Tanzania will be selling its cashew nuts through the newly established commodities exchange, Tanzania Mercantile Exchange (TMX).
Under the system, the sale of raw cashew nuts will be in special auction markets formed by the government in early October 2024.
The TMX promises quality, quantity and timely delivery to buyers and guaranteed payments to sellers. The system favours farmers mostly in southern regions of Mtwara and Lindi, which produce the crop.
Farmers who operate under the Main Cooperative Union (Mamcu) held the first auction mart of cashew nut for the 2024/2025 farming season and sold 18,000 tonnes of nuts at $ 1.53 per kilo.
This is an increase of 38 percent, compared with the 2022/2023 trading season where a kilogramme of raw cashew nut was sold at $1.09.
Francis Alfred, Cashew nut Board of Tanzania’s director-general, has attributed the increase in price to low yields occasioned by the recent El-Niño phenomenon in southern region.
He said Tanzania expects to export more nuts abroad — 280,000-300,000 tonnes. In the past, it averaged 253,000 tonnes.
The CBT has pushed higher prices for the crop.
The demand for cashew nuts is high in the world market. CBT wants Tanzanian farmers and others in the value chain to ensure consistent, high-quality produce for the international market.
Tanzania is one of the largest cashew producers in Africa, with exports providing 10-15 percent of the country’s foreign exchange, earning at least $18 million. The country is the eighth-largest grower of cashew nut in the world and ranks fourth in Africa.
According to figures released in 2022 by United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), poor regulation and lack of reliable payments to farmers have posed significant challenges to the sub-sector.
The cashew nut production policy is often controversial. In recent years, legislators from constituencies within the production zones have gone for government officials seen as frustrating farmers by allowing middlemen to exploit them.
In 2020/2021 fiscal year, MPs representing southern regions in the country were up in arms after authorities granted an export licence to a company that failed to raise funds for the export job. Now, the government says it is addressing the issue, including taxes and other levies.
Instead of remitting a portion of the export levy to farmers, the government says it is better to be channelled to the treasury in a consolidated fund to develop the sector.