Nigerian cashew economy: Nigerian cashew economy: Dimensions to growth paradigmDimensions to growth paradigmSotonye AngaNational Publicity Secretary, National Cashew Association of Nigeria.Coordinator Agribusiness, Community of Agricultural Stakeholders of Nigeria.anga4000@yahoo.com

AbstractAbstract This paper examines the current realities of Nigeria’s

Cashew Economy as it relates to the growth and value chain expansion paradigm. To this end, this paper looks at how Nigeria’s socio-political and economic realities has propelled the national economic thrust towards further enhancement of gains and profitability of commercial crops such as cashew as means of generating more gainful employment, foreign exchange and sustainable economic growth. Also, focus will be on how the National Cashew Association of Nigeria, an umbrella body for Nigeria’s Cashew Industry is impacting the growing interest on cashew as a profitable agribusiness in Nigeria. This paper likewise evaluates the issues that constitute major constrain to the rapid growth of the cashew agribusiness in Nigeria. Lastly, this paper articulates the practical approaches that will facilitate the enabling of a sustainable positive growth of the cashew agribusiness in Nigeria.

When we startedWhen we startedcultivation of cashew in Nigeria started in the early

1950s, through the efforts of the then Eastern Nigeria Agricultural Development Corporation where the initial objective was to use cashew trees for erosion control, because of the massive erosion problems in that part of the country. However the designation of cashew nuts as potential revenue-earning commodity propelled the defunct Eastern Nigeria Government to commence the first Nigerian cashew plantation which dates back to 1954, with 800 hectares in the present Enugu State whereas 200 hectares in the Western part of Nigeria was similarly established by defunct Western Nigeria Government (Ezeagu, 2002).

Land & populationLand & populationWith eighty-four million hectares of arable land, of which only 40% is cultivated” (NESG, 2013). Similarly, Nigeria has two of the largest rivers in Africa in addition to availability of cheap labour and huge market population of 167 million people (NESG, 2013).

Cashew areasCashew areascashew growing areas in Nigeria are in

Enugu, Abia, Imo, Anambra, Ebonyi and Cross River States in the eastern part of the country; Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti and Ogun States in the Western part; Edo and Delta States in the Niger Delta; Kwara, Kogi, Nassarawa, Benue, Taraba, Niger and FCT in the Middle Belt, and Sokoto and Kebbi States in the Northwest part of the country (NEPC, 2015).

Land under cashew cultivationLand under cashew cultivation

Government of Nigeria estimates the area under cashew production as 375,000 ha in 2003 as against 278,000 ha in 1999 and this is about 8% annual increase of the area under cultivation over a period of four years (Nugawela, et al, 2005).

Change driversChange drivers

the main driver of change however, is the existence of an increasing export market for raw nuts and the potential market for processed nuts both locally and internationally (Nugawela, et al, 2005).

Our annual productionOur annual productionA survey carried out by the Nigeria Component

of the West African Cashew Survey, in February 2001, under the auspices of the Sustainable Tree Crop Project (STCP) funded by Common Fund for Commodities, indicated that a much larger surface have been planted with cashew between 1995 and 2000 (Ezeagu, 2002). By 2013, Nigeria was listed one of the top ten Raw Cashew Nut (RCN) producing countries in the world, with a production figure of approximately 150,000 metric tonnes export grade cashew nuts, and Nigeria is adjudged the 3rd largest producer in Africa after Cote d’Ivoire and Tanzania, and 7th largest in the world (NEPC, 2015).

Official cashew earningsOfficial cashew earningsIn 2013 cashew was recorded as the third largest agricultural export and foreign exchange earner for Nigeria, and about $110 million was earned by exporters from cashew, which represents about 10% of all agricultural export (NEPC, 2015).

Import figures from Import figures from VietnamVietnamAccording to Nguyen Duc Thanh,

chairman of the Vietnam Cashew Association, despite Vietnam enjoying a bumper cashew crop last year, when output topped 500,000 tonnes, Vietnam imported 769,390 tonnes in 2014, a year-on-year increase of 59.28 per cent, to process for export. Consequently, Nigeria was the second largest supplier to Vietnam in 2014, selling 106,734 tonnes or 13.4 per cent of Vietnam’s imports (Vietnam News, 2015).

Building our domestic Building our domestic marketmarketdomestic market has a lot of potential

for Nigeria because of the size of the population and economy. Hence, the campaign towards the development of the domestic market as a means of harnessing the enormous potential from cashew value chain, through more investments in production and processing of all by products of cashew. No doubt, this will create more meaningful jobs.

Creating a market for Creating a market for Africa’s cashewAfrica’s cashewWe can consume over 50% of cashew

nuts produced in all of Africa by encouraging only 20% of our population to consume 400 grammes of cashew kernels each month, this will bring our domestic consumption to 13,600,000,000 grammes (13,600tons) and in 12 months we will be consuming 163,200 tons of cashew kernels. Meaning, we will require 652,800 tons of raw cashew nuts to service just our domestic needs alone