The President of the African Cashew Alliance (ACA), Babatola Faseru, disclosed that less than 10% of the entire cashew produced in Africa gets processed in the continent while exporting the rest to other countries for value addition due to lack of enabling environment for a sustainable industrial growth.
He made this known in Cameroon while speaking at the fourth Ordinary Session of the Consultative International Cashew Council (CICC), noting that problems bedeviling processing factories in Africa remain inadequate access to finance, lack of processing equipment, technical knowledge and skills and storage systems among others.
ACA was established in 2006 as an association of African and international businesses to create a platform for accelerating growth and investments in the African cashew industry through market linkages, partnerships, advocacy, technical support and global networking.
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The alliance seeks to facilitate networking among members and offer timely information on all aspects of the cashew value chain, including producers, processors, traders, and international buyers.
Faseru expressed optimism that the future is bright for cashew production in Africa, but there are many loopholes along the line that must be looked into, adding that there is a need for diverse research to improve seed varieties and trainings for farmers to follow appropriate post-harvest practices to minimize losses and wastage.
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Speaking further, he explained that despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic all over the world, increasing global demand for Cashews particularly in the US, Europe, China and the Middle East kept the cashew industry strong and stable with about 10% increase in net export of cashew kernels.
“We have developed diverse learning and information sharing platforms for cashew stakeholders. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19pandemic, we moved most activities online and predominantly have two of such being held every month, Faseru said.
