The minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji 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.
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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 per cent 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 ...
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