Only 20% of cashew output retained in Africa, says Faseru

Only a meagre 20 per cent of the total cashew output produced in Africa is retained within the continent, while the remaining are taken to America, Europe, Asia and other continents, resulting in huge foreign exchange losses to the continent.

The President of African Cashew Alliance (ACA), Babatola Faseru, who disclosed this in an exclusive interview with The Guardian, said the continent has the potential of reversing the trend, in order to position the sector in its pride of place.

“Cashew has become an important commodity in the entire continent. Africa produces over 50 per cent of the world’s cashew output, which tells you the significant and strategic position of the continent in the scheme of things. The ACA is at the point of ensuring and engendering sustainability and competitiveness within the African cashew industry.

“We can earn more foreign exchange across the producing countries. We want to retain the value of what we are producing. As you are aware that we only retain about 20 per cent of the value of most of the commodities produced in Africa, the remaining 80 per cent is retained in America, Europe and Asia.

“We want to change the story, why can’t we reverse it and that’s what we are doing and that means we have to work more on our production, making it sustainable. We have to ensure that there’s quality in what we produce, by ensuring that our produce are of top grade,” he said.

While emphasising the need to embrace industrialisation through cashew processing because of the potential of the produce, Faseru lamented that as a large chunk of the produce are exported, the continent is also exporting her job opportunities.

“We want to ensure that we get the kernels, market it locally and internationally – we can also get the Cashew Nut Shell Liquid (CNSL), which is fantastic for cosmetics industries, nothing in the cashew nut is a waste, we want to ensure that we can even provide power through the shells.

“Then, we talk about the cashew apple itself, through which we can get wine and juice.  The vitamin in the cashew juice is six times the vitamin in orange, you can see the potential we have in cashew and that is what we want to do. We want to ensure that we move the product from the position of potential to reality,” he said.

Faseru assured that the ACA is in the frontline when it comes to African cashew development, noting that a lot has been done. “We are not where we were a decade ago, we have made a lot of progress, and in terms of the quantity we are doing and also value addition. Though we are not where we intend to be, we are definitely moving.

“You’ll see more factories coming up; you’ll see a lot of engagements with the government, making the government understand to put more focus on cashew, considering the revenue potential it has. Even in Nigeria now, you’ll see cashew is either number two or three non-oil foreign exchange earners for the economy and the farmers today are doing quite well, there’s more engagement and knowledge sharing.

“In Nigeria, within the last 10 years, we have moved from a level of 100,000 tonnes to about 260,000 to 270,000 tonnes yearly. We can see a lot of factories coming up and that’s why we are at the next level of policy reassessment, policy formulation, engaging our government more than before to give more assurance and more impetus to invest within and also encourage people outside of Africa to invest in the continent.”