Stories by Steve Agbota [email protected] 08033302331
onions farming in Nigeria has been highly neglected and often considered to be a menial job meant only for the poor northerners. But this crop supports millions of lives in Nigeria and the world over!
The farmers who produce the crop suffer a lot due to inefficiency of government at various levels to provide modern processing facilities and storage plants. The farmers can only store the produce in their local silos for a period of time before they start rotting.
However, onions are grown mostly in Kano, Kaduna, Jigawa, Sokoto, Plateau, Bauchi and Kebbi states. The Aliero community, a local council area in Kebbi State is being regarded as the largest producer of onions in West Africa.
Interestingly, many families in the northern part of the country depend on onions farming for a living with the revenue made from the crop without other people knowing of it despite the lack of silos to preserve it.
Late last year, there was glut of onions across the producing communities and Nigerian markets and 60 per cent was said to have been wasted. But today, the price of onions in the market has increased tremendously.
Apart from the challenges facing the production of the crop, farmers say onions farming has the capacity to generating millions of naira for anybody or farmer who knows the market value of the crop and take it serious as a business either by farming it or even marketing it alone.
Considering the millions of households, hotels, restaurants, pepper soup joints and others making use of onions everyday around the world, Nigeria stands to generate at least $420 million from exporting the crop if there is value addition. Onions is a huge business with good turnover for serious farmers because it is highly consumed around the world and the demand is rising everyday.
According to statistics, onions exporters earned $3.3 billion in 2015 and Nigeria was not among the 15 countries involved in export business of the produce despite ranking sixth among the top 10 producers of green onions in the world, and 11th position in terms of dry onions production, while China and Japan are respectively on the number one and two positions for green onions production, with China and India are on the number one and two positions when it comes to dry onions production.
Among the countries that exported the $3.3 billion worth of onions, Asian countries accounted for the highest dollar worth of onions export in 2015 with shipments valued at $1.1 billion of the global total.
Onions are perishable commodity and cannot be stored for a long time after harvest in ordinary conditions. Instead of the crop rotting away without any benefit, it can be processed into a wide variety of products including ready to use or ready to cook fresh onions, onion paste, dehydrated onion flakes, onion powder, onion oil, onion vinegar, onion sauce, pickled onion, onion wine, beverages and others.
Speaking with Daily Sun, the Managing Director of Highhill Agribusiness Development Centre Nigeria, Mr. Sola Adeniyi, said it is unfortunate that the government is not doing what it is supposed to do in the agriculture sector across the country.
He said, “this issue is not only affecting onions but all the vegetables, crops and livestock produced in Nigeria. It will continue like this until our government starts to think about agribusiness, expecially value addition. Onion is a must use household vegetable that is highly needed by almost all tribes in our nation. I think farmers should also try to be more organised to be able to mount pressure on the authorities of the country.”
For farmers to make revenue from the commodity, he said the they need to be exposed to modern agronomy procedure in horticulture through capacity building.
He hinted: “By now, we should be producing onion paste in this country. The case of the Aliero community is so unique because they are already in a cluster. If our governments are sleeping in maximising their potential, I think the private sector should do it but unfortunately, most investors don’t want to put their money into agriculture due to non-conducive environment created by our government through their non-sustainable policies.
We can make more revenue even locally, but you know you can’t give what you don’t have, meaning, you can’t export what you don’t produce even in large quantity locally. We need reorientation around horticulture.”
An onions farmer, Tajudeen Taofeek, said there are a lot of benefits in onions. stating that the crop can also be processed into onion powder, which he said has a good export market.
He added: “The problem we are having is that nobody is supporting us. We don’t get fertiliser and other farm inputs. We built our local silos by ourselves to preserve the onions for the time being. We need government and corporate organisations to team up and build modern processing and preservation facilities for farmers in the states producing onions.
“If this is done, more people will be encouraged to go into onions farming and produce more because the processing and modern silos are there. They should also create market value for the crop. Government, farmers and others who are involved in production and processing will make huge money both in naira and foreign exchange and more jobs will be created around the crop.”
He said the potential in onions business is enormous but most people see onions as one of those food ingredients they cook with, but it goes beyond that if people really understand that millions of naira could be made by going into the business of onion farming.
Another farmer, Musa Kabiru, explained that the major challenge facing onions farmers in Aliero is inadequate preservation facilities for their commodities, which makes farmers and traders struggle to sell off their stock on time thereby creating a scarcity of the produce at some point in time.
“Last year, between November and December, we had onions glut and we hardly sold it because then it was cheap and flooded everywhere but since the beginning of the year, the price has gone up because the commodity is not that much available for consumption. That is why we are appealing to various governments to come to our aid by establishing modern preservation facilities. You know onions is highly perishable,” he said.
People look at onions farming as a menial job but the benefit that can be derived from it is high. It serves as a medicinal herb in many communities, and reduces high blood pressure and other heart diseases due to its action on the elasticity of blood vessels.