Tanzania cashew nut output shrinks in three years

DAR ES SALAAM (Commodity Online) : Cashew nut production in Tanzania declined in the three yers from 2007-10, according to country’s agriculture ministry.
Main producing region of Mtwara witnessed sharp declines during these years fallen short of its target of 2.5 million tonnes.
Tanzania’s cashew nut production has not been stable over the years sometimes decreasing or increasing against the 2003/2004 set plan that focused on planting 100,000 seedlings annually to get quality produce.
A researcher at Nariendele University, Dr Shamte Shomari, Dr Shomari explained that in the eighties production of cashew nut was in a good position with farmers harvesting between 145 million tonnes to 164 million tonnes annually, but today things have totally changed. He attributed one of the major reasons to the ageing of the trees.
Either, he mentioned other reasons leading to the decreasing in yields as lack of strong supervision and non availability of modern technology in production of the crop. “Most of the cashew nut farmers have number of weakness such as use of professional techniques in supervising the crop production.
Some of them, even if they know the production procedures, will not use them,” he said. Dr Shomari said 80 per cent of the costs of producing cashew nut go to purchase pesticides for disease controls that affects production, adding that the government gives 50 per cent of the same.
He asked the farmers to follow the production procedures in order to increase outputs as well as plant more seedlings because 70 per cent of the trees are old.

(Source: http://www.commodityonline.com/news/Tanzania-cashew-nut-output-shrinks-in-three-years-35658-3-1.html)