4 April 2008
Maputo — Mozambique is expecting its cashew nut production to exceed 85,000 tonnes this year, 10,000 tonnes more than in the 2006/07 campaign, despite the devastation caused by cyclone Jokwe which hit one of the most productive cashew areas in March.
The director of the Cashew Promotion Institute (INCAJU), Filomena Maiopue, told AIM that the country produced 75,000 tonnes of cashew nuts in 2006/07. She explained that the current harvest, which should end in mid-April "is good if compared with the last two, because we have already more than 85,000 tonnes of the nuts. We are still checking out the figures, and I believe that we will reach a higher figure".
Of this amount, only between 24,000 and 25,000 tonnes will be processed in the country's formal industrial sector, which nowadays consists of small factories largely reliant on manual methods to shell the nuts. The remainder will be either exported (to India) or processed in the informal sector.
The authorities say that the increase in production is due to the cashew promotion strategy which consists of assisting the producers in replanting, and in managing the trees, allowing increased production and productivity.
In terms of management, one of the most important actions is the treatment of trees by spraying against the fungal disease that lowers their productivity.
The policy is that the state will provide the necessary chemicals free of charge, but the producers must acquire the spraying equipment.
Maiopue said that the producer price paid for cashew nuts this year was "very good". The minimum price was fixed at 15 meticais (about 60 US cents) a kilo in December 2007 in the northern region of the country, the most productive, "and that encouraged the producers".
During the entire marketing period, the average price was 11 meticais in that area, but in the southern region the prices averaged only seven meticais a kilo.
Speaking of the setbacks to cashew production, Maiopue said that cyclone Jokwe, that hit Nampula in early March, destroyed about two million cashew trees "and we are currently working in areas that were not affected by the storm to compensate for those losses".
"We are going to replace immediately the two million trees that we have lost, taking advantage of the current rainy season, and by December or January we will resume work to compensate the losses, planting certified clones", she said.
In the area of Namige, one of the cashew sector operators, who used to produce about 80 tonnes a year, lost all of his trees to the cyclone, and INCAJU says that it is prepared to help him restart.
Another operator, Miranda Industrial, lost about 20,000 cashew trees to the cyclone in Namige, as well as its two processing factories in Namige and Angoche.
"Miranda Industrial was a pioneer in small scale cashew processing. Today we have cashew processing factories across the country, but it was Miranda Industrial who started it all and we must support it", said Maiopue. "Both of the operators in Namige say that they are prepared to resume their activity".
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