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Mozambique: 72,000 Tonnes of Cashew Marketed
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
17 January 2008
Posted to the web 17 January 2008
Maputo
Since the start of the 2007/08 cashew marketing season in November, farmers have sold 72,000 tonnes of cashew nuts, out of a total national target of 85,000 tonnes.
The major cashew producing area, the northern province of Nampula, had marketed, by the first week of January, 40,800 tonnes, slightly more than 90 per cent of its target of 45,000 tonnes.
The marketing campaign may fall well short of its national target. North of the Zambezi river, the campaign will end in the first week of February, and there may not be much more left to sell. The campaign continues longer in the southern provinces, but here heavy rains have severely affected many cashew trees.
The National Cashew Institute (INCAJU) looks on the bright side. Speaking to AIM on Thursday, Santos Frijone of the INCAJU Economics Department, pointed out that the real marketing figure may have reached as much as 75,000 tonnes.
Furthermore, the projection of an 85,000 tonne harvest might have been unrealistic. The figure was set two years ago, and it is a bad idea to set targets in agriculture that far in advance.
The producer price of cashew has risen substantially. According to Frijone, this season buyers are offering an average price of eight meticais (about 33 US cents) a kilo, a considerable increase on last year's average price of six meticais a kilo.
Frijone believed that a large amount of cashews grown in the northern province of Cabo Delgado are still being sold over the border in Tanzania. Other INCAJU sources disagree - one told AIM that the Tanzanian system has changed. Cashew nuts are now sold at auction by associations of producers - which makes it more difficult for individual Mozambican peasants to sell their crop.
Exports of cashew have not yet begun this year, although preparations are under way in the ports of Maputo (for southern exports) and Nacala (for northern ones).
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Last year 74,397 tonnes of cashew nuts were marketed. Of this amount, only 20,280 tonnes (27 per cent) was absorbed by the Mozambican processing industry, which was eight per cent less than in 2006.
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| Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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