Ghana wants more cashews, but it is difficult for cracking

The Akra Street seller is seen, linked.

I am trying to prove how the 30 grams of roasted cashews is selling, along with a highway road in Ghana, equivalent to about 75 cents (60 pixels).

It is clear that this is not much money for me, a visitor from the United Kingdom, but I am surprised by The Mark Up.

The price is at least 4000 % higher than the cost of purchasing the same rough cashew weight covered with Ghanaian farms.

“It is incredible,” I needed. However, she does not understand my English, or logical.

The price of nuts, after all, was printed on the package. He explained why I thought he was out of pale will never be easy.

Ghana is the world The third largest source Among the cashew nuts are not equipped, behind the Ivory Coast in the first place, and Cambodia in second place.

To produce the crop, at least 300,000 Ghani is made part of the growing cashew.

Nachiro Sido, whose family has a farm in the northeast of the country, about 500 miles (800 km) from Accra, is one of them.

It says the work is difficult, the unreliable supply chains and the volatile sentence prices make staying alive.

“We are struggling. We can use sunlight, fertile earth, to create more functions,” he says. “I will be happy if the government reaches our help and helps to support our industry.”

He told me that he is currently getting about 50 dollars for a large 100 kg of non -neglected caso.

“It is amazing,” says Bright Simons, the entrepreneur and economic commentator in Accra, who studied the numbers. “The roasted and retailers buy nuts from farmers for $ 500 per ton, and sell customers (both at home or abroad) for an amount ranging between $ 20,000 and $ 40,000 per ton.”

As a whole, Ghana grows about 180,000 tons of cashews annually. More than 80 % are exported, and in the form of closed raw. This generates about $ 300 million of export revenues, but I mean that Ghana misses the high returns you get from the ready -made cashew.

Mildred Akotia is one person trying to increase the cashews that are distorted and roasted in Ghana. She is the founder and CEO of Akwaaba Fine Foods, which currently treats 25 tons per year.

Mrs. Akotia denies any suggestion that she and others like her are the price plateau. She says that packaging and roasting machines used by a Western company automatically in this industry, and are far from their reach due to the high cost of credit in Ghana.

“If you go to a local bank, it will cost you a 30 % interest to get a loan,” you complain. “As the manufacturer, tell me how great it is your halls that you can bear this kind of attention? We had to rely on what we could get: soft loans from relatives and grants from donor agencies.”

She says this situation is the reason why less than 20 % of the cashews in Ghana locally. The largest part is closed and exported to large factories in countries such as India, Thailand and Vietnam.

It is striking that some of these bottled nuts are exported again to Ghana, where they are sold at the same price of the roasted cashews locally. This is despite the 20,000 -mile sea charging trip and import costs.

It is a similar image of rice, which is exported to Ghana from Asia and sold at low prices, although Ghana is also growing in the same crop.

In 2016, the Ghanaian government tried a ban on raw cashew export to encourage local treatment. However, politics had to be abandoned within two weeks after a stir of farmers and merchants.

Without cheap loans available, it was not possible for the new caffeine toiles to enter the market. So the price of raw nuts was shattered, and many began to rot due to the buyer's desire.

Recently, there has been a talk about increasing customs tariffs about raw cashew exports and banning exporters who buy cashews directly from farms.

But all these political interventions miss a major point, according to Simons. He says that the great challenge of local producers is to work more seriously on the basics of doing business and developing their companies.

“To be effective in this, you need a scale,” he says, adding that companies need to enhance cashew intake to make it more prevalent in the country. “You need a lot of Ghanaians who consume nuts, not just a small medium layer.”

Professor Darwoglu, the American -Turkish economist, agrees that building a strong local market for the cashew industry in Ghana. He was one of the winners of the Nobel Memorial Prize last year in economic sciences, and his work on struggles facing low -income economies, especially their local business.

However, he says that the first priority must improve access to the international Ghani cashew markets.

“These companies deal with the workforce that are not properly skilled, and they have an infrastructure that does not work, as they are constantly fear of corrupt officials, or ruling changes, and also very difficult to reach foreign markets.” They need the foreign market because the local market is small, and their government has a very large capacity (to reinforce it).

He also wants to see the Ghanaian government is working to improve the road and railway network to reduce the cost of transportation.

But Mr. Simons believes that responsibility should be the Ghanaian companies themselves, to do the basics to enhance brands and cashew marketing. As he says, many of the country's most breastfed businessmen leave Ghana for better paid opportunities outside due to the red and favorite ribbon in Ghana very exorbitant.

He says, “There is a tremendous depletion.” “My theory of the slow economic development of Africa is that we focus a lot on the side of the offer, but the real beauty is required, which creates a consuming category of cashew lovers, and you do not have a category of entrepreneurship that can create the transformation of demand.”

He says that the same argument applies to Ghana's largest exports, such as gold and chocolate, none of which gets a great value inside Ghana before exporting it to the West.

Milderd Aquotia hopes to be one of the entrepreneurs in this direction. She now wants to build her logistical arm, to be able to treat cashews directly from the farm gate.

“I have a lot of calls from the United Arab Emirates, from Canada and America. For the time now we cannot meet the demand. We cannot get enough nucleus for barbecue.

“There is a local and internationally ready market. My brand is good, good marketing. My dream is to give a plastic surgery to Ghanaian processed foods.”