Tanzania will sell cashew nuts through its newly established commodity exchange, the Tanzania Commodity Exchange (TMX).

According to the system, the sale of raw cashew nuts will take place in special auction markets created by the government in early October 2024.

TMX promises quality, quantity and on-time delivery to buyers and guaranteed payment to sellers. The system mostly supports farmers in the crop-producing southern districts of Mtwara and Lindi.

Farmers operating within the Main Cooperative Union (Mamcu) organized the first cashew nut auction market of the 2024/2025 agricultural season and sold 18 thousand tons of hazelnuts for $ 1.53 per kilo.

This marks an increase of 38 percent compared to the 2022/2023 trading season, when a kilogram of raw cashews was sold for $1.09.

Francis Alfred, managing director of the Tanzania Cashew nut Management Board, attributed the increase in price to low yields caused by the recent El-Niño phenomenon in the southern region.

He said Tanzania expects to export more hazelnuts (280,000-300,000 tonnes) abroad. In the past, the average was 253,000 tons.

CBRT increased product prices.

The demand for cashew nuts in the world market is quite high. CBT wants Tanzanian farmers and others in the value chain to ensure consistent, high-quality production for the international market.

Tanzania is one of Africa’s largest cashew producers; Its exports provide 10-15 percent of the country’s foreign exchange and earn at least $18 million. The country is the eighth largest producer of cashew nuts in the world and fourth in Africa.

According to figures published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 2022, inadequate regulation and the lack of reliable payments to farmers pose significant challenges for the subsector.

Cashew nut production policy is often controversial. In recent years, legislators from producing constituencies have turned to government officials who have failed farmers by allowing middlemen to exploit them.

In the 2020/2021 financial year, lawmakers representing the country’s southern regions were outraged after authorities issued an export license to a company that was unable to raise funds for its export business. Now the government says it is taking care of the problem, including taxes and other fees.

The government says it is better to transfer some of the export tax to the treasury as a consolidated fund to develop the sector, rather than sending it to farmers.