AgricForumNg.net

How Kaduna ginger farmers hit gold

Kaduna State is the largest producer of ginger in the country. Checks by Daily Trust in the southern part of the state revealed that many ginger farmers are hitting gold.
Daily Trust also gathered that a large percentage of the ginger is exported to China, Chad, Sudan and Ghana while the remaining is sold mainly in the northern states, especially to Sokoto, Borno, Kebbi, Kano and Zamfara states.

Women are not left out of the business as checks by our correspondents further revealed that about 40 per cent of the ginger farming population are women.
Most of the farmers, especially women, used to supply ginger to the Kachia Ginger Processing Company, owned by the Kaduna State government. The company used to have over 400 direct employees. The company folded up some years ago, throwing its staffers into the labour market.
The company is now a shadow of its former self, with dilapidated buildings and overgrown weeds. The company has been vacated, with only a security guard at the security post
Peter Baba, a 72-year-old man, who has been in the ginger business for over 60 years, told our correspondent that the ginger business is booming since the coming of the present administration.
He said: “The coming of the Buhari-led administration has opened the market and foreigners are trooping into the country to buy not only ginger but other foods and non- food items produced in the country.
“I am a staff of the Kaduna State Ginger Processing Company established in 1993. For the past six years, I have not been paid my salary and that is why I decided to start a farm in the area near the company so that I can do my farming and still keep an eye on the place.
“The business is a very good one and in the last months, it has been booming because, a lot of big time ginger farmers have become millionaires as they sell a bag of fresh ginger at N7,500 while a bag of dry ginger sells for between N18,000 to N20,000.
“The most challenging aspect of farming is fertiliser, it is very expensive and a farmer cannot do without it if he wants his farm to grow. Another issue is that of chemicals for the crop, if a farmer is not lucky, he might buy a bad chemical and it will end up burning the ginger and rendering it useless.”
Asked what it takes to start ginger farming, he said: “With as little as N10, 000, an individual can start ginger farming, especially now that the crop is in high demand and it is a trade that the farmer never loses but gains from it.”
Asked what he thinks is behind the sudden boom in the business, he said: “When Buhari became president, foreigners gained access into the country and since then, they have been buying ginger and exporting it to other countries in need of the crop.
“They came into our farms and saw the ginger for themselves, since then, business thrived because in the past, they used to think Kano State was the largest producerof ginger, not knowing that they buy it from Kaduna and transport it to Kano.”
The Secretary of the Ginger Farmers Association, Kachia Branch, Yakubu Bitrus, said that over 70 per cent of ginger produced in Kachia is exported.
Bitrus, who has been in the farming business for the past two decades, said that the market for ginger has improved drastically, with exportation to China, Chad, Sudan and Ghana
“We produced 16 tonnes in 2015, but this year, we have so far produced up to 30 tonnes with about 70 to 75 per cent going for export. The trade is booming because the market has opened. Before, foreigners were scared of coming because of insecurity, but with the coming of the new administration and the way and manner it is trying to bring security back to the country, the white men felt the country is safe for business,” he said.
Asked how much ginger he produced this year and last year, he said: “Last year, I produced over 110 bags of ginger and this year, I produced 150 bags. If you multiply it by N20, 000 and I have sold all, if you do the maths, it will add up to N3million or there about.”
Asked why ginger is only planted during rainy season, he said: “If a farmer plants ginger during dry season, all the profit will go to buying of water because ginger needs a lot of water and since we do not have a dam in the area, we have no option.”
Roda Peters, a widow and farmer, said she has used the business to take care of her children since the demise of her husband.
"I am thankful to God because if he did not give me the wisdom to go into ginger farming, only God knows what could have become of me and my children. I have achieved a lot from this business.
"It is a lucrative business but you need to be very hard working because like everything in life, nothing comes easy," she said.
Another ginger farmer, Douglas Ruben, however, said the market is a combination of good and bad experiences.
Ruben, who has been in ginger farming for over two years, said that the price of the ginger depends on the weight of the product, adding that the heavy the ginger, the higher the price.
“At times, the white people come and buy our products, but when they do not come, we also have to use our initiative to market our ginger,” he said.
Ginger, a spicy rhizome plant, was a major national export up till the onset of the petroleum boom in the mid 1960s. Available records indicate that high production of ginger from Kaduna State made Nigeria a world producer of the product in the 1930s but since the discovery of oil, export declined.
Could the fall in the price of oil and diversification of the nation’s economy, once again, make the country to be among the world’s largest producers of ginger?