Missing 52 thousand tons of cashew nut

Missing 52 thousand tons of cashew nut

(2017/06/03) Missing 52 thousand tons of cashew nuts

In 2017, initial statistics show that the cashew industry lost nearly 52,000 tonnes of cashew, which is a 17% decrease compared to the corresponding period last year, caused by the effects of climate change.

Farmers have no time to manage.

According to the Department of Cultivation, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in the South East and Lam Dong, strangely from every year, the first months of this year have experienced heavy rain, right at the time of cashew flowering, causing the reduce in productivity.

Due to the abnormal changes in weather, cashew diseases, especially mosquito bugs, have developed into epidemics in many locals and have seriously affected cashew yields. A survey conducted by the Vietnam Cashew Association (VINACAS) showed that the rapid outbreak give many farmers no time for manage , so after only a couple day, tea mosquito bugs devastated the orchard.

According to the report of Binh Phuoc DARD, yield of farmers' orchard decreased by 2.09 quintals / ha ( 17.41%) compared to 2016; Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province decreased by 1.8 kg / ha (15.13%) compared to 2016; Dong Nai province has 19,647 ha, accounting for nearly 51% of the area under reduced yield; Lam Dong province also reduced its productivity by more than 50%. Binh Thuan is considered as the main crop with an area of 16,000 ha, but recently had 10,000 ha of disease.

This makes the yield of cashew harvest plummet. According to reports from DARD, cashew production in 2017 is estimated as 252,038 tonnes, falling by 51,860 tonnes ( 17.07%) in comparision to 2016.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, cashew nut export in 2017 is estimated at 112,000 tons, export value is $ 1.1 billion, falling 9.5% in volume but rise by nearly 13% in value compared to the corresponding period in 2016.

Since 2006, Vietnam has been the leading exporter of cashew nut and in 2016, the export value of cashew has brought Vietnam $ 3 billion, becoming one of the highest value items, only after seafood and coffee. Therefore, how to make the industry sustainable development, not too dependent on imported materials becomes the concern of the management agency at this time.

In order to find solutions, helping the industry develop sustainably, on June 1, in Ho Chi Minh City, the Cultivation Department has held the Steering Committee for sustainable development of expansion in 2017. The purpose of the conference is quite obvious. It clearly points out the reasons for the decline in domestic output and the solution in the coming years for the industry to develop sustainably.

Building up the linkage between farmers and enterprises

Many delegates said that, in terms of the increase in area, for people to live on cashew trees, they have to "shake hands" with businesses who would provide technical support , head protection products, and only this could help the industry develop sustainably.

Nguyen Trung Anh, Research and Development Director of FAN (The Pan Group), said that as a company with many years of experience in the field of agricultural exports, he truly want cashew nut would develop sustainanly in the future. And for sustainable development, according to Trung Anh, the only way is to create linkage between cashew growers and businesses.

After visiting and examining many models of cashew growing in Binh Phuoc, the Pan Group realized that much of the cashew nut area of the farmers was from seeds (plantlets, causing the uneven flowering and leading to the difficulties in Production management, imbalance between productivity and quality as a result. Therefore, linking to built the material area will solve this in the future.

Convinced with that view, representative of Long An Export Processing Joint Stock Company (LAFOOCO), said that if the business associated with farmers to grow cashew to provide technical support, each year Vietnam can produce 600,000 tons of raw cashews, this will help the Vietnamese cashew industry reduce its reliance on imported raw materials. Not only increased productivity, with the same product, the quality is also better because compared with other countries with cashew nut quality of Vietnam is always higher and more expensive.

According to Le Quoc Doanh, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, cashew trees have been planted for greening bared hills so their productivity is not high, so when other crops have higher economic value, people tend to shift, which affects the sustainable development of cashew field.

However, if the cultivation is good, farmers can harvest over 3 tonnes / ha. "I have visited some farmers' cashew growing models and there is a yield of up to 4 tonnes per hectare, which indicates that if the agricultural sector is doing well, the domestic cashew production will increase significantly," Me.Doanh said.

As for the linkage model, VINACAS President Nguyen Duc Thanh said that the association wants to cooperate with farmers, as evidenced by the fact that at present there are about 10 enterprises that intend to combine with farmers to invest in developing the raw material area for the purpose of  organic cashew products.

Mr. Thanh said that businesses want to produce organic cashew must have raw material. This is an objective condition arising from the market demand, so it will actively cooperate with farmers to build material areas. The rest businesses want is that state agencies have appropriate and timely policies to support businesses that MARD is soon to have a safe processing process, which will help the industry to develop more sustainably.