The Invisible Labour Behind Nigerian Cashew
Walk into a cashew farm in Kogi, Oyo or Enugu during harvest season and you will almost certainly find women at work. Women constitute the majority of the harvesting, sorting and post-harvest labour force across Nigeria's cashew-producing states. By most estimates, women perform 60–70% of the physical labour in Nigeria's cashew value chain.
Yet when it comes time to sell, negotiate prices, sign contracts, access credit or claim a share of the commercial returns from that labour — women are systematically underrepresented and undercompensated.
The core contradiction: Women do most of the work. Men control most of the money. This is not unique to cashew — it is a structural feature of smallholder agriculture across much of sub-Saharan Africa. But in cashew, the gap is especially stark.
What Women Actually Do in the Cashew Chain
Harvesting
During the cashew season (February–May), women often lead or dominate the daily harvesting teams. Picking fallen cashew apples and nuts from the ground — hours of bending, collecting and carrying — is primarily women's work on most farms across Nigeria's cashew belt.
Sorting and Post-Harvest Processing
After harvest, cashew nuts must be separated from apples, sorted for quality, and laid out to dry. This labour-intensive sorting and drying work is almost exclusively carried out by women in most producing communities.
Small-Scale Processing and Roasting
At the community and micro-enterprise level, women often run the informal processing businesses — hand-shelling cashew, roasting in small batches, packaging for local markets. This informal processing sector, while not fully captured in official statistics, represents significant economic activity driven by women.
What Women Often Don't Control
Land ownership. Formal cooperative membership. Bank accounts in their own name. Sale negotiation with middlemen. Export contracts. These commercial activities are disproportionately controlled by men, even when women have performed the underlying labour.
Why the Gap Persists
The gender gap in cashew value capture is not a simple problem with a simple solution. It reflects deep structural factors:
- Land ownership: Women rarely own the cashew farms they work on. Without land ownership, women's commercial standing in the crop they harvest is diminished.
- Financial exclusion: Limited access to formal banking, credit and savings products means women cannot easily finance their own cashew trading or processing operations.
- Market information: International cashew prices, buyer requirements and certification processes are typically known to male traders and exporters — not the women who do the harvesting.
- Cooperative exclusion: Formal farmer cooperatives in many states are male-dominated, excluding women from the collective bargaining power that cooperatives provide.
- Time poverty: Women managing households, childcare and farm labour simultaneously have less time to engage with the commercial and organisational activities that lead to better prices.
What Is Changing
Several trends are working to improve women's position in Nigeria's cashew value chain:
Women-Led Agribusinesses
A growing number of Nigerian women are founding and leading cashew processing and export businesses — including CashewHer Nigeria. Women-led businesses in the cashew sector naturally prioritise sourcing from and employing women farmers, creating fairer commercial relationships throughout the chain.
Women's Cooperative Formation
Women's agricultural cooperatives are forming across Nigeria's cashew states, giving female farmers collective bargaining power and access to inputs, credit and markets that individual farmers cannot access alone.
International Development Focus
Major development organisations including the World Bank, IFAD, GIZ and various UN agencies have programmes specifically targeting women's economic empowerment in West African agriculture. These programmes provide training, credit, market linkage and organisational support.
Digital Market Access
WhatsApp Business, social media and e-commerce platforms are enabling women cashew processors and traders to connect with buyers directly — bypassing some of the male-dominated intermediary layers that previously limited their commercial options.
CashewHer Nigeria's Approach
CashewHer Nigeria was founded by a Nigerian woman with a specific commitment to building the business around women — from our sourcing model to our team. We believe that building a cashew value chain that genuinely includes and benefits women farmers is not just the right thing to do — it is also better business, because women farmers who are treated fairly and paid well produce better quality cashew more consistently.
As we build our farmer network, women farmers will be our first priority. As we develop our processing operations, we will prioritise hiring women. As we grow, we will actively measure and report on the gender distribution of our economic impact.
Are You a Woman Cashew Farmer?
CashewHer Nigeria's farmer network prioritises women. If you are a woman farmer producing cashew anywhere in Nigeria, we want to hear from you.
Join Our Farmer Network →