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Help deal with poor pricing of cashew to sustain interest of farmers - Techiman North MP

The poor prices of cashew in the country would have to be addressed as soon as possible to boost farmers’ interest in cultivating the crop.

Date Created : 11/5/2021 12:00:00 AM : Story Author : Dominic Shirimori/Ghanadistricts.com

The Techiman North Member of Parliament, Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare addressing the media after presenting a statement on the floor of the House on Thursday, November 4, 2021 on the topic said, the current low prices at which farmers sell their cashew is not motivating the farmers, to the extent that some farmers are compelled to leave the cashew on the farm to rot.

According to her, like cocoa, cashew is also a cash crop that can fetch the country huge sums of revenue when the sector is properly enhanced.

It also provides job opportunities to the people from which they earn their income. As such the attention that is given to the cocoa sector would have to be extended to the cashew sector.

She admitted that though in the last 10 years, cashew development has gone up in the country, pricing remains a difficult task; adding that unlike cocoa, there is no way the cashew farmers are able to know how much their cashew would be sold, "and so, it gets to a point where a kilo of cashew goes for one Ghana Cedis, and so what the farmers do is to leave the cashew in the farms to rot."

"The issue of pricing is still a problem because till today, there is no general pricing or proper pricing of cashew in the country, hence there is always a fight between the cashew farmers, cashew buyers, cashew exporters and cashew processors.

We think the time has come for government to be strong on pricing of cashew like it does for cocoa, because they are all tree crops and are all exportable."

The Techiman MP again indicated that it is laudable that government has gone a step further and ensured the passage of the Tree Crop Regulatory Act, 2019 (Act1010) which mandated the government to create a board for tree crops including cashew, and to have them in all the regions. But they are not present in all the regions as at yet.

She asked the government to create enabling environment for the private sector to invest in the cashew industry particular with value addition, adding that the current practice of exporting the raw cashew is not generating enough returns compared to when the country add value to it.

Madam Ofosu-Adjare advised government to learn some best practices from the largest cashew producer in Africa, La Cote d'Ivoire which provides incentives for processing cashew in the country, where as raw exporters of the produce are made to pay some tax.

She thus appealed to government to make the Tree Crops Development Authority available in all the regions to regulate the activities of cashew farmers, help institute measures to add value to the cashew, as well as work on better pricing for the commodity.