A Vision for the Cashew Industry in Africa

On the 29th of March 2017, African Cashew Alliance (ACA), with the support of the Competitive Cashew Initiative (ComCashew) and USAID West Africa Trade and Investment Hub(WATIH) organized a one-day cashew stakeholder  forum . Stakeholders from the entire cashew value chain, gathered together on this platform to learn, share ideas and most importantly, brainstorm for the development of a common vision for the African cashew industry over the next ten years. 

Gracing and participating in this all important forum was Dr. Seth Akoto, Director of Crop Services from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture of Ghana (MoFA), Dr. Adama Coulibaly,  Director General of the Cashew and Cotton Council (CCA) of Côte d’Ivoire, also representing CICC, the inter-ministerial council for Cashew producing countries in Africa as well as Mr. Florentino Nanque, ACA President and Madam Rita Weidinger, Executive Director of Comcashew.

After a series of roundtable discussions and brainstorming exercises, participants at the forum created and agreed on a common vision to use from 2017 – 2027.  The vision is “To create wealth for all actors in the value chain by locally transforming all African cashew competitively and sustainably as well as supplying traceable cashew kernels and by-products for both the domestic market and export”. This vision, along with key strategic objectives is to henceforth guide all activities as well as interventions aimed at developing the African cashew industry for the next 10 years and is expected to evolve with the industry.