The raw cashew nut marketing campaign for the year 2023 is considered “gloomy” by producers in the Niakara department (Centre-north, Hambol region). In an interview with the AIP this Saturday, April 1, 2023, they deplored the scarcity of buyers in the field and prices fluctuating between 250 and 300 FCFA (rare) per kilogram of cashew nuts.

“I have stored a large part of my harvest since mid-March, but buyers are really very rare, it’s really not going well. The more the days pass, the more I am afraid of finding myself with my two tons of cashew nuts in my hands, “said a producer from Pêkaha, Hippolyte Koné.

An absence of cashew nut buyers denounced by farmers in Kafiné, Ténindiéri, Nabédjakaha and Sélikalakaha as well as in Pangalakaha, Kouroukounan and Badiokaha, villages in the Niakara department.

“This situation forces some producers to sell cashew nuts at 250 FCFA per kg to crooked buyers,” revealed a producer in Niakara, Thibaud Koné Kélo, who is also a member of the cashew nut marketing monitoring committee in the region. department of Niakara.

For Mr. Thibaud Kélo, the grouped sale of harvests remains a solution to the gloom of this 2023 commercial campaign for raw cashew nuts.

“At the start of the 2023 campaign, during the first group sale, the kilo of cashew was between 315 and 350 FCFA; but today, when we are full foot in the countryside, the kilogram of cashew is paid for at 300 FCFA during the grouped sales that we organize and I think it is the best option, “he said. he explains

An approved buyer from Niakara, Gomez Tuo, lamented the lack of financing given to buyers. “There are no buyers because there is no money”, he hammered.

For the 2023 cashew nut marketing campaign, the mandatory minimum farm gate price per kg of well-dried and well-sorted raw cashew nut, containing no foreign matter, is set at 315 FCFA against 305 FCFA for the 2022 campaign, an increase of 10 FCFA announced the Minister of State, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Kobenan Kouassi Adjoumani. It was during a press conference on February 3, 2023 in Abidjan-Plateau.

Source: Agence Ivoirienne de Presse