All India Cashew Association wants the nation to become self-reliant in production

The cashew processing industry, which has been expanding in various parts of the country in the recent years, has come forward to form a national-level association — All India Cashew Association (AICA) — to work for the development of the sector.

Bola Rahul Kamath, Director of Bolas Agro, who has assumed charge as President of AICA, told businessline that AICA wants India to become self-reliant in cashew production and wants to take cashew kernels to more domestic consumers.

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Re-focussing initiatives

Stating that AICA has identified a few core areas, he said the first priority is to increase the raw cashew nut production in the country. This needs to be discussed with various government agencies and other stakeholders. “We can work with them on how to re-focus their initiatives to meet the requirements of the industry. Always the target is to be self-reliant in cashew production. But we are not going in that direction, and our imports are going up. We want to discuss that with the government agencies and take steps to set the target for becoming self-reliant in cashew production,” he said.

The task number two is to increase the marketing of cashew kernels in India. Commodities such as almonds, pistachio and cranberries, which are grown in other countries, are being promoted in a big way in India. “We want to focus on promoting cashews through various mediums,” he said.

The third one will be to liaison with the Centre on various other issues related to the sector. When asked to explain, he cited the example of the illegal import of cashew kernels into India in the name of animal feed, husk, etc. He said the import of cashew kernel has been banned to protect the domestic industry. AICA wants to take this issue with the Centre and find solutions to the issues being faced by the industry.

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Objective of pan-India body

To a query on the reasons behind planning a national-level body for cashew processing industry, Kamath said cashew processing was limited to States such as Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and to some extent to Goa two decades ago. Now India has cashew processing industries in States such as Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal, Gujarat, etc., and these States have one or two associations related to cashew.

Stating that there was no pan-India association till now, he said the State-level associations were solving their State-related issues. There was no national-level association to discuss and solve national-level issues. Even if the Government wants to formulate a cashew policy or something like that there was no association to coordinate that, he said.

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“Even the countries exporting raw cashew nuts to India need a national-level body for coordination and other related issues. Considering all these things, we thought we would form a national association,” he said.

As of now State associations from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Goa, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha and West Bengal have consented to be a part of AICA. Some associations from other parts of the country have also shown interest in joining the association. AICA is considering to have offices in Delhi and Bengaluru, Kamath added.

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