News
Niger has banned exports of groundnuts, one of its main cash crops, saying it wants the harvest turned into cooking oil at home.
Commerce and Industry Minister Abdoulaye Seydou announced the ban at a news conference in Niamey on Friday, saying it rests on an order signed on 11 November, according to the national news agency ANP. The ban covers the whole country. He said exceptional export authorisations could be granted to Niger's partners in the Alliance of Sahel States, Burkina Faso and Mali, "according to the procedure indicated". The signed order was not available for this report; the ministry’s communiqué and news accounts cite different reference numbers.
Customs officers, ministry inspectors and the security forces are authorised to punish violations, Seydou said. They are to seize any groundnuts someone tries to export, with the quantities placed at the state's disposal through the usual judicial procedure.
The minister's argument is that Niger imports cooking oil while growing the raw material to make it. He said foreign buyers routinely place money with growers or traders to buy the crop cheaply and take it abroad, NigerFocus reported. A ministry statement says the measure is meant to keep groundnuts permanently available in domestic markets, protect consumers and give national processors priority access. The ban adds to existing export bans on millet, sorghum and rice.
The announcement does not specify contracted buyers, purchasing volumes or crop prices. Its demand-side framework is broader than the new export restriction. Seydou pointed instead to demand-side measures: a decree requiring public bodies to buy locally made goods, and import quotas obliging certain importers to buy from local producers first. The ministry dates the orders that list the covered products to 12 March 2026; it is not stated whether groundnut oil is among them.
An existing mill’s account illustrates why access to seed is not the only purchasing constraint. In July, Sahel Agro-Ingénierie told ANP that it bought from Nigerien producers, collectors and traders, but faced working-capital shortages and costly energy. That is the company’s dated account, not a measure of current national purchasing capacity.
In its Friday communiqué, the ministry specifically urged public administrations, universities, military barracks and prisons to favour local products. Whether those purchasing obligations cover groundnut oil, and what paid demand they will generate for this harvest, was not established.