The National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN) says it can inject $3.7 billion into the Nigerian economy if the industry receives adequate attention, especially from the government.
Dr Ojo Ajanaku, the National President, National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN), said this during a media conference on Monday in Abuja.
The media conference was in commemoration of the 2025 Nigeria Cashew Day to hold on Friday.
Ajanaku said that the industry was in the process of producing more than two million metric tonnes of cashew per year if given the opportunity.
“Cashew presently employs over 5 million people in Nigeria, but can create more jobs if supported to increase its volume of production,” he said.
According to him, the upcoming Nigeria Cashew Day is an annual event that revolves around producing states in the country.
He explained that the event was a meeting point where stakeholders came together to celebrate the uniqueness of the fruit with great potential.
“So, we are looking at this conference to help the industry build better capacity, re-strategise and intentionally capitalise on our unique potential.
“For instance, if Nigeria is able to produce two million tonnes of cashew, if we sell only the raw cashew nut without adding value to it, we are looking at $2.4 billion,” Ajanaku noted.
He stressed that the economic value of cashew across the nations of the world today was valued at $7.8 billion, adding that it was projected that by next year, it would be about $11 billion.
The NCAN president noted that Africa was the largest producer of cashew and Nigeria had the potential to be the highest producer in Africa with adequate investment in the sector.
“Essentially, we were once the highest producer of cashew in Africa before we dropped to the fourth position where we are today.
“Now, if you look at the price that is already in the market, it’s about $1,700 per tonne. What this means is that we are looking at about $3.7 billion that will be netted into the Nigerian economy.
“So, there is a lot of potential in cashew, both benefits along the value chain of the nuts and juice utilisation, therefore, I strongly believe that this conference will be able to highlight and let people know the value of cashew to the country.
“The government and the country are doing so much already and we want to encourage the export of raw cashew nuts in Nigeria,” he added.
Ajanaku noted that the association’s major target was to add value to what was being producing in the country internally, so that it would not be exporting its raw product out of the country.
“For you to farm a hectare of land of cashew, you need a minimum of five workers on that farm alone. So, if you have five people to work for you on one hectare of land, you can imagine, we are doing two million tonnes of cashew.
“If a hectare of land of cashew can give you about 700 kg or 650 kg today, if you divide this, you will see that we are creating a lot of jobs for our people.
“Now, if we start adding value to it after production, for instance for a factory that is processing 100 tonnes per day, it cannot have less than 800 workers in the factory.
“Even if it is a robot factory, it cannot have less than 800 staff and that is for direct jobs.
“When you look at indirect jobs, people that will be transported to that place, the transporters to that place, the food vendors in that area, the recharge card vendors, we will have created a lot of business in that area.
“We are asking the federal government to please make cashew a priority, as there are a lot of potential in cashew.
“If we look at Vietnam that is not producing more cashews than we are producing and does not have the potential that we have in cashew, getting over four billion dollars, we can do better than them.
“We can do better, so we are urging the government to beam its searchlight on this cashew industry and see what the business in Nigeria can do to boost the economy and also create jobs,” Ajanaku added.
