International Cashew Conference comes up in Dar-es-Salaam, October 2023, as Tanzania boosts production

Tanzania is organizing an International Cashew Conference in October 2023 as means to encourage foreign investments into the country’s cashew nuts production and processing industry.

The maiden conference is being organized by the Cashew Board of Tanzania (CBT).

The event is scheduled to take place from October 11 to 13 at the Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre, in Dar-es-salaam city.

It is being anticipated that the three-day forum will bring to Tanzania more than 500 participants from all over the world.

The Director General of Cashew Board of Tanzania, Alfred Francis, reveals here that delegates for the International Cashew Conference will be coming from Sri Lanka, Ivory Coast, Guinea –Bissau, Ghana, The Comoros and Nigeria, as well as from other overseas countries, especially Europe.

According to the CBT official, President Samia Suluhu Hassan is expected to grace the event.

“Tanzania plans to use the forthcoming conference in attracting foreign investors into the country’s cashew sector,” Francis explained.

He listed some of potential opportunities in the country’s cashew landscape ranging from cashew plantations, processing plants and exports industry.

Tanzania is now the World’s third largest producer of cashews.

The country harvested 240,160 tons of raw cashews during the crop season of 2021/22.

“Tanzania grows cashews of the highest quality and over 98 percent first grade, however the country does not benefit much from the trade because we have been exporting them raw and unprocessed,” the CBT Director pointed out.

Apparently the Cashew Board is working with the ministry of agriculture to hatch initiatives that may help boost cashew processing within the country for value added exports and increased revenues.

“At the moment Tanzania’s cashew exports are shipped to only India and Vietnam but once we start processing the nuts then the country will be able to send the products to more destinations such as the United States, Germany, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates,” Francis added.

 “Our current intentions are to attract more foreign and local investors in the sector in order to improve production of cashew in Tanzania in adherence with international standards guiding the cashew business,” the CBT Director stated.

The Cashew Board of Tanzania will from now henceforth be organizing the International Cashew Conference (TICC) bi-annually.

Earlier the Minister of Agriculture, Hussein Bashe said his ministry was considering setting aside some 10 billion/- in the next fiscal year to help facilitate investments in the processing of all cashew nuts produced by the farmers in the country.

The main cashew growing area in the country are Mtwara, Lindi, Ruvuma and Tanga regions.

But essentially it is the two, that is Mtwara and Lindi regions, that are contributing more than 87 percent of total harvests into the national cashew production.

Cashew nuts production in Tanzania has listed the country among the continent’s leading producers, with the crop exports making up between 10 percent and to15 percent of the total foreign earnings.