TONNES OF CASHEW NUTS MARKETED

The Mozambican cashew sector showed its continuing recovery by marketing 112,000 tonnes of cashew nuts in the 2010-2011 campaign, much higher than anything in the previous three decades, according to the Director of the Mozambican Cashew Institute (INCAJU), Filomena Maiopue.In the 1970s, Mozambique was the largest producer of cashew nuts, and the amount marketed once reached 216,000 tonnes. But the producing areas were badly hit in the 1980s, both by the war of destabilisation and by fungal infestations and insect pests. The stock of cashew trees was also ageing, and so production declined in both quantity and quality.Attempts to revive the cashew processing industry in the 1990s were sabotaged by the World Bank, which threatened to cancel loans to Mozambique, unless the government stopped subsidies to the cashew industry. The major beneficiary of the World Bank policy was the Indian cashew industry, since the great bulk of unprocessed Mozambican nuts were exported to India.But there is now a considerable recovery based on small scale processing factories, mostly in the north of this country, and on improved treatment of the trees, including with spraying against fungus infestations.“Over the last five years, the average amount of cashew nuts marketed has fluctuated between 70,000 and 90,000 tonnes. But this year’s figure of 112,000 tonnes is a great victory for the country, since it is the highest figure attained since independence”, said Maiopue, cited in the Beira daily paper “Diario de Mocambique”.This figure refers to cashew nuts sold on the formal circuits. Cashews kept back by farmers for their own consumption, and those sold on the informal market are not included – the real figure for cashew production is thus considerably higher.As for the processing industry, Maiopue said that the installed capacity has risen from a low point of 3,750 tonnes a year in 2001/2002 to the current figure of 38,400 tonnes a year. There are now 29 processing plants, though some of them are currently closed.These factories employ over 8,000 workers. Maiopue said that the large, mechanized factories that dominated the industry before the World Bank diktat, employed, at their height, 12,000 workers.About 50 per cent of cashew production is concentrated in the northern province of Nampula, followed by Zambezia in the centre of the country and Inhambane in the south.“But Inhambane is increasing its production considerably”, said Maiopue, “and in the next campaign we expect it to overtake Zambezia”.