Korosho Marathon To Spur Cashew Foreign Markets, Home Consumption -

By STAFF REPORTER

THE Cashew Board of Tanzania (CBT) has set to organise a special sport gala to help promote consumption of cashew and its other relevant products in the country.

However, the envisaged money-spinning event, dubbed ‘Korosho Marathon’ slated for 2nd Septermber this year has been tailored for promoting Tanzania’s cashew into the world market.

Speaking during an interview to this publication, the CBT’s Director General, Alfred Francis, said they have decided to organise the event for a ray of reasons, but specifically to promote domestic consumption of the cashew, as well as to attract a vast market abroad.

Apart from the health benefits that the prospective participants will likely gain, he unveiled that the winners of the event will walk away with lucrative awards, including money prizes.

“For instance, at least 20 participants who will compete and excel in the 21.1 category (male and female) will walk home with cash prizes ranging from 4m/- to 400,000/- whereby those who will perform better in the 10km category will scoop up to 2.5m/-,” he infomed.

Leaving aside the winners, he said all who will take part in the special -run will be awarded with free eye-catching jerseys, trophies, as well as cashew.

“Cashew consumption in the country is currently at around 5,000tons annually, and our vision is to have the extent increased and thus, we’re expecting that this event will play a pivotal role to help attract many Tanzanians to adopt consumption of the healthier nuts,” he communicated.

He said registration to participate in the event was continuing at an impressive rate, and at a cost of at least 30,000/-.

“The money to be netted from the event will be used to boost the small scale cashew processors to heighten their investment performance, but also, to procure desks for the pupils at different primary schools in Lindi and Mtwara regions.

As part to improve the performance of the sector, the Board is also working to embark on a grand project for the establishment of a major Industrial Park (IP) at Malanje area in Mtwara region.

The envisaged USD 116 million, (equivalent to 273bn/-) worth project will incorporate installation of more than 30 processing plants at the same hub.

The robust project is expected to occupy a total of 1,500 hectares and will see the setting up of ten factories for the processing of 300,000 tons of cashew annually, ten factories for processing sesame, as well as ten plants for the processing of cashew nuts, according to him.

“The general vision behind the project is to ensure the country discourse a poor economic trend of exporting raw cashew,”

“Huge percent of the cashew produced in Tanzania and marketed to the world market, at least 98 percent, are at the first grade but the problem is that we export them raw, prompting a low price” Francis expressed.

Cashew is currently produced within more than 12 regions across the country.

Tanzania is one of the largest cashew producers in Africa, with exports providing between 10 and 15 percent of the country’s foreign exchange.

The country is the eighth-largest grower of cashew nuts in the world and ranks fourth in Africa.

However, further statistics depict that Tanzania provides at least 20 percent of Africa’s cashew nuts and only trails in production of Nigeria, Côte D’Ivoire, and Guinea-Bissau, according to figures by United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).

Tanzania is well known for its cashew nut production, the nuts are nicknamed “grey gold” due to the high return on investment.

However, despite such excellence in the production of the cash crop, only 5 percent of the raw cashew nuts are being processed locally, with the other 95 percent being exported all the way to Vietnam or India for value addition before reaching consumer markets of Europe and America.

It is estimated that this created a loss of around 216bn/- (equivalent to 83 million EUR) in the season.