The Hindu Business Line : Uncertainty continues over setting up of cashew board

Kochi, March 25 The reported move for creation of a cashew board with autonomy aimed at boosting the overall performance of cashew in the country appears to be facing the fate of several such moves earlier.

A Committee of Ministers said to have agreed in principle to set up a cashew development board aimed at achieving self- sufficiency in cashew production, taking research findings to the farmers’ field, improving quality of products, processing, marketing and exports.

In fact, the necessity of having such a body on similar lines of other commodity boards such as the Rubber Board/Spices Board was felt long back from 1960s, official sources told Business Line. Department related Standing Parliamentary Committees on Commerce in their 42nd, 46th, 50th, 58th, 65th ,70th and 77th reports recommended formation of a cashew board. Despite recommendations and reports formation of a unified agency for cashew so far remained a non-starter. “The escapist attitude so far expressed by the Union government in this matter under the pretext of economy in expenditure carry little weight in comparison to the revenue and employment this sector generates,” they said.

The sources said formation of such a Board for Cashew could find an end to the country’s perpetual dependence on imported raw nuts. The processing capacity of the Indian cashew industry, currently, is 1.2 million tonnes of raw nuts and almost 50 per cent of it is imported mainly from Africa.

Systematic cultivation using scientific methods is still lacking in this sector for want of proper coordination and extension services, a growers’ group said. The situation has further aggravated ever since the mode of execution of schemes has changed with DCCD’s role confined to design the development schemes. Financial allocations are made by the Centre while implementation of the programmes is vested with the concerned State Governments.

“The many hierarchical channels through which all these activities have to take place invariably result in unwanted delays and making available the funds to the beneficiary or target groups becomes quite difficult”. In several cases almost 50 per cent of the funds either remain unutilised or used for purposes other than for which it is allocated, they alleged.

Consequently, growth in production of raw cashew nuts in the country continued to remain at a slow pace making the industry to depend more on imported raw material. It is despite the country having an area of 8.37 lakh hectares under the crop with an annual production of 5.73 lakh tonnes at an yield of 815 kg a hectare as against over 2,000 kg a hectare in Vietnam.

The cashew growers, in several lakhs spread over many States, being small and marginal cultivation is done in a very unorganized and unscientific manner. The farming practices and post harvest technology are all very traditional and obsolete, the sources pointed out. Research findings are yet to percolate to fields and hardly any breakthrough could be achieved in product diversification, byproduct utilization and value addition keeping the market realities in view. More areas, especially the wastelands abundantly available in most of the states, could be brought under cashew. Increase in productivity will reduce the cost of production besides removing the dependence on imports.

Besides, massive modernization in processing and marketing of cashew is the need of the hour to meet the global challenges. All these could be possible only when there is a representative body with sufficient autonomy, they said.