Cashew farmers in Nigeria have expressed optimism that the year 2018 would usher good yields for the industry as their expectations fall nothing short of a bumper that may boost output by 10 per cent. Anga Sotonye, National Publicity Secretary of National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN) made this known while speaking with INDEPENDENT, stressing that from all indications farmers will experience bumper harvest this year due to the early fruiting of most of the cashew trees in major cashew producing states in the country. He stated that last year was an eventful and a wonderful year for the industry, stressing that this year will be a better year. Making reference to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data, Sotonye further stated that export figures between April and June 2017 showed that the cashew industry led the agricultural export for the period increased by 463 per cent from N2.4 billion in first quarter 2017 to N13.5 billion in the second quarter of 2017 on a quarter-on-quarter basis. “We harvested a total of 175,000 metric tonnes in 2017 and expects to increase the number by 10 per cent in 2018. Having done our cashew survey for some key producing states, we realised that some cashew trees have started fruiting and this implies that we are going to see an early crop from January and by February serious export will commence,” Sontoye said. “We realised that some cashew trees have started to produce nuts now, this is very early. What we are going to see in 2018 is that we are going to see an early crop instead of waiting till February; we are beginning to see it come early from January, by early February serious export will start,” he added. Sotonye also said the weather has been very good, saying that the dry season happens across the board and the rain interestingly has stopped. “You just realise that the trees are flowering and the flowering is consistent now, it is the flowers that turned into the cashew nuts and interestingly we have less abortion of flowers, when you have excessive rainfall during the flowering period it goes to abort the cashew flowers, but that has not been the case which means for 2018 we are going to experience a massive cashew harvest. “Based on the impressive flowering results we have gotten, we are going to see that our harvest in 2018 will be one of the most wonderful cashews we are going to have and it is also interesting to note that most new cashew plantations are now ready for harvest and will also be added to the increase in our volume.