Ed Butler
Business Reporter, BBC News
Reporting images of Ghanagetty, Ghanagetty
Nuts of cashews, which grow from cashews, are a large export harvest for Ghana
The seller of Accra Street looks at me, perplexed.
I try to establish how the rather fragile bag 30 g of roasted cashews that it sells, alongside a stifling highway in the capital of Ghana, costs me the equivalent of around 75 cents (60p).
It is obviously not much money for me, a visitor to the United Kingdom, but I am amazed at the brand.
The price is at least 4,000% higher than the cost of purchasing the same weight of raw cashews and not checked to a Ghanian farmer.
“It’s incredible,” protests. However, she does not understand my English or my reasoning.
The price of nuts was, after all, printed on the package. And to explain why I thought it was beyond the pale was never going to be easy.
Ghana is the third world exporter of unprocessed cashew nuts, behind Ivory Coast in first place, and Cambodia in second position.
To produce the harvest, around 300,000 Ghanaians are at least part of their growing cashew nuts.
Nashiru Seydou, whose family has a farm in the northeast of the country, around 500 miles (800 km) from Accra, is one of them.
He says that the work is hard and that the supply chains unreliable and the prices of wholesale volatiles make survival difficult.
“We have trouble. We can use sunlight, fertile earth, to create more jobs,” he said. “I would be happy if the government comes to our help and helps support our industry.”
He tells me that he is currently obtaining about $ 50 for a large bag of 100 kg of unlit cashews.
The Ghanaian farmer of cashew nuts Nashiru Seydou says that it is a difficult way of making a living
“It’s amazing,” said Bright Simons, an economic entrepreneur and commentator in Accra, who studied the figures. “The roasters and retailers buy nuts from farmers for $ 500 per tonne and sell to customers (in the country and abroad) for amounts between $ 20,000 and $ 40,000 per ton.”
Overall, Ghana cultivates around 180,000 tonnes of cashews. More than 80% are exported and in raw and non -co -coated form. This generates some $ 300 million in export income, but means that Ghana is lacking the considerably higher yields than you get roasted and ready -to -eat cashew nuts.
Mildred Akotia is a person who tries to increase the quantity of cashew nuts that are bombed and roasted in Ghana. She is the founder and CEO of Akwaaba Fine Foods, who currently treats only 25 tonnes per year.
Ms. Akotia denies any suggestion that she and others as she get prices. The packaging and roasting machines that a Western company would automatically use in this industry, she says, is out of reach for it due to the high cost of credit in Ghana.
“If you go to a local bank, it will cost you 30% interest in getting a loan,” she complains. “As a manufacturer, you tell me what is the size of your margins so that you can afford this kind of interest? We had to count on what we can get: soft loans from parents and agency subsidies donors. “
It says that this situation is the reason why less than 20% of Ghana cashew nuts are treated locally. The volumes are picked up and exported to large factories in countries like India, Thailand and Vietnam.
Remarkably, some of these wrapped nuts are then exported to Ghana, where they are sold at the same price as national roasted cashews. This despite the round trip of 20,000 miles of maritime freight and import costs.
It is a similar image for rice, which is exported to Ghana from Asia and sold at low prices, despite the Ghana which also cultivated the harvest itself.
Transformed cashews and national roasters are available in Ghana, but imported brands have the same price
In 2016, the Ghanaian government experienced an export ban on raw cashew nuts in order to encourage local treatment. However, politics had to be abandoned within two weeks after the tumult of farmers and traders.
Without cheap loans available, it was not possible for enough new Ghanaian roasters to enter the market. Thus, the price of gross nuts crashed, and many began to rot for lack of a buyer.
More recently, there has been a question of increased prices on gross cashew exports and the prohibitions of exporters buying cashew nuts directly on farms.
But all these political interventions are missing a key point, according to Mr. Simons. A great challenge for local producers, he says, is to work harder on the basics of doing business and developing their businesses.
“In order to be effective on this subject, you need a scale,” he said, adding that companies must promote cashew nuts to make it more widespread in the country. “You need a lot of Ghanaians who consume nuts, not just a small middle class”.
Professor Daron Acemoglu, Turkish-American economist, is appropriate that the construction of a solid local market is important for the Ghana cashew nut industry. He was one of the winners last year of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, for his work on the difficulties of low -income economies, and in particular their local businesses.
However, he says that the first priority should be to improve access to international markets for transformed Ghanaian cashew nuts.
“These companies treat workforce that is not properly qualified, they have infrastructures that do not work, they are constantly afraid of corrupt officials or rules, and it is also very difficult to reach foreign markets, said -he.” They need the foreign market because the internal market is small and their own government has very little capacity (to stimulate it). “”
He also wants to see the Ghanaian government improve the network of roads and railways to lighten the cost of transport.
Mildred Akotia has great ambitions for her cashew nut company
But Mr. Simons believes that the burden should now be on the Ghanaian companies themselves, to make the foundations to improve the brand and the marketing of cashew nuts. As it stands, he says, many of the country’s most enterprising business people leave Ghana for better remunerated opportunities abroad due to administrative formalities and cronyism in Ghana are so prohibitive.
“There is a massive brain flight,” he said. “My theory on the reasons why the economic development of Africa has been slow is that we focus too much on supply, but real beauty is in demand, creating a class consumer of cashews, and you Do not have an entrepreneurial class which can create a transformation of demand.
He says that the same argument applies to other larger exports in Ghana, such as gold and chocolate, which do not get much added value in Ghana before being exported to the west.
Mildred Akotia hopes that it could be one of these entrepreneurs to reverse the trend. She now wants to build her own logistical arm, to be able to treat cashew nuts directly from the farm.
“I have a lot of water, Canada and America calls. Currently, we cannot meet demand. We cannot get enough grains to roast.
“There is a ready market both locally and international. My brand is good, my marketing is good. My dream is to give a lift to Ghanaian processed foods.”
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