The National President, National Cashew Association of Nigeria, NCAN, Dr Ojo Ajanaku, has alleged that those behind the Bill seeking to ban raw materials export in the agricultural sector want to cripple the nations cashew industry in order to force cashew farmers sell their cashew nuts cheaply to local processors instead of exporting them. In an interaction with Sunday Vanguard, Ajanaku asked the National Assembly not to pass the Bill as he argued that the Bill, if passed into law, will jeopardize the Nigerian cashew industry and throw farmers into a precarious situation. Meanwhile, he suggested that the government should rather come up with what he called Special Agro-processing Loan, SAPL, that would be accessible by processors at about three to five per cent interest rate in order to attract investors into cashew processing instead of banning the raw export of cashew nuts. Excerpts:
On Nigerias agricultural value chains and exports