The Global Cashew Industry
To start first lets know more about the Cashew plant
The cashew tree (Anacardium occidentale) is a tropical evergreen tree that produces the cashew seed and the cashew apple.
It can grow as high as 14 m (46 ft), but the dwarf cashew, growing up to 6 metres (20 ft), has proved more profitable, with earlier maturity and higher yields.
The cashew seed, often simply called a cashew, is widely consumed. It is eaten on its own, used in recipes, or processed into cashew cheese or cashew butter. The cashew apple is a light reddish to yellow fruit, whose pulp can be processed into a sweet, astringent fruit drink or distilled into liquor.
The shell of the cashew seed yields derivatives that can be used in many applications from lubricants to paints.
The species is originally native to northeastern Brazil. Today, major production of cashews occurs in Vietnam, Nigeria, India and Ivory Coast.
CashewTraders.com – A complete portal for the Global community of Cashew Traders.
Production of Cashews
Cashew nuts are produced in tropical countries because the tree is frost sensitive, adapting to various climatic regions between the latitudes of 25°N and 25°S. The traditional cashew tree is tall (up to 14 m) and takes three years from planting before it starts production, and eight years before economic harvests can begin. More recent breeds, such as the dwarf cashew trees, are up to 6 m tall, and start producing after the first year, with economic yields after three years. The cashew nut yields for the traditional tree are about 0.25 metric tons per hectare, in contrast to over a ton per hectare for the dwarf variety. Grafting and other modern tree management technologies are used to further improve and sustain cashew nut yields in commercial orchards.
In 2013, the world total for production of cashew nuts (in shells) was 4.4 million metric tons. Vietnam was the world’s largest individual producer in 2013 with 1.1 million tons.
As of 2014, rapid growth of cashew cultivation in Côte d’Ivoire made this country the top African exporter.
Fluctuations in world market prices, poor working conditions and low pay for local harvesting have caused discontent in the cashew nut industry.
CashewTraders.com – A complete portal for the Global community of Cashew Traders.
Source of information: Wikipedia.