Inside Kwali’s booming sesame seeds market

The sesame seeds market in Kwali Area Council of the FCT, located along the ever-busy Abuja-Lokoja highway, is always booming, especially at the peak of the harvest season. Aso Chronicle was at the market on Tuesday and observed the influx of people, especially farmers, men and women, trooping into the market in pickup vans and […]

The sesame seeds market in Kwali Area Council of the FCT, located along the ever-busy Abuja-Lokoja highway, is always booming, especially at the peak of the harvest season.

Aso Chronicle was at the market on Tuesday and observed the influx of people, especially farmers, men and women, trooping into the market in pickup vans and on motorcycles loaded with bags of sesame seeds.

It was gathered that about 75 per cent of people that are into sesame seeds farming are women in rural communities, probably because of its ‘easy’ cultivation and harvest process.

Aso Chronicle gathered that sesame seed, popularly called ‘beniseed’, is mostly cultivated between September and October when rainfall is subsiding, while its harvest starts from the end of October.

It was also learnt that sesame seeds are one of the crops whose farmers smile to the bank because of its high patronage and cost per bag.

Mrs Aishat Adamu, a sesame seeds farmer from Gwomani village, who brought a pickup van full of sesame seeds bag to the market, said she has been into farming sesame seeds for over 12 years.

She said she always cultivated over 120 hectares, on which she explained, she engaged labourers to cultivate.

“And as I am talking to you now, I have bought two pickup vans and built a house from sesame seeds farming alone. But the problem someone faces sometimes is that thieves usually come at night to steal the produce on the farms,” she said.

Mrs Adamu said a full bag of sesame seeds which was sold at N60,000 is sold at N80,000 this year, adding that the price increase is a result of high patronage by buyers that come from all parts of the country.

Another sesame seed farmer, Gabriel Musa Emos, who also brought a pickup van loaded full with bags of sesame seeds to the market from Yambabu village, said he was full of joy as he was able to record a bumper harvest this year.

He said he harvested 130 bags this year, unlike last year during which, he said, he only got 48 bags, adding that he will utilize the money after selling the sesame seeds for the upkeep of his family, including three of his children studying in tertiary institutions.

Speaking to Aso Chronicle, the vice-chairman of the FCT chapter of the Sesame Seeds Traders Association of Nigeria, Alhaji Abdulyakeen Hassan, said members of the association were responsible for buying sesame seeds from the farmers.

He said the Kwali sesame seeds market has been existing for over 15 years now, and that it was one of the busiest and well-organised sesame seeds markets in the FCT; coming next to the sesame seed market in Dawanau in Kano State.

According to him, over 140 trailers come to the market every harvest season to load sesame seeds to the far North and outside the country.