Nigeria needs advanced cashew processing facility to create jobs

As a commodities exporter, can you tell us the export potentials of commodities like Cashew, Ginger, Gallic and others? We export Cashew nut, ginger, sesame seeds and other agricultural commodities but our expertise is in trading and export value addition of these commodities, including plantation in the (blueprint) and management. Cashew, for instance, is a […]

As a commodities exporter, can you tell us the export potentials of commodities like Cashew, Ginger, Gallic and others?
We export Cashew nut, ginger, sesame seeds and other agricultural commodities but our expertise is in trading and export value addition of these commodities, including plantation in the (blueprint) and management. Cashew, for instance, is a great crop. I call it a winner crop because everything about cashew is just useful. You can imagine when you plant cashew it becomes the first line of defence to fight erosion and you are contributing to an improved and a balanced environment. The canopy the cashew tree provides serves as shield to relax and when it comes to the cashew nut itself, there is so much to it. You can export the cashew nut as raw cashew. In Nigeria, raw cashew nut is exported that is what we do predominantly, export of raw cashew nut. Nigeria, today, produces 124, 000 metric tonnes of cashew nut, we are not talking about cashew apple, and other by-products of cashew. When you talk about the apple you produce over a million metric tonnes of cashew apple, which can easily be converted into cashew apple juice. But over 90 percent of that cashew apple juice is wasting during harvest because there is poor processing.
Is there any nutritional value in cashew?
The cashew apple is rich in vitamin C. So when 90 percent of that is wasted you can imagine the colossal loss the economy suffers. We encourage people to consume cashew apple, but they prefer the cashew nut because this is where the economic potential of the cashew is, that is obvious, so everybody is going into the business by buying the raw cashew and exporting it.
How do you process cashew for export and what is involved in processing it for local consumption?
We are about to start assembling to commence the process of turning cashew nut into cashew kernel. To me, that is how we can create more jobs and we can earn more because locally there is a very big market for cashew. But, when it comes to export of raw cashew nut, it is big business. There is cash in cashew because I am making money in cashew. You can buy any cashew from the farm gate in places such as Enugu, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Kogi, Oyo, Abia states and other parts of the country. We buy these cashews directly from the farmers and bring them into the warehouse, dry them using the sun, and bag them. Sometimes you do picking to separate the good ones from the bad ones, thereby standardising your product. There is a preferred bagging material for cashew nut which is the jade bag. When you bag it in the jade bag, you make sure it weighs 80 kilogrammes per bag, and then you take to the warehouse. There, you place it on a ban net and make sure that the ban net is not on bare floor. That way you can store it for a year and above and it will not go bad. When you do not adhere to these strict cashew management protocol, your cashew is going to go bad because after drying, if you make the mistake of putting it into poly bag, your cashew will go bad. When you successfully bag your cashew, then it is ready for export. The next thing is to load the consignment in containers and take to the seaport. We do our containerisation here, using our warehouse facilities. When we finish containerising, it is ready for the market, and then we take it to the Apapa Port, Lagos, for export to Asian countries and other parts of the world. That is the simple process the export of cashew entails.
How much does a bag of cashew costs at the international market?
The measurement actually is in tonnes and, today, a tonne of cashew sells for $1,200. We have 1, 000 kilogrammes in a tonne and 13 bags of 80 kilogrammes, each, make one tonne. In a container, you have to store about 17 tonnes. You can decide to ship as many containers as you can afford. There is always market for good cashew abroad. Cashew is a big business and it is a serious business, it is a sector that should be supported strongly by the government because cashew is an industry that is not yet fully exploited. The potential of the cashew industry has not been fully harnessed. When you are exporting raw cashew, your market, globally, is limited than when you add value to it by processing it before export.
After exporting the raw cashew, do we also import the processed cashew into Nigeria?
Yes, we do. When you export your raw cashew into Asia, it is processed into several finished products. The processing of cashew creates a lot of jobs for their people. They will again, export the processed cashew back to Nigeria thereby earning foreign exchange for their countries. We will be rushing the products, not knowing that we were the ones that actually produced the raw materials. What we have in Nigeria are low profile processing machines that cannot be compared with the imported ones. We need, as a nation, to build a very advanced cashew processing facility because we have the capacity, we have the raw materials. We can take advantage of these raw materials to add value to them. It can create local jobs for our people and we can sell the processed ones, locally, and also export it, the value is higher.
What does it entail to have a world class cashew processing plant?
You need about $400, 000, which is about N80 million. That is what we need on equipment alone. So why would you want to invest $400, 000 of hard earn cash into processing when you are not sure of getting stable electricity supply? If you don’t have electricity it means you are going to be utilising generator and diesel, which is very expensive. You are going to compete at the international market with countries like Brazil, Vietnam, India and others that have constant electricity, and their electricity price is lower. If you want to use generator to process and compete with these countries, you cannot compete. So for us to be able to build a sustainable cashew industry, a lot of government support is needed. Cashew growers now need some assistance because they are running on generator.