The National President, National Cashew Association of Nigeria, NCAN, Dr Ojo Ajanaku, has alleged that those behind the Bill seeking to ban raw materials export in the agricultural sector want to cripple the nation’s cashew industry in order to force cashew farmers sell their cashew nuts cheaply to local processors instead of exporting them. In an interaction with Sunday Vanguard, Ajanaku asked the National Assembly not to pass the Bill as he argued that the Bill, if passed into law, will jeopardize the Nigerian cashew industry and throw farmers into a precarious situation. Meanwhile, he suggested that the government should rather come up with what he called Special Agro-processing Loan, SAPL, that would be accessible by processors at about three to five per cent interest rate in order to attract investors into cashew processing instead of banning the raw export of cashew nuts. Excerpts:
On Nigeria’s agricultural value chains and exports
The National Cashew Association of Nigeria, NCAN, is a statutory appellate body representing Nigeria’s cashew industry, and by the virtue of my position today as the National President of the Association, I am a critical stakeholder because I have the millions of Nigerians that I am speaking on behalf of them. I can tell you that the Nigerian cashew industry is employing over 50 million Nigerian citizens today. That is when we talk about the value chains but the chunk of this 5 million Nigerians are the farmers. Nigeria as a country has about 92 million hectares of land, and what we have maybe used in terms of living as habitat and all other activities, we still have over 30 million hectares of land non-farm, and this is where we have all the criminals habiting because they have their hideout places in these places where no farms exist. Meanwhile, the entire land of Ivory Coast is 32 million hectares of land, they produce cashew by record more than us including cocoa, but the same 32 million hectares of land is lying fallow as non-farm land in Nigeria. And the Federal Government of Nigeria, under the leadership of President Bola Tinubu, has been promoting agricultural diversification and poverty alleviation agenda to drive agriculture, and that is why we have the National Agriculture Development Fund, NADF, money is channelled there to see that we promote agriculture in Nigeria. Nigeria today is about 250 million in population, and it is predicted that in another 20 or 30 years, we will be among the four largest populated countries in the world because of the reproduction in terms of giving birth to children in Nigeria. Nigeria is so blessed that all our lands are fertile lands across the nation, and this propaganda going on everywhere, talking about restriction and restriction, I see it as politically sponsored and motivated. Nigerian politicians should stop using the lives of Nigerians for politics. They should stop politicizing human life in Nigeria because I see this agenda as people against Tinubu’s agricultural diversification and poverty alleviation program. Why do I say so? Government should not be seen to have policy inconsistencies; you are at the other hand, promoting agriculture, and at the same time you are the other one promoting another policy going against poverty alleviation. The baseline of agriculture are the producers. Please let us be clear here, that agriculture is business in itself, and it should be taken as a business. Agriculture has more employees than the people who call themselves secondary processors. I call them secondary processors like for my cashew, which I represent. When the farmer harvests his cashew from the farm, it goes through processes of processing before it gets into export. They sort, sun-dry, baggage, before you put it for export. Those are primary processors. Now, the secondary processor is like for cashew, is sharing. You share it and bring out the kernel out of it. In India, when they wanted to go into cashew processing, they started with local machineries. That was what India started from. Those are the areas I expected the Raw Materials Research and Development Council to look at because they are under the Ministry of Science and Technology instead of chasing shadows, looking for policy to control export of raw material. The core component of processing is not under the raw material. Cost of funding is a big challenge. We have most of our products in Nigeria as seasonal products. Cashew harvest starts in Nigeria between February and maximum of April or May, harvesting is finished. Now what you have is the product that you have prepared for export or prepare for processing.
On cashews demand patronage with govt supporting processors
It means to say that the processors in Nigeria will have to store what they will process for 300 days of the year. They have to store the produce all through the year. Is it with the interest rate of 34 per the banks are giving to farmers that you can store goods for processing all through the year, when our counterparts in other countries are issuing loans of less than five and three per cent to promote industrialization in their own country, and now we are going reverse in our own country. So what drives industrialization is not the raw material only but it is incentives. Energy incentives. For instance, if you have what we call Special Agro-processing Loan SAPL, which I have gathered banks, even engaged NEXIM Bank and Fidelity Bank to come up with a Product Paper for cashew because of the high cost of interest rate and to bring down the cost of processing for our processors so that they can compete with the outside world and encourage production in Nigeria.
On how cashew farms can generate over 30,000 jobs per 10,000 hectares
Imagine a processor taking just taking 10,000 hectares of land and farm it is a huge avenue created to generate over 30,000 jobs. For one hectare of land, for you to be able to farm one hectare of land and make it productive for cashew, you need minimum of three to five hands to work for you in that farm. Now, if a processor takes 10,000 hectares of land to farm cashew, if he employs three persons, we are looking at 30,000 employees. With the cost of production today in Nigeria, we still employ not less than 2,500 people that tells you the number of cashew farmers we have today in Nigeria.
NCAN has been able to collect data so far on the number of hectares cashew is being cultivated, which is about 358,000 hectares of cashew trees that Nigeria is currently producing from.
On aggressive seedling propagation, targeting 2mmts
We are aggressively promoting seedling propagation. Recently, we distributed 150,000 seedlings free of charge to our cashew farmers. Why are we doing so? We are trying to increase production in the country. Now, in Nigeria, our target is to upscale production to 2 million metric tonnes, and we are looking at 10 to 15 years. We are giving ourselves that gap of 10 to 15 years because I told you that we are coming up with a variety that is going to be producing more than what we think we are currently earning. If we work on the statistics that we have, what we are producing today, for us to be able to cultivate 2 million hectares of land because we don’t get any support from anywhere, we are doing it on our own. As soon as the government comes to our aid, then we can say within six to 10 years, we might get close to it.
On cashew trees over 60 years old, need replacement
The Nigeria cashew trees are about 60 and 61 years old. They have surpassed their age of production. They are no longer producing, but they are supposed to be producing, hence, we need to plant new trees, and we have these lands lying fallow. Fortunately, we have all kinds of government intervention funds to address this challenge; we have the CBN intervention fund, also at the Bank of Industry, and the National Agricultural Development Fund. And Nigeria has signed so many agreements, like the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement, AfCTA, therefore, we shouldn’t make the world to look at Nigeria as an inconsistent people who don’t know what they are doing, rather should ensure there is a sustained intervention to tackle the issue of aged cashew trees. So we should to be well-organized so that we can attract investors into our economy.
Nigeria needs cashew production, not to kill it
In Nigeria, what we need is production, and not to kill production. The farmers are there struggling on their own. The first subsidy on kerosene is taken away the first subsidy on diesel is taken away, and the final one, the petrol subsidy, is also taken away.
They want to impose 5% tax on every petroleum product from January 1st, 2026, So now, if you have removed all those things, the poor farmer in the village who doesn’t have any other means of survival than the farm that he’s farming, he doesn’t even have a road to go to his farm, now struggle bring out his bags of cashew from the farm on his or her head, or on the children’s head, haul out all the goods that they are producing in the farm, and they have the opportunity of selling their cashew for N2 million per tonne, and you say that they should not sell it for N2 million because you want to promote industrialization in your country? The question I ask, is the government shifting subsidy to the farmers? Is the government saying that the farmers should subsidize processing so that farmers will now take the responsibility of government? So why do we have government? The constitution of Nigeria said what? That government is to protect the citizens, ensure the protection of their welfare and well-being.
Govt needs reliable data of cashew farmers
NCAN has launched out a farmers app, therefore, government needs to churn out the data of cashew farmers with the reliable technology that alone will help the government to plan well in terms of giving loans, like we call it, Special Agro-processing Loan – five per cent or even less than five per cent to processors, and more people will deliver into cashew processing, whereby, Nigeria can favourably compete with their peers in the global market, and that will lead to massive processing, and if that is done, what are you telling our farmers? Produce more.
Foreigners conniving to ban cashew exports from Nigeria
These people that are pushing for cashew export ban by the government are foreigners. Look, let me shock you. The processors calling for ban and had made publications are foreigners who use few Nigerians speaking for them for the past three years have not processed one cashew nut. What did they do? They blocked the international market for Nigerian processors not to be able to break into the international market because of what? Because they know that if they put together, they can compete with them, and they don’t want that competition.
No country was industrialized by punishing the very baseline (farmers). American farmers are known to be the richest people in America, in their country.
Why are you making Nigerian farmers to be impoverished? Why are you not encouraging farmers? If you encourage production, you will see 34 million hectares of land that is lying in Nigeria will be transformed into an agribusiness hub.
We are not against value addition as a people. We are championing processing. What we are saying is that let it be done in the correct form, in a sustainable manner, don’t rush into it and kill it.
Speedy reading of Bill to ban cashew exports unacceptable
There was this bill called Nigerian Content Bill that was not passed into law but still lying there at the Senate. It has not been passed but the Raw Materials Research and Development Council, RMFDC Bill, which seeks to ban raw nuts and materials in Nigeria, has been quickly passed by the Senate, and has gone to the House of Representatives for ratification.
There was no public hearing on this Bill and with my status, I was not invited for the public hearing. They clandestinely do all they have been doing to cashew policies, and it has been ongoing on for over three years. We have been debating on it, not this imposition on us to ban the cocoa export, and we said no, that is not the right way to go.
Now, a development partner went and got a document. They brought in somebody from India to draft policy for us. We said no, it can’t work. They brought in somebody from South Africa to do the draft policy for us. We said no, it can’t work. They employed a Nigerian and tell him, under the tutelage of the international development partner, they gave him a document to impose on us to compromise and we said no.
Now, you have employed a Nigerian to do the document for you, give us the document, let us hold the document, and we will set up a technical working group to review the document that you have brought for us, if it is good for our country, we will adopt it.
The next thing, after agreeing on that they passed through the back door and went and misinformed the Minister of State of Industry, Trade and Investment to call for the validation of the document that we have all agreed to review. The Bill is called Cashew Roadmap, and it was sponsored by GIZ.
We said, no, give us this document let us own the document. Let us see what is inside that document they are promoting; they said we cannot use our natural seed anymore. What are they promoting? GMO. We have heard what GMO has done to cotton and ginger. We have heard this and we said we will not toe that path, and this policy of ban. We said we can’t accept that and you cannot ban the export of raw cashew nuts in Nigeria. Those are the major clauses.
They said there is going to be a transition committee that will set up and to be financed by the international development partner. The English man says, ‘he that pays the piper dictates the tone’. So if they are the ones funding the transition committee, are they not taking the industry away from Nigeria?
Let us own it, and it become a national document, we will then review in collaboration with agencies involved – the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, and the private sector as technical working group and review that document. That is where we are. The date for the review is what we are working on together, but the next thing we heard is that they are calling for validation in two weeks’ time.
NASS drop Bill banning raw materials export
Both the Senate and House of Representatives should vote and reverse the Bill and should engage us so we can put them right. They should redirect the Raw Materials Research and Development Council, RMRDC, to its primary role and jurisdiction.