MACIA, Mozambique Ñ Cassama Mussa owns a small cashew processing plant in the small town of Macia in southern Mozambique. He built the small factory in 1992, but business did not start for another 12 years.
“We had to postpone business because there were so many problems with the industry.”
In the early 1970s, Mozambique was the largest producer of cashew nuts, exporting 200,000 tons of processed nuts, mostly to eastern European countries. The industry was protected by the Mozambican government to ensure fair prices were given to local processors.
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After the country’s independence from Portugal in 1975, a brutal civil war forced people to flee their homes, leaving most cashew plantations abandoned.
Disease spread rapidly and by the 1980s Mozambique was exporting only 40,000-50,000 tonnes of processed cashews.
Then, in 1992, the Mozambican government liberalized trade policies to meet requirements set by the World Bank to receive more loans.
The World Bank said liberalization would reduce tariffs on the exportation of raw nuts. This would increase competition, which would then bring a greater profit to small farmers. But local processing plants could not compete with the prices foreign companies were offering small farmers.
By 2000, the export of processed cashew nuts ceased, and every plant in Mozambique shut its doors. This left 10,000 people unemployed.
Raimundo Makule, director of the National Cashew Institute, or INCAJU, in Maputo, Mozambique, says the country’s cashew industry was not prepared to compete in the free market.
“The industry was used to exporting processed cashews to eastern European markets like Russia and Bulgaria and not to the free market. Prices were agreed upon between countries, not market related prices,” he said. “The industry was also not prepared to compete with other countries like India because we did not have updated technology.”
As a response to the crisis, INCAJU was formed to improve the quality and quantity of cashews produced and processed in Mozambique.
The institute is planting new trees and spraying approximately one million of them to prevent the spread of disease. It is also introducing new trees that are more productive, training farmers how to care for them and offering higher quality technology to farmers and processors. Makule is optimistic Mozambique can rebuild the industry.
“Only when we produce locally can we really increase production prices,” Makule said.
One tonne of raw cashews brings about $500 US whereas one tonne of processed cashews can bring up to $6,000, he said.
In Macia, Mussa’s plant now employs 161 people and he expects to export eight tonnes of processed nuts to Holland this year. His plant is one of 13 in Mozambique.
Most cashew trees are found a few hundred kilometres north of the town of Macia. Farmers must hop on a crowded mini bus with their sack of raw cashews to sell to Mussa’s plant. The farmers receive 45 cents for one kilogram. Plantations from India offer them about 60 cents.
The Mozambican government recognized the difficulty local processors were having so it laid a small tax on the export of raw nuts to help protect the local processing industry.
“I’m still optimistic,” said Mussa. “It is only my second year but I think the cashew industry here in Mozambique has the potential to do really well.”
Ninety-five per cent of cashew plantations are small family farms with only 30 or 40 trees. Only one third of those cashews are exported. The rest are processed and consumed locally by families or sold to tourists.
INCAJU hopes to expand what is extracted from the cashew nut.
“Right now if you walk into a supermarket here in Mozambique you can buy cashew juice that is processed in Brazil,” Mukule said. “Places like India extract between 10 and 15 products from cashews.”
Mozambique exported 90,000 tonnes of processed cashews last year and will export 100,000 tonnes of processed nuts this year, which is still only half of what the country produced during the colonial period.
“Cashews can play an important part in poverty reduction in this province,” Makule said. “We are talking about one million families, which probably accounts for five million people, and add to that about 10,000 jobs.
“If you go to a rural area you will see shops closed. But as soon as the processing plant opens for the season, the shops will reopen because they know people in the community will have money. They know the cashew can bring in money.”
