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Nigeria has imposed a six-month ban on the export of raw shea nuts in a bid to capture more value from the lucrative global trade.
Although the country produces nearly 40% of the world’s annual shea nut crop, it earns only about 1% of the $6.5bn (£4.8bn) global market because most of its harvest is exported without local processing. Vice-President Kashim Shettima described the situation as “unacceptable,” saying the ban would encourage domestic refining into shea butter and related products.
“Shea is about industrialisation, rural transformation, gender empowerment and expanding Nigeria’s global trade footprint,” Shettima said at State House in Abuja. He projected that earnings could rise from $65m to $300m annually if more shea products were processed locally.
Shea butter is widely used in cosmetics, food production — including chocolate and ice cream — and pharmaceuticals. Extracting it from the fruit of shea nut trees requires crushing, roasting, and boiling, work often done by small-scale farmers, many of them women, across the West African “shea belt.”
Agriculture Minister Abubakar Kyari said Nigeria produces about 350,000 tonnes of shea nuts each year, but nearly a quarter is lost through unregulated cross-border trade.
Experts say this lack of regulation leaves poor rural farmers vulnerable. “A lot of poor people who grow the crop and rely on it for sustenance are struggling to get by because of exploitation,” said Dr Ahmed Ismail of the Federal University of Minna. He described the ban as a bold step that should have been taken long ago.
“If refining is done here, it will not only create jobs locally but also enhance government revenue,” he added.
