In a new drive aimed at agricultural commodity beneficiation and value addition, agro dealers in the Nigerian shea industry are now engaged in the process of building a number of shea processing factories, with a financial commitment estimated at around $30 million.
This move is part of the efforts by the shea holders to tap into $3.4bn global market share of shea butter industry.
Roland Oroh, who is the director of Nigeria Agribusiness Register, stated this Thursday in Abuja during his organization’s monthly Agribusiness Networking (AgNet) conference.
The event was attended by delegates from within and outside the country, including the wife of the governor of Niger State, Amina Bello, and Aaron Audu, the Managing Director of Global Shea Alliance.
AgNet is an investment facilitation platform of Commodity Development Initiative (CDI), a social enterprise support non-governmental organisation that also owns the Nigeria Agribusiness Register, which is CDI’s online repository of business intelligence across agro commodities and value chains.
According to Oroh, “Nigerians are responding to setting up local modern processing plants with about five to eight plants in the pipeline, estimated cumulatively at $20- 30 million. These should materialise over the next two to three years.”
The Nigerian government has developed a National Shea Strategy Roadmap which is meant to be implemented with the participation of rural farmers, financial institutions, industrial processors, and exporters, among others.
This is also being supported by work from the Raw Materials Research and Development Council and NASPAN, even as a National Shea Policy is currently being developed by the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment (FMITI), with a stakeholders’ meeting held recently by the ministry.
Shea has been nominated as Focal Commodity for rapid development and financing under the Government of Nigeria’s Export Facilitation Initiative and the Bankers Committee of the Central BANK of Nigeria (CBN) has approved N200 billion, or $500 million, for single digit interest lending to shea, cocoa, cashew and oil palm.
The Nigerian shea sector is also currently attracting international shea actors, with a few setting up local sourcing infrastructure, and about one to two of them setting up local processing plants.
The private sector is organising itself to respond to all of these opportunities and challenges, even as NASPAN is revitalising the sector with support from the Global Shea Alliance.
In his presentation titled “A Snap Shot of the Nigeria Shea Industry, Oroh assured that “in the next 12 months, you will be seeing a revived local shea association providing support to members and the industry. Donors are responding. The USAID West Africa Trade Hub project will be resident in Abuja very soon and shea is one of the key export products to be supported. That project will have a large grant component to support innovative ideas.”
HARRISON EDEH,ABUJA
