Ghana is considered one of the countries endowed with natural resources and good land fertility which supports a variety of crop production.
The country is well-known for the cultivation of Cocoa and Cashews in large quantities.
The realization of cashew as a cash crop has motivated a lot of farmers to highly cultivate cashew nuts to enhance farming activities, and agricultural development, as well as earn a living.
Cashew production has seen constant variations in purchasing prices which always gain better prices at the beginning of every season and tremendously reduce at the middle to the end of the season.
Farmers and stakeholders continuously spoke against the price variation of cashew and called on authorities to find a fixed price to help them make positive gains.
The NPP government on the 28th December 2019 established the Tree Crops Development Authority (TCDA) as a body corporate with perpetual succession to regulate and develop in a sustainable environment; production, processing, and trading of six Tree and Cash Crops in Ghana (Cashew, Shea, Mango, Coconut, rubber, and oil palm).
This initiative by the NPP government has led to the fixing of cashew producer prices at 8.50p as the minimum price per kilo for the 2023 crop season. Currently purchasing price is GhS12.00 and 13.00 per kilo amounting to Ghc1,200 per bag and Ghc 1,300.m respectively. This feat in purchasing price is the first of its kind in the history of Ghana. This has never occurred before since the purchasing of cashew came to be in the country.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Chief Executive officer of Abronoma Foundation, a Non-Governmental Organization in Ghana, Mrs. Linda Nyarko Yeboah, she expressed gratitude to the Akufo-Addo-led NPP government for taking into consideration the welfare of farmers in ensuring the formation of the Tree Crop Development Authority which for some years now has contributed tirelessly to secure better purchasing prices for cashew farmers.
She noted that this is the first of its kind that the cashew price has hit GhS12.00 per kilo which she termed as a great achievement for the NPP governments of which they must be recommended.
Mrs. Linda Nyarko Yeboah has pleaded with the president to as a matter of urgency build a processing factory as part of his one district one Factory (1D1F) initiative within the Jaman North District of the Bono region where cashew is more cultivated to facilitate the processing of the cashew fruits and nuts to finished goods which will serve as an avenue for employment to ameliorate the unemployment burden from the youth in the district and the region at large.
She stressed that over 90% of raw cashew produced in Ghana are exported overseas which she said does not reflect positively on the country’s economy and the citizens of jaman north hence the need for the government to consider processing the cashew in the country and in particular within the cashew growing communities to enhance the economic growth of the country.
She also advised the farmers and the youths within all the cashew growing areas to ensure proper and effective usage of their earnings during the season to prevent hardship at the end of the season.
