India’s raw cashew nut crop, delayed by over a month this year due to unseasonal rain in November in major growing areas of south India, is likely to be higher by 11 per cent to 700,000 tonnes compared to last year.
This year, the area under cashew nut has gone up to 920,000 hectares compared to 890,000 hectares in 2010, a growth rate of 3.3 per cent. DCCD has been adding around 20,000 hectares under cashew every year for the past three years.
Earlier, the directorate had estimated a drop of around 15 per cent in this year’s production. However, the changed weather helped flowering and going by the current indications, the production would touch the 700,000-tonne mark, Hubballi said.
“If there is no rain in January, the fruit-setting will be good and nuts will mature with dry weather. A dry spell during flowering and fruit-setting will be good for production,” he said.
Cashew nuts are generally harvested in India from February to May. In 2010, India’s cashew production stood at 630,000 tonnes.
Also Read
G Giridhar Prabhu, former vice-chairman, Cashew Export Promotion Council of India and an exporter from Mangalore, said the processing industry hoped the domestic production would be better this year. “We are hoping that good moisture levels will result in higher yields this year. But, the exact crop assessment can be done only in February”, he said.
Cashew is mainly grown in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The directorate is making efforts to grow the crop in places like Chhattisgarh, northeastern states and Andaman and Nicobar Islands as well.
India imports more than half its raw cashew requirement due to poor productivity. The imports are mainly from Tanzania, Mozambique, Kenya, Ivory Coast and Vietnam. During the current year, Indian processors have seen a record rise in prices of imported raw nuts. The prices of imported nuts from Tanzania have gone up by 47.6 per cent to $1,845 a tonne compared to $1,250 a tonne in 2009-10.
Overall, the landed cost of imported cashewnuts has been Rs 75-82 a kg during the current financial year compared to Rs 55-65 a kg last year, a rise of 26 per cent, Prabhu says.
He said the cashew kernel market in the country was on a rise even after Diwali, which was unusual. Kernel prices have risen 18 per cent since then. The average price of the W320 variety of cashew kernel is Rs 470 a kg compared to Rs 300-320 a kg in May 2010. The trend for 2011 depended on the domestic crop size and the cost of imported prices as the new crop from West African countries would be available from mid-March, he added.