The cashew nut industry is in difficulty in Senegal. After a poor harvest and a surge in prices of raw cashew nuts, processors are lacking raw materials, to the point that all processing units in the country have suspended their activity since last May.
From our correspondent in Dakar,
The accounts are in the red. Instead of the usual 300 tonnes of cashew nuts, Ethicajou, one of Senegal’s four industrial processors, says it was only able to purchase 24 tonnes. In question, sky-high prices following a harvest half as large and the absence of state protection measures to prevent cashew producers from selling to Vietnamese and Indian exporters rather than to Senegalese companies.
In Casamance, Ethicajou was forced to close until the next campaign in April 2025, and the 119 people who worked there were dismissed for economic reasons. A situation which endangers the future of the company, established three years ago thanks to a foreign investment and not yet in balance, while the employment potential that this company represents for the Kolda area in Casamance – one of the poorest in the country – is crucial.
For each of the cashew processing units in Senegal, it is the same scenario. The machines are stopped. More than 400 people lost their jobs.
A cashew sector with high employment potential
With around 2,000 tonnes of raw cashew nuts processed each year, the sector only represents 3% of what is harvested in Senegal. But it is only waiting to grow, say cashew defenders who put forward this figure.
For 65,000 tonnes of cashew nuts in 2023, shelling, roasting and packaging cashews for direct consumption would create more than 2,600 worker jobs and nearly 900 technician jobs. Crucial data for a country undermined by youth unemployment. To do this, cashew nut supplies must be secured.
No export taxes
The Senegal is the only country in the ECOWAS with the Gambia not to tax raw exports abroad and not to have a policy supporting the processing of the precious nut.
Last June, a plea based on the model of Ivory Coast was therefore transmitted to the new Senegalese authorities. Among the demands, that of imposing a tax of 52 CFA francs (0.08 euro cents) per kilo on exporters to encourage them to sell as a priority to Senegalese processors, and thus give cashew nuts a chance 100 % made in Senegal to be exported abroad rather than just raw nuts.
Also readIvory Coast encourages local processing of cashew nuts
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