The National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN), on Monday in Lagos urged Nigerians to embrace cashew cultivation and its entire value-chain for economic prosperity.
Its National Secretary-General, Mr Sotonye Anga, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that cashew holds a lot of promise and potentials as a suitable crop for economic diversification.
“Cashew has a lot of potential for economic transformation and prosperity. It is a win-win if Nigeria focuses on its cashew resource.
“If Nigeria develops the cashew value-chain, it will be one of its fastest tracks to economic diversification and prosperity.
“Nigeria will be able to make more money; create more jobs and earn more foreign exchange now that foreign exchange has become a major issue to strengthen the Naira.
“Governments and Nigerians should embrace cashew as the crop to embrace for prosperity.
“Cashew is the green gold of agriculture and as at today it stands as the green gold for Nigeria. The potential to industrialise Nigeria using the focus crop, cashew is so huge,” he said.
Anga also told NAN that there is a wide range of derivatives from cashew and if harnessed properly would result in foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria.
“This is because so many industrial products can be gotten from cashew.
“When you harvest cashew, the juice, more than 90 per cent of which is wasted can be used to produce ethanol.
“Also from the raw nuts of cashew when de-shelled you can derive from it a very viable economic product called the Cashew Nuts Shell Liquid (CNSL).
“The CNSL is in high demand globally; it has a huge export value and is used in a wide range of industrial applications.
“The roasted cashew nut is also very lucrative as it is the preferred nut for health-conscious consumers,’’ he said.
“There is cash in cashew,’’ Anga quipped.
NAN
