Nigeria’s cashew industry has generated more than $400 million in export earnings, bolstering the country’s non-oil revenue.

However, industry leaders believe the sector has the potential to create even greater value through higher production, enhanced processing, and increased domestic consumption.

The President of the Federation of Agricultural Commodity Associations of Nigeria,
Sheriff Balogun, made this disclosure during the 4th Nigeria Cashew Day in Abuja on Thursday, noting that official data reflects consistent growth in non-oil exports, largely fueled by agricultural products like cashew.

“Based on official statistics, we see tremendous growth in non-oil exports in the development of Nigeria’s economy, from about $5 billion to $6.1 billion this year in exports.

“Cashew alone has contributed over $400 million to the economy, exporting over 300,000 tons of cashew. For just one product to contribute that kind of amount, you can see that the cashew sector is producing a lot,” Balogun.

He noted that greater value addition could significantly boost earnings and generate more employment opportunities.“We are trying to encourage value addition. If we add value, I can tell you that we will make more than five times what we are making at the moment, and also create more jobs for our population.”

Balogun further emphasized the need to increase local consumption to reinforce the domestic cashew market.

“We are encouraging more production, more processing, and even to the final stages, where, as a nation, we will consume more. Because if you are producing something and people are buying, that means it has inherent value.

“So if we are sending it out to those who eat it and know the value, why wouldn’t we eat more ourselves? We are going to be encouraging a culture of consumption. And once we are even consuming, our domestic market itself is huge. For a country of over 200 million people, that is no joke,” he stated.

President of the African Cashew Alliance,
Ibrahim Sanfo, stated that while Africa is the world’s largest cashew producer, it consumes only a small fraction of its output.

“In Africa, we are the first producer, but we consume less than 1%. And we are also a big market like India, and we need now to process and to consume our own product,” Sanfo said.

He highlighted that limited processing capacity continues to be a major challenge throughout the continent.

“Because we are not processing more. Our processing is less than 10 per cent, and we export all 80 to 90 per cent. We need to process more for our local consumption, and we need the government’s support for that. Without government, we cannot resolve this problem,” he added.

Meanwhile, President of the National Cashew Association of Nigeria,
Joseph Ajanaku, said the country is striving to regain its former position as a leading global cashew producer. “We want to grow the Nigerian cashew industry capacity in production so that we can go back to the number one position that we used to be.”

He added that Nigeria possesses the natural resources needed to become a dominant force in global cashew production.

Ajanaku said the sector had grown significantly over the years, but poor data and weak export monitoring continued to affect performance. “But one of the major challenges we have is that some foreigners in the country do away with our cashew without filling the Nigeria export proceeds form because they don’t want to repatriate what they have exported out of the country. That is one of the reasons why you cannot get an accurate figure of what we are actually producing in the country.”

In recent years, cashew has emerged as one of Nigeria’s key non-oil agricultural exports, ranking among the top export commodities and supporting efforts to diversify the economy.

Reports indicate that cashew exports surged by over 80 per cent year-on-year in early 2025, driven by robust global demand for both raw and processed nuts.