National Cashew Association of Nigeria, has urged the federal government to set a National Cashew Research Institute, NCRI. National President, Dr Ojo Ajanaku, called on President Bola Tinubu and the National Assembly to speed up the actualization of the institute in order to galvanize processing, research and contribution to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP. Ajanaku said the demand has been on over the years, which he asserted that, “Cashew is too big to be embedded in Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, CRIN. Cashew is as big as cocoa, if not even bigger than cocoa.” He further said that, “The people employed by cashew farmers, the numbers of cashew farmers in Nigeria are more than the number of cocoa farmers in Nigeria.” Expressing the cashew farmers position, the NCAN boss demanded, “We are asking for separation. Let us have Nigeria Cashew Research Institute separate, so that we can do more research and upscale production to meet international and local demands including attracting foreign direct investments into the subsector.
“There are a whole lot of potential that is yet to be harnessed in the cashew value chain but with the National Cashew Research Institute we will unlock this huge potential lying fallow, therefore, we can’t afford to allow the potential remain in the doldrums.” He said, “this is the right time to act swiftly as the Tinubu-led administration is talking seriously about diversification of the economy through the agricultural value as far as non-oil exports are concerned. We have been discussing with the government, and if government beams its attention on us, sit down with us, all those things will be resolved and we’ll get this right.
“This research institute new are calling for is for the benefit of the Nigerian economy, and we have the wherewithal to achieve it if the government will fast-track the separation of cashew from cocoa. These two giants cannot be joined together for any reason and if there is, we say no more. We need the institute, if it is possible to be done today, we would be very happy. For funding of the institute, we can tax every tax every cashew bag to run the institute in order to change the narrative in the cashew industry, and that would open the gates to fully take a significant portion of the international cashew market because we can compete with any nation in the world based on our number of farmers and farms.”
Meanwhile, the cashew boss suggested the Cocoa Research Institute at Ochanja, Kogi State could be converted to the National Cashew Research Institute of Nigeria, based on Kogi being one of the leading cashew producing States in Nigeria. “We even suggested that Cocoa Research Institute at Ochanja in Kogi State be converted into Nigeria Cashew Research Institute because Kogi is one of the leading States in cashew production in the country. So we can start from there instead of starting a new location for the institute before we begin to spread around the country. “We’ll be able to go into massive processing. Now, the research institute will be able to send out what kind of varieties and nutrients that we have, which will be acceptable to the whole world because they are communicating with an institute and they will not doubt it, therefore, the process of certification will be easy for us in Nigeria as cashew farmers”, he said.
Nigeria farmers urge FG to set up cashew research institute to galvanize industry devt, attract investors—Dr Ajanaku
