Helping Nigeria’s Cashew Farmers Reach Their Potential

Through a $1 million grant from the Walmart Foundation, TechnoServe helped raise the incomes of 6,000 Nigerian cashew farmers through training on good agronomic practices, farming as a business, and improved methods for harvest and post-harvest handling.

Farmers also learned how to consolidate their stocks and engage in other business practices to enable them to sell directly to processors and maximize their incomes. The program aimed to boost participating farmers’ yields by up to 20 percent by 2015. One of the program’s greatest successes was the unprecedented level of women’s participation. Though female cashew farmers make up less than 15 percent of Nigeria’s cashew farming population, 47 percent of farmers enrolled in TechnoServe’s training program were women.