As spices business increase …growing health awareness spurs demand
The demand for spices, particularly at the international market and the attendant health benefits derived from many of these spices has opened a new frontier for income generation among farmers. The demand for ginger, turmeric, garlic, cinnamon and chili, among others, is increasing rapidly and farmers who cultivate them have found a new means of generating income.
Mrs Grace Oke, a facilitator on spices at the Entrepreneurship Department, Nasarawa State University (NSU), told Daily Trust recently in Abuja that what made her to go into spices business was because she noticed that most of the sicknesses in the country were from what we drank and ate.
“So I now looked at what the solutions are and that is to go back and check our local herbs that our mothers used in the kitchen and the level of sicknesses and frequent visits to the hospital would reduce. We also want to encourage our farmers to produce these spices in large quantities.”
Nigeria has a lot of spices like ginger, pepper, turmeric, coriander, cloves, fenugreek, cinnamon, among others, and all of them are said to have rich medicinal properties.
“Cinnamon sticks can be found around Maiduguri and in the Niger Republic while others can be found in the far North, like in Kano and Kaduna. But in NSU, we plant our ginger and turmeric and they have a lot of health benefits. Some of them prevent cancer, and are used for sugar and cholesterol control,” Mrs Oke stressed.
“Actually we have been trying to meet with some of the farmers in Kaduna where they grow a lot of ginger and turmeric; and we have been trying to collaborate with them. Now the issue of spices has gone beyond just festive periods. Gone are those days when it was only during festivals that you perceive aromas from our kitchens. The country is developing and the business of spices is lucrative.
“Yes, the market now is lucrative and people are buying because there is more understanding of the health benefits. We do training at the NSU at the entrepreneurship centre. We train students. Some of the students we have trained have gotten awards. One of our students this year got N1.8 million and it’s even a male student.”
Oke added that they also did training twice a year when students were not in session at the centre and at the moment, that they only trained students on how to grow herbs and they did not use any chemical fertiliser.
“We want the business of spices to move. First and foremost, we need to ban the importation of all those other chemical preservatives they bring in. Secondly, we have to educate all, especially mothers, on the health benefits of all these herbs; to know how to control even sicknesses from their kitchen because by the time you take care of what you eat you have less sicknesses in the family and the society from those eateries and restaurants around.”
“Government also needs to provide funds and machinery. There is a machine we are supposed to have gotten but it is so expensive to import, even those that are locally made are also expensive. But if we are asked to do women empowerment with these machines it will go a long way,” she said.