Tanzania exports cashew nuts to US as focus shifts to value addition

A consignment of processed cashew nuts from Tanzania to the United States left the country on Monday as the East African nation seeks to move away from exporting raw nuts to value-added ones.

The eight-tonne cargo of processed cashew nuts was dispatched to New Orleans, Louisiana via the Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam.

In October this year, a 20-foot container carrying 7.5 metric tonnes of branded consumer packaged cashew nuts left Mtwara for the US.

The exporter is Ward Holdings Tanzania Limited (WTH), a subsidiary of Ward Holdings International, a Michigan-based global market development and investment company.

While flagging off the cargo, Tanzania’s Deputy Minister for Agriculture Anthony Mavunde said WTH is supportive of the government’s plan to ensure that by 2025, 60 per cent of Tanzania’s cashew nuts are processed locally.

Currently, the country processes less than 10 per cent of its cashew nuts, with the remainder being exported raw.

More jobs for youth

“If our plan succeeds, it will mean increasing new industries and creating more jobs for our youth,” he said.

Mr Robert Adrian Raines, the American embassy representative, said the shipment represented the growing business relationship between Tanzania and the US.

“This step will boost the wellbeing of cashew nut farmers and promote their crop,” he said.

WHT President Godfrey Simbeye described the occasion as a “historic moment of cashew nuts grown, harvested, and consumer-packaged in Tanzania being exported directly for the first time from farmers in Tanzania to the US marketplace”.

Mr Simbeye assured the gathering, which included business leaders, that Ward Holdings International is a reputed American market maker, which is “committed to the advancement of Tanzanian interests through industrialisation of its agriculture industry and high-value crops”.