Nigeria’s farmers and exporters earned $402 million from export of cashew nuts in the 2017 season, underlining opportunity in the crop.
Production was also in positive trajectory last year, Tola Faseru, president of the National Cashew Association (NCAN), told BusinessDay.
“Despite the issues of climate change, our production increased to 220,000MT in 2017. A cashew farmer is richer today than he was a few years ago,” Faseru said.
“We have experienced higher trends in the acceptability and marketability of our cashew in the international market,” he said.
Exporters cite value addition, proper packaging of Nigerian cashews, global acceptability and marketability as some major drivers of Nigerian cashew nuts in the international market.
Faseru said Nigerian cashew brand is presently gaining traction and referred to as the best at the international market, noting that the association is working with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to further boost farmers’ productivity.
Incomes of Nigerian cashew farmers have been on the rise since 2011 when earnings were $50 million.
Cashew farmers and exporters made $250 million in 2015 and $300 million in 2016, though the increase was purely tied to naira devaluation within the period.
Naira to dollar exchange rate, which was N199/$ in early 2015, more than doubled the following year owing to low oil prices.
With naira stable for the larger part of 2017, spike in farmers export earnings to $402 million in 2017 is tied to an increase in production.
A metric ton of cashew is currently sold for N400, 000 a ton at the local market, but its international price fluctuates between $1,400 and $1,700 per ton as at Monday, April 23.
Cashew nuts are important to health, as they lower the risk of cardiovascular and blood diseases, protect the eye, facilitate weight loss, are sources of dietary fibres, and serve as animal feeds.
Selenium present in cashews helps in preventing cancer, health experts say.
Similarly, cashews are high in fat, rich in vitamin E and magnesium and zinc. Its oil helps in the treatment of diseases and production of skin-enhancing products.
Cashew has become a top-notch cash crop in Nigeria and is eaten and serves as industrial raw materials in firms producing chemicals, paints, varnishes, insecticides and fungicides, electrical conductress, and several types of oil.
It is exported to the United States, India, Spain and many parts of Europe, including the Netherlands and Spain.
Nigeria’s cashew is usually harvested between February-June, though farmers stock the crop and export it all year round.
According to Faseru, farmers are now properly drying and packaging their cashew nuts, saying it has helped to keep quality and peel-ability of the Nigerian cashew nuts.
“The cashew industry is making a lot of progress and the crop has done impressively well in 2017 and would do much better in 2018,” Anga Sotonye, publicity secretary, National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN), said in a telephone response to BusinessDay questions.
“We have put in place the structure that ensures quality. Farmers are now packaging their cashew nuts properly and using jute bags because they know that cashew farming is now a serious business,” Sotonye said.
“We are expecting to generate $480 million at the end of this year and also further increase our production,” he predicted.
Value addition is critical for agro exports as it enhances the value of the crop and brings more revenue for farmers and middle-men.
“Basically, what Nigeria has been doing over the years is to send semi-processed crops out and what they do in those countries is to add value and then shoot up the prices. So, if I am sending cashew nuts in a raw form, I get $800 per ton, but if it is processed, I get close to $2000 per ton. So the money-making thing here is value-addition. Why most people are not so interested in exporting value added products is that they are just satisfied with the little dollars they get from raw products,” Attah Anzaku, CEO of AgroEknor, an international commodity trading firm, told BusinessDay.
According to Faseru, there is a need for government to provide cheap funds to processors, increase the processing of cashew nuts in the country, adding that only 10 percent of cashew produced in the country is processed while others are exported raw.
ODINAKA ANUDU & JOSEPHINE OKOJIE
