam to the EU and America is roughly 3.5 times higher than the price paid to Nigerian cashew farmers after semi-processing. When roasted in Europe or America, the value increases to about 8.5 times more than the farm gate price in Nigeria. This represents a loss of wealth and opportunities, as the benefits of value addition are transferred abroad rather than retained locally,” he said.
The National President of the National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN), Dr. Ojo Ajanaku, expressed concern over the decline in Nigeria’s cashew production, calling for urgent measures to revive the sector. “We have a particular variety that is very popular, which is the Ogbomosho variety and we believe that if we are able to spread this across the nation, we will have a uniform product in Nigeria. We have also decided to engage nursery farms in Nigeria to produce more to increase our production in the country,” he said.
