Guinea-Bissau reaps reward as world goes nuts for cashews

BISSAU: Sustained global demand for cashews has helped Guinea-Bissau’s farmers rake in record prices, but the industry wants a crack at more revenue by processing the wonder nut at home.

Demand for cashews has risen 31 per cent globally over the last decade, according to the International Nut and Dried Fruit Council (INC), driven by its popularity in Asia and cashews’ image as a healthy ingredient in the West.

“I have never earned as much money as this year,” said Braima Seidi, a cashew farmer who has collected enough this season to build a house, purchase a motorbike, and buy a tonne of rice for his family.

“I always managed about twoand-a-half tonnes, but as the prices were low my income was too,” Seidi said, celebrating a three-tonne harvest this time.

Cashew nuts grow nestled against a fruit, and entire families in Guinea-Bissau gather during harvest season to pull them from the trees, separate the nuts and pack them into sacks destined for the capital.

The fruits are pressed and the liquid that seeps out stored to make juice or ferment a type of wine, while the pulp is dried to produce feed for livestock.

In this deeply impoverished west African nation, where 12 per cent of land is dedicated to cashew production, GDP is projected to be up 5.2 per cent this year, UN Special Representative to Guinea-Bissau Modibo Toure said in late August, thanks in part to the high prices.

The record revenues come down to two factors: a determination by the state to correct a negative price differential with producers in neighbouring Senegal, and the re-engagement of foreign buyers in Bissau’s markets.

President Jose Mario Vaz temporarily suspended the sale of the nuts in May after discovering that in Casamance, Senegal, cashews were sold for 1,000 FCFA (1.5 euros, US$1.8) per kilo, while Guinea-Bissau’s farmers were getting paid half of that at best.

Buyers from abroad, temporarily absent from local markets, have been welcomed back, and Indian, Chinese and Mauritanian agents have duly sent prices soaring to 1,500 FCFA per kilo.

This year the quantity exported will reach 200,000 tonnes, up a solid six per cent from 2016, according to the National Cashew Agency (ANC).

The revenues of producers, meanwhile, are expected to soar to US$70 million to US$80 million from around US$40 million to US$50 million last year. — AFP