The National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN) reported on Sunday that Nigeria made about N14 billion from cashew exports in the past year and that the country is working to increase its yearly production to one million metric tonnes (MT).
Ojo Ajanaku, president of NCAN, said that the country’s cashew production would grow to 400,000MT in the harvesting season.
He said, “We produce between 350,000 to 360,000MT of cashew annually. With the cooperation of the ministries, departments, and agencies of government in the past two years, we believe that we will meet between 400,000 to 420,000MT in the coming harvest.
“However, our target is to grow it to a million metric tonnes in four to five years and we are on the right path to achieving this as a nation.”
Ojo said the country was exporting more raw cashew than processed ones, stating that the product was generating increased revenue for Nigerian farmers.
He said, “Nigeria is currently doing more of the export of the raw cashew nuts because we don’t process more of it. Generally, it is a problem in Africa, not only in Nigeria. However, it has been giving us a lot of income when you talk about foreign earnings.
“It is second to sesame seed in terms of foreign exchange generation from agro-exports. I may not be able to give you the accurate figure in terms of foreign exchange, but in naira what we got from the export of cashew in the last year was about N14 billion.”
The president of NCAN said the 16th edition of the African Cashew Alliance meeting is scheduled to take place in Abuja this month. The conference would be held in Nigeria for the first time.
“The Federal Government is hosting it in Abuja this month and we hope the conference will attract international investors,” Ajanaku stated.
He said “the Federal Government has been contributing immensely to see that the cashew sector is growing.
“However, we are asking for more because we have the potential to produce more than what we are producing currently.”
Safe to say, the country’s motive to diversify the economy seems to be yielding positive results, as the recently released Q2 of the country’s GDP report revealed that the non-oil sector remains the powerhouse of the Nigerian economy.