MOZAMBIQUE AIMS TO PRODUCE MORE CASHEW NUTS

Mozambique wants to produce over 20,000 tons of cashew nuts above the 80,000 tons harvested in the year 2014 to 2015. The goal now set amounts, however, half of what the country produced in the 70s which was around 200,000 tons, which put Mozambique as world's largest producer. Although it reduced the production of cashew nuts, the country's strength is not the worst, at least at the level of the African continent. It is that Mozambique ranks fourth in the production of cashew nuts in Africa, losing to Côte d'Ivoire, the largest producer; Guinea-Bissau, the second; and Tanzania, which is in the third position. According to the director of the National Cashew Institute (INCAJU), Filomena Maiópuè, the current amount disclosed on cashew nut production pertains only to the formal processing. Amounts remain not estimated in the informal system. "We have nuts that we can not account for, which are marketed not only in the streets but also in supermarkets," he says. "But most important is that it is circular and improve the lives of Mozambicans", he cautioned.