What are the challenges for ginger suppliers while entering the market?

One of the country's examples of a still-growing ginger market was Nigeria. Nigerian ginger is mainly produced utilizing traditional methods, using manual labor in order to plant, harvest, and process the ginger. Recently, there have been efforts made in order to mechanize the process and remove human elements from production. More than 90% of the ginger is sun-dried, but with the incorporation of dryer machines, the processing time is reduced from 4-10 days to 4-5 hours. These drying machines can significantly increase the quality of the products, but with the burden of extra costs. With Nigeria’s expansion into the international market, quality control has been a consistent issue, and measures are being taken in order to raise the quality of the products.

Aflatoxins accumulate when products such as ginger are not dried properly and fungal infection occurs, which has limited Nigeria’s yield and entrance into the international market. Some companies are beginning to use Aflasafe on their crops in order to reduce the number of toxins, and are educating farmers about ineffective production methods. There are efforts to increase yields as well, with the help of better varieties. Nigeria ranks first for the largest cultivation area of ginger, 56.23% of the world's total area under ginger, but has yet to create the amount of output viable to export extensively to the global market.