EFFECT OF INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT AND TREES RENEWAL ON INCOME RESPONSE OF CASHEW NUTS

Mozambique was the world’s leading producer and exporter of cashews in the 1970s, commanding 40% of the world market. However, decades of civil war, unreliable national strategies, low farm-gate-prices, feeble marketing systems, lacks of agriculture inputs and consumer goods, severe drought, ageing of trees and diseases, have led to a major decline in production and processing, in the 1990s. Currently, the country is implementing two major policy instruments, the integrated pest management of cashew trees (IPM) and intensification of production and distribution of seedlings (IPDS), to revert the decreasing production and increase income of farmers. Despites the elapsed twenty years of implementation of these measures, from 1998/99 to 2018/19, production, and yields remain low. The study examines the effect of IPM and IPDS, on yield and income of farmers and proposes strategic policy measures to revert the causes of the problems, including (a) the transformation of subsistence smallholder into commercial farmers trough cooperatives of trees plantation and mini industrial parks; (b) promote a tangible and reliable market for the smallholder kernels and (c) microfinance schemes that thrives because it is linked into an approach where the recipients of the loans will have the capability to pay back. It is hoped that the study findings and recommendations will provoke discussion and further research on the strategic cashew subsector in Mozambique. The study is useful in preparing the country’s policies, strategies and investment development plans in cashew subsector and related areas.