The United Republic of Tanzania is one among the major cashew producing countries in Africa after Nigeria and Ivory Coast and the eighth biggest producer in the world. Grown as a cash crop by small holding farmers, cashew is an important export crop as well as a source of income for small farmers.
The area under cashew plantation in Tanzania has varied from decade to decade. At present, the country has 14 million ha of land dedicated to cashew plantation. Mtwara, Lindi, Ruvuma, and Tanga are the major cashew growing regions in Tanzania. Mtwara and Lindi alone contribute more than 87% to the national cashew production. Less than 10% of the raw cashew produced in the region is processed locally. Processors in the country are restricted by the Warehouse Receipt System, which leads to high prices of the raw material and strong competition with the RCN exporters. As of 2014, the major exporting destinations for Tanzanian cashew crops were the Netherlands, US, India, South Africa, Germany, UK, Sweden, and Canada.
The Tanzanian cashew industry has made a remarkable recovery from its near collapse in the 1980s. The Cashew Board of Tanzania has put in place a robust Warehouse Receipt-Based Auction System to ensure that quality nuts get a fair price and the small-holder farmers are not discriminated against. The country is also establishing processing plants under the PPP model with the involvement of producer cooperatives and the government. The major issue faced by the country is with regard to the country’s old and diseased cashew plantations. The country has come up with new programs to motivate farmers to renew a part of their old plantations and plant new cashew acreages.
The Tanzania cashew crop market report covers the following information –
- Crop production
- Country consumption
- Country trade (export-import) scenario and statistics
- Price trend and seasonality of the crop
- Future outlook of the crop market
Stakeholders who would benefit -
- Crop growers
- Enterprises providing agricultural inputs
- Crop processing companies
- Crop importers and exporters
- Investors/research institutions interested in the crop market
