The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) says quality standards of agricultural produce are basic requirements for successful marketing and exportation.

Mrs Amina Abdulmalik, NEPC Trade promotion Advisor, said this at a workshop on technical support to enhance the capacity of cashew farmers and processors. in Lokoja.

The advisor, who expressed concern about the enormous challenges facing cashew production and marketing said “inability of farmers and processors to access loan facilities is another major challenge in the agricultural sector.

“In Nigeria, one of the key challenges facing the cashew and agricultural sector is the country’s inability to meet quality standards required for market success.

“This unfortunate development has made Nigeria to lose its number one position in the cultivation and processing of cashew in Africa.”

Abdulmalik said that the consoling thing was that in spite of those challenges, “Nigeria is still ranked sixth among top 10 Raw Cashew nut (RCN) producing countries in the world.”

According to her, Nigeria has been in fourth position in Africa behind Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau and Tanzania.

She explained that the country was at a time rated very high in the international market in terms of production capacity only to be overtaken by countries such as Ghana, Cote d’ Ivoire and Guinea Bissau.

“The technical support enjoyed by farmers and processors through the interventions of their home governments and development partners in terms of training on best practices and standardisation is largely responsible for the upsurge in their production capacity.

“The capacity has enhanced their farmers to cultivate high yield varieties with short gestation period while most Nigerian cashew farmers still count on ageing cashew from the wild.

“Most countries grow the jumbo size Brazilian type suitable for the international market.

“To reverse the trend and restore Nigeria’s lost glory in the area of cashew farming and processing, government has initiated some policies and programmes.

“This include organising series of intensive capacity building workshops for cashew farmers and processor in Kogi and other parts of the country,” she said.

According to her, Nigeria still has a bright future in the sector with a cultivated area of 325,000 hectares with annual production of about 320,000 metric tonnes according to FAO 2015 statistics.

She said that predominant cashew production areas included Enugu State, Abia, Imo, Anambra and Ebonyi in the South East, with Oyo State, Osun, Ondo State, Ekiti and Ogun in the South West.

“But that in the North Central, almost every state fell within the cashew belt, while Kwara, Kogi, Nasarawa be State, Benue, Niger and the FCT added significantly to the overall output of the country,” she said.

She stressed the need to support the farmers and processors with the requisite technical knowledge through regular intensive capacity building workshop.

The NEPC Advisor said that cashew farmers virtually in all the local government areas in Kogi had little or no requisite knowledge of cashew value addition.

She also said that farmers were faced with challenges of waste, poor packaging, finance, security, infrastructure and lack of basic knowledge of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP).

Abdulmalik stated that the special attention being paid to cashew farmers and processors in Kogi was deliberate and strategic because the state was the leading producer of cashew in the country.

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Aside plans to increase production output , the Advisor said that efforts were also being made to encourage value addition through the establishment of processing centres in partnership with the private sector.

She called on stakeholder’s and key players in the cashew production sector to abstain from wrong practices whatsoever to improve business efficiency, resulting in good agricultural practices to propagate the exportation of Nigerian cashew.

Earlier, Mr Gabriel Enemali, National Publicity Secretary, Association of Cashew Farmers, Aggregators and Processors of Nigeria, called on the federal government to assist the association members who were badly affected by the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and insurgency across the country.

Enemali said that the revival of the cashew sector would largely depend on government’s readiness to provide the necessary wherewithal to farmers and processors in the country.(NAN)