Maputo, Oct. 24, 2025 (Lusa) - Mozambique plans to invest $374 million (€322 million) to develop the cashew sector and increase annual production from the current 158,000 tonnes per year to 689,000 tonnes by 2034, it announced on Friday.
According to information released by the Mozambican Ministry of Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries, the aim of the programme, to be implemented throughout the country, "is to promote the sustainable and competitive development of the cashew value chain, strengthening research, promotion, extension, marketing and processing", contributing "to increasing production and producers' income and generating employment opportunities".
"Cashew nuts are a product of social cohesion and the promotion of food and nutritional security, and we encourage them to be introduced into school feeding programmes and recipes in our restaurants," said Minister Roberto Albino, quoted in the same report.
The Cashew Value Chain Development Programme 2025-2034 includes the reform of implementation mechanisms to strengthen the industry and, in addition to increasing production levels, according to the ministry, it also envisages increasing "assistance capacity from 230,000 to over 600,000 producers, processing capacity from 40,000 to over 482,000 tonnes and consolidating the process of digitising the sector".
The programme was formally launched on Thursday, with the minister in charge, Roberto Albino, stressing that the state must focus on creating a favourable business environment, through policies that boost rapid business development: "The players in the almond value chain must say what they want the government to do, so that the business environment can flow in such a way as to generate wealth for the country."
He added that the aim was to foster alliances among players, benefiting producers, industrialists, and exporters, and contributing to the country's development.
"We have to draw on the experiences of other cashew nut-producing countries," said the minister, arguing that industrialising the cashew sector would generate more jobs for young people and women.
"We want to make the cashew industry work without major state intervention," he added.
To increase cashew nut yields, this programme also involves viewing the entire chain as a business.
"Faced with the challenges facing the industry, the solution is to process the whole nut in the country. In this context, the government is going to hold a meeting with the industries to define mechanisms that encourage internal investment and strengthen the sector," explains the ministry, regarding the aim of the programme now launched.
Previous official data indicated that the marketing of cashew nuts in Mozambique reached around 195,400 tonnes in the last campaign of 2024/2025, a milestone closer to the record of the 1970s, when the country was one of the world's largest producers.
Mozambique's cashew nut exports continue to grow, reaching $38.7 million (€33 million) in the first quarter, leading in foreign sales among the so-called "traditional products", according to data from the Bank of Mozambique.
According to information from the Ministry of Agriculture, cashew nut production in Mozambique reached more than 200,000 tonnes a year 50 years ago, still during the colonial period, and until the mid-1970s Mozambique was the world's second largest cashew producer (210,000 tonnes processed in 1973), behind only India, which bought a large part of this production then and still does today.
After Mozambique's independence on 25 June 1975, production fell to less than 10%, to around 15,000 to 20,000 tonnes a year, but it has been growing every year, and in the last marketing year 2024/2025 it stood out among the largest producers, remaining in seventh place.
PVJ/ADB // ADB.
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