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  • Delay, Poor Handling Threaten 600,000 Jobs, N216bn Cashew Trade 06/10/2021

    Jun 10th, 2021

    Delay and inability to meet quality specification and export requirements in the global market are threatening over 600,000 jobs in the cashew nuts sector. Nigeria has the capacity to produce 300,000 metric tonnes or N216 billion ($450 billion) of unprocessed cashew nuts annually, but it was learnt that several fac-tors have hindered the country from achieving its full potential. It was gathered that the export market was stringent about products meeting the required standards, especially in United States, where there is high regulation set by the American Food Industry. The same applies to European and Vietnam market where the product is in high demand. Other challenges facing exporters of the nut in Nigeria include lack of machines and equipment, poor handling, pilferage and defective packaging of the nuts. Aware of the impediments, Nigeria’s Commodity Exchange has commissioned cashew nuts processing and warehousing facilities at Egume/Ochaja, Kogi State, to minimise losses. These additional warehouses spread across the six geopolitical zones have a combined capacity of over 26,000 metric tonnes. The President of Cashew Farmers Aggregators and Processors of Nigeria (CFAPN), Unekwuojo Edime, has explained that lack of a domestic market was another major factor impeding the production of the commodity. He noted that cashew nuts in the country had low patronage at home and high demand abroad, noting that the crop consumption at home was not big enough to compensate farmers for their investment. In2020, theInternationalCashew Association (ICA) said that cashew milk was in high demand in United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy. Other Asia-Pacific market for the new milk include China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia. Côte d’Ivoire is the world leader in cashew production, followed by Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso and Ghana. However, trouble started when traders started facing difficulties in exporting the nuts during the first half of 2020 because of the global scourge and oversupply. In the period hundreds of containers were not processed for export due to poor handling and inefficiency on the part of government agencies in the port.


    Source: https://www.newtelegraphng.com/
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