Ghana wants more for cashew nuts, but it’s a hard nut to crack

“It’s amazing,” says Accra entrepreneur and economic commentator Bright Simons. “Roasters and retailers buy nuts from farmers for $500 per tonne and sell them to customers (domestic and internationally) for a price of between $20,000 and $40,000 per tonne.”

Overall, Ghana grows around 180,000 tonnes of cashew nuts each year. Over 80% are exported and exported in raw, unshelled form. This will generate around $300 million in export revenue, but that means Ghana is missing out on the significantly higher revenues it gets from roasted, ready-to-eat cashew nuts.

Mildred Akotia is someone who is trying to increase the amount of cashew nuts that are being fired and roasted in Ghana. She is the founder and CEO of Akwaaba Fine Foods and currently only processes 25 tons a year.

Ms. Akotia has denied the suggestion that she and others like her are adjusting prices. The packaging and roasting machines that Western businesses use automatically in the industry are out of reach for her due to the high credit costs in Ghana.

“If you go to a local bank, you’ll pay 30% interest to get a loan,” she complains. “As a manufacturer, do you tell us the size of your margin that we can afford such interest? We had to rely on what we could get: parents. Soft loans from relatives and grants from donor institutions.”

She says this is the reason why less than 20% of Ghana’s cashew nuts are being processed locally. The bulk has been scooped up and exported to large factories in India, Thailand and Vietnam.

Surprisingly, some of these packaged nuts have been exported to Ghana, where they are sold at the same price as domestically roasted cashews. This is despite 20,000 miles of sea cargo round trip and import costs.

It’s a similar photo of rice, which has been exported from Asia to Ghana and sold at a low price, despite Ghana growing the crop itself.