By Aminah Carew
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Sabo Nanono has revealed that Nigeria has over five million hectares of Shea trees, but they are all in the wild.
The West African production of Shea nut is estimated at 600,000mt which is based on traded volume.
The minister, who was speaking at the opening of a two-day training on best practices in post-harvest handling of shea in Minna, Niger State, said that not adding value to the commodity locally is costing Nigeria huge losses in form of foreign exchange earnings and exportation of Shea products.
He said most of the Shea nuts in Nigeria are exported, with only about 20 percent of the products consumed domestically.
The minister who was represented by the Deputy Director, Federal Department of Agriculture, Mr Bernard Ukatta, said that Nigeria as a matter of urgency needs to diversify its economy away from oil, reduce the current drain on its foreign reserves from food importation while expanding new income sources from exports of agricultural produces/products, such as Shea.
According to him, “This is the reason Shea Value Chain is among priority commodity value chains being promoted by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in tandem with ideals of this administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to make agriculture a top priority on the on-going green alternative. We must cash in on this and change our mind set on agriculture.”
He said that the training exercise was a key element in the strategies aimed at ensuring that Shea farmers do not just adopt practices good agriculture practices (GAP) in their pursuit for global competence in Shea Butter production, but to provide a critical view of the Shea Value Chain in Nigeria, outlining the challenges, identifying recent interventions and proffering solutions towards increased wealth creation through Shea processing.