NIGERIA is making a for­tune from cashew export as annual revenue earned from the commodity now stands at $250 million (about N49.7 billion).
The President, National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN), Pastor Tola Faseru, who disclosed this at a logistics meeting in Lagos recently said the average export price goes up yearly with increased demand coming from con­suming nations.
Faseru, who revealed that Vietnam and India re­main Nigeria’s largest buy­ers, further said that global­ly, stocks of nuts, including cashew, in North America and Europe have been low, while demand has contin­ued to increase.
“This offers good pros­pects for Nigeria’s cashew industry this year,” he said.
The industry, according to him, is expected to earn $250 million from export of 180,000 tonnes of ca­shew nut.
He said global demand for its nut has been forecast to go up, even as he urged exporters to pay more at­tention to improve product quality and ensure excel­lent hygiene and unrivalled food safety standards to boost exports.
He said the cashew in­dustry has developed in recent years and focused on improving technologies.
Faseru said the industry wants to increase cashew cultivation area, nationwide to produce 500,000 tonnes by 2020.
The NCAN boss said the association was working with farmers and the gov­ernment to develop cashew growing areas and give technical support to farm­ers to help them increase profits.
To enable Nigeria im­prove its position as a ma­jor cashew exporter, he said the association decided to hold a meeting with opera­tors across the port value chain in order to reduce the transit time for cashew ex­ports.
He told exporters and farmers that forging a unit­ed front can help revamp the cocoa sector, which has over the years, sustained the economy, adding that the collaboration of stake­holders was crucial in glob­al cashew sustainability.