The Cashew Cotton Council has just received significant support for the development and improvement of the sector. This is the CNFA, an international agricultural development organization based in Washington, which has officially signaled its presence at the American Andrew Young Center in Abidjan.

The collaboration between the Cotton-Cashew Council and the CNFA concerns a West African project called “Pro Cashew”. It covers Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria. And sets the same objectives as in Côte d'Ivoire in the development of the value chain.

“We have already started our activities in three of the five project countries, and we plan to move forward effectively to expand activities to the remaining two countries. Our goal is to leverage a comprehensive set of interventions to improve the cashew sector along the value chain,” says Jean François Guay, project manager.

Despite its leading position in production (more than 760,000 tonnes) and export, Côte d'Ivoire is struggling to process a large part of the walnut, in addition to the smuggling that is rampant in the northeast and the health crisis that adds to the many difficulties. Faced with the pandemic, the government had decided to buy back 400,000 tonnes of the nut to allow producers to benefit from their harvest.