Abidjan (Côte d'Ivoire) - The Ivorian government set Wednesday, in the Council of Ministers, a "mandatory" floor price for cashew nuts at 305 Fcfa per kilogram (Kg) for the 2021 marketing campaign which begins on February 5, 2021, announced its spokesperson Sidi Touré.
"For the 2021 cashew nut marketing campaign which opens on February 5, 2021, the Council approved the compulsory floor price of 305 CFA francs per kg to producers for the cashew nut that is well dried, well sorted and containing no material. foreign, "Sidi Touré told the press.
On the basis of a reference CAF (Cost-insurance-freight) price of 1,300 UD dollars (709,145 CFA francs) per tonne, the minimum farm gate price was set at 400 Fcfa per Kg, up 25 Fcfa per Kg compared to 2019.
The farm gate price for the 2021 cashew season is experiencing a downward trend linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the spokesperson for the Ivorian government, the price of 305 Fcfa / Kg was possible thanks to a reduction of the USD from 7% to 5% of the reference CIF price.
Faced with the downward trend in farm gate prices, linked to the Covid-19 pandemic which has led to a drop in the price of fines, the Ivorian government has provided support to the cashew sector through the granting of a subsidy of 100 Fcfa then 200 Fcfa / Kg to maintain the price to producers.
This support amounted to a total of 34.2 billion Fcfa which enabled the removal of 264,985 tonnes of cashews at the minimum price. In addition, a subsidy of 168 Fcfa per Kg was granted to help fill the competitiveness gap of local consumers, i.e. a provisional total of 3.264 billion Fcfa collected by 11 processors who produced and marketed 4060 tons of fine, equivalent to 20,400 tonnes of raw nuts.
At the end of the 2020 campaign, a production of 848,700 tonnes had been marketed against 634,631 tonnes in 2019, an increase of 33%. In addition, with the average farm gate price of 350 Fcfa per Kg, 297 billion Fcfa were distributed to producers against 238 billion Fcfa in 2019.
In order to consolidate the achievements of the sector reform, the Council decided in particular to continue the support mechanism for national actors to strengthen their capacity to mobilize funding.
The Council instructed the services responsible for border protection to take all measures to combat the leakage of nuts through land borders. Despite these optimistic measures, the campaign was severely disrupted by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Steve Huang – According AP
