Nigeria prohibits exports of shea nuts used in beauty for six months

Nigeria has announced a six -month ban on the export of raw shi nuts, from which many beauty creams have been made.

This step is aimed at making the trade more profitable because Nigeria loses without producing a lot of oils at the local level.

The country produces almost 40% of the world’s annual crop, but it accounts for only 1% of the global market of $ 6.5 billion (£ 4.8 billion) – Vice President Kashim Shatim, which is called “unacceptable”.

Prepared fruits of shea trees should be crushed, fried and cooked to extract oil to produce shea butter used in cosmetics.

Oil is also used in the food industry in the production of some sweets such as chocolate and ice cream – and in pharmaceuticals.

Shi -Drav grows in the wild from the west to East Africa – a huge strip known as “neck”. Small farmers, often women, also plant and collect them in these areas.

Shetima said the temporary ban would allow Nigeria to move from the raw nuts to the world supplier of sophisticated Shea products.

“” It is about industrialization, rural transformation, expansion of rights and expansion of the Nigeria World Trade, “the vice president said during a message in the state house in the Abuja capital.

The short -term target, he said, was to see Nigeria’s profit from the fetal nut trees to grow from 65 million to $ 300 million annually.

Nigerian Agriculture Minister Abubakar Kari said the West African nation produces a crop of 350,000 tons per year – almost 25% disappear beyond unregulated informal trade.

According to the agricultural expert D -R Ahmed Ismail, most of the crop comes from the villages of Central Nigeria.

“” A lot of poor people who grow the crop and count on it for nutrition, fight for the lack of regulation, which means that they become so little, despite the high value at the international level, “Academician from the Federal University of Mina said.

Farmers who do not know about the true value of the cervical nuts are often operated by entrepreneurs who go to these remote areas to buy it cheaply, he explained.

“” I went to the village, and I saw the shi in the pile, and when I asked, they said that someone from the city was coming and picking them up. “

Dr. Ismail said the temporary ban was a bold step that had to be made long-and should go hand in hand with improvement.

“It is not only to provide more jobs at the local level, as it will be processed, but also to increase profits for the government,” he said.