Kwara state coordinating office of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) on Tuesday organized a training seminar for 60 Shea butter farmers, processors and exporters in the state on global standard processing techniques.
Speaking at the one-day seminar, themed, Operation Double Your Export, the NEPC state coordinator, Hajia Sherifat Musa, said that the capacity building programme was a component of a design to double non-oil export for more foreign exchange for Nigeria’s economy.
Hajia Musa, who said that Shea butter is an international product, hence the need for best practices to ensure quality and international acceptance, added that the programme aimed to improve product acceptability record both nationally and internationally.
“This programme is part of the numerous ways of actualizing the objectives of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council’s Zero Oil Plan initiative to improve the standard of our products in order to ensure Nigerian products’ healthy foreign market penetration and competition”, she said.
“Apart from the fact that Kwara state is one of the highest producers of Shea in Nigeria, the state produces the best specie of this product, then it translates to have a comparative advantage over other products.
“Findings revealed that our SheaNut Pickers are not well trained on the best practices, an antidote to this problem is expected from this seminar.
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“At the just concluded Global Shea Alliance Conference in Abuja, emphasis was laid on the potential of some states in Nigeria including Kwara state to dominate the global Shea export market if urgent actions are taken to right the wrong practices. That is why this training is imperative”.
In his lecture, Mr. Peter Popoola of the Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI), Kwara state, noted that Shea nuts cultivation is a highly lucrative business, saying that there are new and modern species of Shea trees that produce value chain products much quicker than the old Shea trees.
He said such agricultural agencies of government like NIFOR has high-yielding varieties of Shea nuts for Shea farmers.
The agric expert also encouraged Shea farmers and processors to emphasize on global best practices in the cultivation and production of Shea butter, saying that analysis and tests are carried out in international markets to ascertain the international quality of nuts and Shea butter.
Declaring the seminar open, the state commissioner for Business Innovation and Technology, Mrs. Damilola Yusuf Adelodun, who was represented by a director in the ministry, Alhaji Sanni Ibrahim, said that the capacity building training on Shea butter production global
Best practice is worthwhile in view of the low level technological
adoption, “which is adversely affecting our Shea processors, the
economic potentials and opportunities that abound along the Shea Production and Value Chain.
“Kwara State Government is ever prepared to collaborate and promote our rural farmers and value-chain members who have shown sufficient commitment and interest, to receive capacity building and other forms of assistance needed to the next level and upscale their production both in quantity and quality towards compliance with international standards to access the global market.
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