The Nigerian sesame season: a buyer's calendar.
Sesame is an annual crop with a rhythm you can set a calendar by. Buyers who understand that rhythm book earlier, pay better prices and get first pick of the new crop.
31 July 2026—5 min read—Rahul Khullar, Origin & Operations
The crop year, month by month
The Nigerian sesame year runs on the rains:
| June – July | Planting across the belt with the established rains |
|---|---|
| August – October | Growing season; forward bookings for new crop open |
| October – December | Harvest, threshing and drying, region by region |
| Late November | First new-crop lots reach aggregation markets |
| November – March | Peak trading and shipment — deepest supply, freshest seed |
| April – July | Carried stock trades; quality attention shifts to storage history |
Why does the sesame calendar move the market?
Prices at origin respond to the harvest the way any annual crop does: discovery around first arrivals, depth through the peak months, then a gradual firming as stocks draw down toward the next planting. Weather through August and September shapes expectations before a single bag is threshed, which is why serious exporters are already walking fields and talking to aggregators months before harvest.
For a buyer, the practical reading is simple. If your demand is programmatic (a tahini line, a bakery programme), contract forward from August against the new crop and take delivery across the peak. If you buy spot, the November-to-March window offers the best combination of choice and freshness; late-season spot buying is workable but demands stricter attention to moisture, FFA and storage history.
What is the difference between new crop and carried stock?
Fresh seed ships bright, with low FFA and full aroma. Sesame stores well when dried and kept properly, but every month in a warehouse is a month of risk: moisture migration, FFA creep, pest pressure. None of this makes old crop unbuyable, since much of the world's sesame trades mid-season. It simply changes the questions. Ask when the lot was aggregated, where it has been stored, and test FFA on the pre-shipment sample rather than assuming the harvest-time number still holds.
Put this into practice
Send us your specification (grade, quantity, destination, Incoterm) and you will have a formal quotation within 48 hours.
The grades this applies to
Written by
Rahul Khullar
Director — Origin & Operations
Leads sourcing, processing and export operations from Nigeria, inside the sesame belt. More about the team