Kolanut curing, storage and trade: Panacea for increased kolanut production in Nigeria

Abstract

The article examined kolanut curing, storage and trade. Kolanut thrives well in Africa, the Americas, Brazil and the West Indies. It is the fruit of the kola tree originating from the Cola genus. A desk research was employed using various published literatures on kolanut. It was unveiled that most farmers use chemical insecticides such as gammalin 20 and phostoxin in preventing kolanut from insect pests attack before storage, which is hazardous to the human body. Also, the methods used in extracting kolanuts from the pod, the methods used in curing and storage significantly determine the quality of the nuts. Furthermore, kolanut farmers can make more profits through exportation of the nuts rather than through domestic sales. Hence, efforts should be geared towards provision of better kolanut curing and storage methods and more awareness should be created about the benefits of exporting kolanuts to other countries.

Gender Differentials in the Processing of Kolanuts for Marketing in Southwest Nigeria

“…These species have been important objects of trade for a long time. The most important is cola nitida because of its wide economic value (Oluyole et al, 2009;Adelusi et al, 2021). Kola is mostly produced in Africa and is cultivated to a large degree in Nigeria but also in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Brazil and the West Indian Islands (Adesida et al, 2021).…”

“…Defective/infested nuts are picked out during this curing process that usually involves considerable sweating to reduce the moisture content of the nuts. The nuts are then graded into sizes for proper preservation in big sized baskets (Asogua et al, 2011;Adelusi et al, 2021).…”