By Nana Ama Omari
Ghana’s cashew value chain is believed to have the potential to rake in more revenue, create jobs, and economically empower women and youth, especially in rural areas.
In this regard, efforts are being made to ensure that stakeholders in sector uphold standards by addressing issues that can affect product quality.
Some of these issues have to do with the unstable prices of cashew nuts, the limited number of buyers, inadequate quality control infrastructure and funds for Small Medium Enterprises, as well as lack of credibility among processors, which are crippling the cashew industry.
These factors were identified in an Assessment of Culture for Quality within the Cashew Value Chain undertaken by the Global Quality and Standards Progamme, a United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). It was to determine the culture for quality within the cashew value chain, discuss its major findings, make recommendations for interventions to increase Ghana’s export competitiveness of the commodity, and woo investors.
The UNIDO-SECO funded project has therefore recommended that the factors identified as crippling the cashew industry can be addressed by raising quality awareness among stakeholders to conform to standards.
A Culture for Quality Expert, Ama Mogyabun, speaking at a conference in Accra, said adhering to standards is key to help improve competitiveness of locally produced cashew nuts on the international market, which will invariably lead to a robust industry.
Madam Mogyabun, who conducted the assessment, said their findings indicated that, within the cashew value chain, there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of raising quality awareness.
“What are the structures we have put in place to improve and manage quality to bring sanity in how we assess and price products?” she asked.
According to her, the assessment found that processors need support in terms of being able to process for export, stressing that they do not have food safety certifications. She added that the Global Quality Standards Programme is looking to be able to support them in getting certified so they can also sell their processed products on the international market.
Deputy Chief Executive Officer in Charge Operations, Tree Crop Development Authority, Forster Boateng, said the Authority, has put in place measures to enforce regulations to enable stakeholders to uphold standards in the cashew industry.
Mr. Boateng said as part of the measures, foreigners are not allowed to go to the farm gate to purchase cashew. He stressed that apart from producers, everybody in the chain who wants to work in the industry has to be licenced, adding that the Authority is setting pricing mechanisms to ensure a minimum farm gate price that traders should trade in.
“We are trying to look at issues about building the government structure of the value chain associations because when we strengthen them, these are the people who will ensure that policies and regulations are implemented at the grassroot level. We are also looking at how we can empower local processing because when we empower local processing, that is where it can generate jobs for us; otherwise, when we export raw cashew nuts, we are exporting your jobs away,” he stated.
Chief Technical Advisor of the UNIDO Global Quality and Standards Programme, Abena Safoa Osei, said the project has supported various Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs to implement safety and quality standards for fair trade.
She added that relevant laboratory testing that will facilitate the export of cashew nuts and products has been established, and these facilities have been internationally accredited.
“In assessing the awareness of quality in the value chain, the programme realised that while there are a lot of standards, these have not permeated the value chain very well. This is one of the main reasons for this conference to make sure that all relevant stakeholders come together, become aware of the relevant standards and how to implement them.
Stakeholders believe that adding value to cashew nuts produced in Ghana before export will significantly boost the economy; therefore, there is the need for a more extensive processing infrastructure for the industry.
