From Okwe Obi, Abuja
National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN) has raised the alarm over the spate exploitation of farmers at the farm gate, distortion in the industry’s value chain, and the negative impact of unregulated foreign interference.
Its interim National President, Ademola Adesokan, at a press briefing yesterday, called on the Federal Government to reform the sector.
He said: “Our farm gates are being exploited. That’s one of the major issues in the industry. What we are doing now is to try to create some kind of a body that can help bring maybe customs, immigration into the system so that it can help us protect our farm gates.
“Those are one of the issues. We are getting exploited at the farm gate level. We need to put structure in the supply chain of the cashew industry in Nigeria.”
NCAN National General Secretary, Olarotimi Ayeka, complained that exporters and middlemen have disrupted the industry’s value chain.
“These past few years, there has been a distortion of the value chain in the Nigerian cashew industry. What do I mean by value chain? The cashew industry is run by farmers.
“Unfortunately, for the past few years, there has been a distortion, because most of the so-called processors and exporters beat every other value chain and deal directly with the farmers, causing some distortion”, he said.
Ayeka lamented that exporters often dictate prices to farmers, making it difficult for local traders to survive.
“How this thing affects us negatively is that these so-called exporters will go directly to the farmers, and they give me a price of N1m delivered to Lagos. They will go directly to the farmers and buy N850,000.
“So we have been buying N900,000 from farmers. And the moment they give out the price, it will be difficult for me to even be able to trade and make money. At the end of the day, they only trade in Nigeria for two months.
“They only trade in February and March. The first thing that happens in the first week of April every year is that they run and leave the country. They push a lot of people to go and buy cashews at a very high price.
“But when they leave, they tell you they are going to Tanzania, going to Guinea-Bissau, the Ivory Coast, Benin Republic, and other countries, leaving our cashew here. As we speak now, there are lots of cashews in Nigeria today that the farmers are even discouraged. The traders are discouraged,” he said.
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