He had access to the markets outside Nigeria and he also had links to local farmers in Kano state and other states in Northern Nigeria where farmers predominantly produced groundnut. The bags of groundnuts accumulated from farmers were then piled to make a pyramid in Kano city. The pyramids made the aggregation and shipping process of groundnut easy from Kano to Lagos before they were then exported. Also, the method of stacking groundnut bags in a pyramid is a storage method to prevent the infestation of insects.
So the pyramids were made not just because they were beautiful, but because they also served as aggregation points and a single line of transportation for the movement of groundnuts.
Nigeria still stands as the largest producer of groundnut in Africa and the third largest in the world, coming after China and India. Nigeria currently produces about 2million MT accounting for 5% of the world’s production. However, the country does not export nearly that much.
Why did the Groundnut pyramids crash?
Many experts believe the shift from agriculture to oil as the major revenue generator between the 1960s and 1970s as the major export in Nigeria is the sole reason for the disappearance of the groundnut pyramids. While this is true, several environmental factors also contributed to the crash of the groundnut industry in Nigeria.
The groundnut pyramids thrived because of two major factors:
The one channel marketing structure of groundnut in Nigeria
Ready market for groundnut sales
After the exploration of oil became popular in Nigeria, the economy diversified and the focus shifted from Agriculture to crude oil. Crude oil became the new pillar that Nigeria’s economy relied on but instead of pyramids, you had barrels, oil wells and rigs. This caused a domino effect that resulted in the collapse of the structures that supported the groundnut industry. The final straw that broke the camel’s back was an outbreak of Aphids (pests) which was facilitated by the drought spells across farms in Nigeria. Aphids are carriers of the groundnut rosette virus and the outbreak of the pests made the virus spread like wildfire.
According to an article by Face 2 Face Africa, the Rosette virus epidemic in 1975 and subsequent viruses in 1983, 1985 and 1988 accounted for the loss of over 700 thousand hectares of groundnut in the region. The epidemic devastated the pyramids erected in Malam Madori, Jigawa State. These factors led to the gradual and eventual disappearance of Nigeria’s famous groundnut pyramids.
One other factor that contributed to the decline of the groundnut industry was rural urban migration. With the oil boom came diversification and creation of more jobs in Urban areas. Add that to the dwindling popularity of Agriculture as a viable means of earning income and what you get is an idea that Agriculture was not cool and ultimately migration from rural areas to urban areas. This was the final nail.
Read our article on how to make Agriculture cool for Africa’s young people
A lot of young people still have this bias and it is one we are always trying to change.
If not Groundnut, what then?
After the Rosette virus epidemic and losing thousands of hectares in yield, several farmers lost confidence in groundnut production and channelled their resources towards other agricultural crops like cocoa, cowpea, millet and sorghum. The present day agriculture industry in Nigeria still thrives but most people say it is a shadow of its former self. Although Nigeria still dominates the production and exportation of certain crops in Africa like ginger, maize and rice.
Groundnut pyramids: to be or ‘nut’ to be
After understanding why the pyramids existed in the first place one can conclude that there is no need for the pyramids in modern times. The players in the groundnut industry built the pyramids for 2 major purposes.
- A means of storage
- An easy means of transportation and aggregation
There are better storage methods now in modern times which cut down post-harvest losses. This makes the need to build groundnut pyramids for storage not entirely necessary. Also, there’s an increased demand for and diversified use of groundnut in production (like for oils and cake) and multiple channels of sales.
Will the pyramids ever return? Probably ‘nut’.
