Cashew festival in B'lore from next week

The Karnataka Cashew Manufacturers Association (KCMA), which is celebrating its golden jubilee, is organising a cashew festival in association with Kitchen Yatra at Shree Kanteerava Indoor Stadium, in Bangalore from April 21 to 24.

In this festival, it will highlight the importance of cashewnut industry in the rural development, employment and foreign potential available.

The nutritional benefits by the consumption of this commodity will be exhibited at the expo, said Kalbavi Prakash Rao, president, KCMA in a press release.

On this occasion, a recipe competition called 'Swad Kaju Ka' will be organised to popularise the use of cashew in food. Over 30,000 Bangaloreans are expected to visit this festival. A national buyer seller meet is also being held at the Atria Hotel on April 22.

"These events will certainly put the industry in Karnataka in its right perspective and will help reach the goal set by KCMA to make Karnataka the cashew state of India by the year 2015," Prakash Rao said.

He said the year 2004-05 was a golden year for the cashew industry as it managed an all time high exports of 1.27 lakh metric tonnes (MT) valued at Rs 2,700 crore. The prices of cashew smartly moved up from $1.75 a pound to $2.65 a pound for W320 variety during the year.

On the import front too, India saw an all time high imports of 5.75 lakh tonnes which is almost 140 per cent above our domestic production.

Karnataka's exports too kept pace with the national scenario and in fact did better this time. The state was able to increase its share in the national exports from 5 per cent to 10 per cent over three years, with exports rising from Rs 65 crore per annum to Rs 240 crore per annum as on March 31.

Karnataka's imports too increased to an all-time high of 45,000 MTs and its processing capacity expanded from 60,000 metric tonnes per annum to over 1 lakh tonnes.