Business
Cashew Farmers Seek FG’s Assistance To Improve Yield
Some cashew farmers re
cently appealed to the Federal Government to provide assistance that would guarantee increased yield in cashew plantations in the country.
In separate interviews, the farmers told newsmen in Lagos that cashew was a cash crop that required low cost of maintenance.
According to them, in spite of the cheap maintenance, many farmers could still not afford the cost.
Mr Gidado Suleman, a cashew farmer based in Kebbi State, said that the crop had the potential to generate high income if properly cultivated.
He said that many cashew farmers were planting on a small scale and lacked the financial, capacity to buy improved seedlings, modem implements and disease control chemicals.
“We are just planting at subsistence level to feed our family; we cannot plant on a large scale.
“Cultivating and nurturing of cashew up till harvest stage is not easy for subsistence farmers because of inadequate farming equipment.
“We often record low yield because many of the crops wither before harvest due to infectious diseases,” he said.
Another farmer, Mr Ezekiel Onyeama, said that the harvesting and processing of cashew were labour intensive.
He added that mechanised farming would help to reduce the stress. Onyeama also said that cashew farmers often made little income from the cashew apples which usually get rotten during pre-market storage.
He said that an improvement in the cashew value chain would reduce the losses arising from rotten cashew fruits.
“Government should encourage juice making companies to produce I 00 per cent cashew juice instead of producing flavoured drinks.
“This will reduce unnecessary wastage and enable farmers to get more returns on their investments,” he said.
Mrs Idiat Pelemo, a fruit seller at Mushin market, told reporters that she sold a 50kg bag of cashew between N10,000 and N12,000 .
Mrs Ramatu Adeoye, a cashew nut seller at Mile 12 market, spoke about the benefit of exporting the cashew nuts.
“Cashew nut is becoming widely accepted all over the world because of its nutritional benefits.
“Our customers are mostly from India and African countries.
“The nuts can be kept for 12 months or more, as long as it is well dried and packaged inside ‘ziploc’ transparent nylon bags and stored in a dry place,” she said.
Nigeria is the sixth largest producer of cashew in the world, coming after India, Brazil, Vietnam, Guinea Bissau and Tanzania.
The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) has said that Bank Verification Number (BVN) enrolments rose by 6.8 per cent year-on-year to 67.8 million as at December 2025, up from 63.5 million recorded in the corresponding period of 2024.
In a statement published on its website, NIBSS attributed the growth to stronger policy enforcement by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the expansion of diaspora enrolment initiatives.
NIBSS noted that the expansion reinforces the BVN system’s central role in Nigeria’s financial inclusion drive and digital identity framework.
Another major driver, the statement said, was the rollout of the Non-Resident Bank Verification Number (NRBVN) initiative, which allows Nigerians in the diaspora to obtain a BVN remotely without physical presence in the country.
A five-year analysis by NIBSS showed consistent growth in BVN enrolments, rising from 51.9 million in 2021 to 56.0 million in 2022, 60.1 million in 2023, 63.5 million in 2024 and 67.8 million by December 2025. The steady increase reflects stronger compliance with biometric identity requirements and improved coverage of the national banking identity system.
However, NIBSS noted that BVN enrolments still lag the total number of active bank accounts, which exceeded 320 million as of March 2025.
The gap, it explained, is largely due to multiple bank accounts linked to single BVNs, as well as customers yet to complete enrolment, despite the progress recorded.