Cashew Waste, Biotech & Untapped Wealth
There seems to be little effort to extract more economic value from Nigeria’s cashew production. The wastes from this priority crop can produce citric acid — an element used to preserve blood, drugs, and processed foods — with a global value expectancy of $4 billion in 2027.
I have read somewhere that Nigeria’s agribusiness sector is like “blood money,” and that’s for a reason.
Aside from oil production, only a few things are apparently adding fuel to the country’s economic engine. Agriculture is taking the lead, courtesy partly going to Nigerian Export Promotion Council’s (NEPC’s) Zero Oil Plan. In its latest Foreign Trade Statistics Report, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that the value of total trade in agricultural goods in Q4 2022 stood at N615.42 billion.
Nigeria’s non-oil export performance indicated that cashew was the fifth leading non–oil exportable product. This performance is like music to our economic ears.
Vietnam and India are Nigeria’s two surest customers for cashew exportation. They buy 80% of the raw product to convert it into consumer products such as butter, food, and cosmetic ingredients.
Cashew is a tropical tree cultivated for its fruit (cashew nut) and pseudofruit (cashew apple). The nut is the major reason for planting cashew — it is very nutritious. The fleshy “apple” part yields a juice high in vitamins and minerals. But the juice is high in anti-nutrients too. These are compounds that prevent the body from absorbing nutrients. They also make the juice less palatable. Because of this, cashew apples are mostly discarded.
I have watched, on YouTube, a typical cultivation process of Cashews in Dekina, Ofu, Igala-Mela/Odolu, Olamaboro, and Idah local government areas of Kogi state (the nucleus of cashew production in the country) where the farmers would waste out the apple pulp, shell, and liquid from the shell due to their unpalatability. Yet, these are valuable materials and they can be improved by biotechnology.
Research was carried out in 2022 by the Department of Food Science, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, into the potential of producing citric acid from cashew juice.
Since citric acid is widely used to preserve blood, drugs, processed foods, and drinks, I can only imagine the economic value this innovation would usher into the country.
So Citric acid can be produced from cashew apple juice, which is abundant in Nigeria. Nigeria currently harvests 200,000 to 240,000 metric tons of raw cashew nuts annually, with about 85% of this exported. From this harvest volume, you can imagine the proportional volume of apple pulp from therein.
The NEPC says that the cashew sector employs more than 600,000 people. But with this innovation, I see the sector doing more.
Unfortunately, there seems to be little effort to extract more economic value from Nigeria’s cashew production. The wastes from these nuts can produce citric acid — an element used to preserve blood, drugs, and processed foods- with a global value expectancy of $4 billion in 2027, according to Global Industry Analyst.
While we are focused on moves to encourage mass production of cashew and other agricultural products for exportation in a bid to boost the country’s non-oil revenue, we also need to look at alternative revenue potentials, especially from the wastes realized during mass production, leveraging biotechnology. It’s simple chess thinking.
We still have stiff problems such as lack of traceability, low yield per hectare, poor practices, and aging trees currently challenging our operational cashew export trade. But where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Sadly, we are still yet to fully realize the exporting potential of our cashews. Nigeria will need to continue to invest in the cashew sector, particularly in processing and value addition, to increase the quality and quantity of its cashew exports. Additionally, efforts to improve infrastructure, logistics, and access to credit for cashew farmers and exporters could help to further boost the sector’s growth and contribution to the Nigerian economy.
So there’s still a lot to figure out on this citric acid production concept, but the potential is too promising to ignore. The country needs more Nanotechnology experts in the agricultural sector who would be dedicated to exploiting the properties of our agricultural wastes and making extraordinary advances that can revolutionize our global standings.
However, it’s in the hands of the government to make a clarion call and allocate funds for research and development of nanotechnology-based solutions for waste management in agriculture. This can involve funding universities, research institutions, and private companies to develop new technologies and innovations in this field.
But what would speed up the process is a solid collaboration with international partners to share knowledge and expertise in integrating biotech into waste management solutions for our cultivation process.
This can involve partnerships with universities, research institutions, and private companies in other countries to develop and implement new technologies and innovations on this idea here.
