The Tree Crop Development Authority (TCDA) will soon start the implementation of a new regulation that bars foreigners from buying cashew nuts directly from farm gates.
According to the Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Operations at the Tree Crop Development Authority (TCDA), Foster Boateng, enforcing the new regulation will make trading the commodity the sole preserve of Ghanaians.
Explaining how this will be done, Mr Boateng stated that foreigners would have to go through registered Ghanaian agents to buy cashew nuts from the farm gates when the law is finally approved.
“The draft guideline by the TCDA has been reviewed by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Legal Affairs and is supposed to be laid in parliament soon by the sector minister. It will be passed into law after 21 days when laid in parliament,” he said.
What The Law Will Regulate
The TCDA also said that the regulation will enshrine key tenets and mandates to properly develop and regulate other tree crops, including oil palm and rubber.
Besides, it will also mandate the Authority to regulate pricing mechanisms to address farmgate price volatility for tree crop produce to incentivise farmers to produce.
Within the law, aggregators, processors, exporters and traders in any tree crop commodity will be licenced, as well as developers of planting materials including nurseries.
The TCDA has already established a pricing formula for cashew, oil palm and rubber for value chain actors, considering key parameters including exchange rate volatility for trading on the global market.
Registration Of Cashew Buyers
Meanwhile, the TCDA has also disclosed that it has begun engagements with value chain actors to register all cashew buyers. Indeed, there are about 25 major cashew buyers in the country with the majority being from India.
Current Cashew Pricing
A kilo of cashew which sold at GH¢8.5 at the beginning of this year has shot up to almost GH¢13 at the beginning of the second quarter due to demand and supply market forces.
The price move was instituted when local producers met the approved minimum standard of 10 per cent moisture content kernel outturn ratio (KOR) of 46 pounds and other factors.
But prices began to fall in April this year, as Ivory Coast, the largest producer of cashew in the region released the commodity onto the market just when quality standards began to plummet in Ghana from the second quarter of this year.
Recent Investment In The Sector
The World Bank in a six-year partnership with the government earlier this year announced a grant of US$ 100 million credit facility to boost production and improve the value chain of cashew, coconut and rubber. The funding initiative is known as the Tree Crop Diversification Project.
Source: BnFTonline
