The Hindu Business Line : Moves to set up cashew board revived

Moves to set up a Board aimed at boosting the overall performance of the major horticulture crop cashew, which went into hibernation a few weeks after its announcement by the Union Minister of State for Commerce and Power, Mr Jairam Ramesh, in Kochi in early January 2008, are understood to have been revived.

Emphasising the need to bring cultivation, production, processing and marketing in the domestic and overseas markets under one umbrella, given the importance of the crop, and over dependence by the processing industry for raw nuts on foreign sources, the Union Minister had said his Ministry was planning to set up a Cashew Development Board.

A private bill for setting up of a cashew board was presented in Parliament early this year by a member but it faced the same fate of a bill for the same purpose presented by Mr Kodikunnil Suresh, the then Congress member from Kerala on March 28, 2002 praying for enacting a Cashew Board Act.

Despite the country being the largest producer of raw nuts, importer of large quantity of raw nuts and top exporter of cashew kernels in the world, creation of the Board - which several government and Parliamentary committees from time to time had recommended - still remains in paper, an official source told Business Line.

In fact, India has 24 per cent of the global area under cashew and yet, the country contributes only 19 per cent of the global production. On the other hand, Most of the cashew plantations in India are senile, requiring replanting with high-yielding varieties.

More areas, mainly wastelands lying idle in many States, could be easily brought under cashew by motivating the farmers. According to official sources, estimated production during 2000-08 is 6.65 tonnes from an area of 8.68 lakh hectares with a productivity of 860 kg per hectare. Maharashtra tops in productivity and total output, while Andhra Pradesh remained on top in terms of area under the crop.

Since most of the cashew processing units in the country are located in Kerala and the Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu and many of the cashew exporters are based mainly in Kollam in Kerala, the Cashew Export Promotion Council has its headquarters in the port city of Kochi for decades.

It also owns around 25 cents of prime land in the heart of the city. In fact, Rs 15 lakh were spent on getting the estimates and designs for building a multi-storey building for the CEPC, which was to be let out on rent. However, it did not materialise, they said. The Union Commerce Ministry has also allotted about Rs 5 crore for the construction of a laboratory for the CEPC's quality assurance laboratory at Kollam.

Considering the importance of this major horticulture crop as a major employment provider to the rural poor and utilisation of vast stretches of wastelands in the country, a Group of Ministers is 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.

For ethanol

Besides, the importance of cashew cultivation acquires significance following the acceptance of cashew apple as a main source for production of ethanol by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation.

The UNIDO has already initiated action to evolve a viable scientific and sustainable technology for producing ethanol from cashew apple. Once the technology is made available, demand for cashew apple will increase substantially and that in turn will ensure an additional income for cashew growers.

All these factors contribute to the necessity of having a body on the lines of other commodity boards such as the Rubber Board and Spices Board, official sources told Business Line.

According to them, 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.

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