Grow more cashew nuts to fully exploit potential, PS tells Coast farmers

Coastal farmers should invest more on cashew nut farming to reap maximum benefits from the sector which has a huge untapped potential.

Investment Promotion PS Abubakar Hassan said there is low production of cashew nuts at the Coast. This has forced investors to import the nuts from neighbouring Tanzania.

Hassan said there is already a firm in Kilifi county to off-take all the cashew nuts available.

Nuts & More Processing (EA) EPZ Ltd, which started operations in 2023 hoping to use purely Kenyan raw materials, has been forced to venture into Tanzania for the produce.

“The investor is struggling to find raw material. He has the capacity of 7,000 tonnes per annum but what he is able to get is only gets 3,000 tonnes in Kenya. This has prompted him to now import cashew nuts from Tanzania,” PS Hassan said.

He spoke in Kilifi during a tour of the EPZs in the coastal counties.

“We want to work with him and other government institutions especially the Agriculture ministry, on how we can encourage our farmers to plant more cashew.”

Nuts & More Processing (EA) EPZ Ltd is able to access the European market quarter-free and duty-free.

“We have given him the environment under our Expro processing programme that will reduce his cost of production,” the PS said.

The Kenya Extractives Programme (K-Expro) aims to contribute to poverty reduction in Kenya.

This is through inclusive and sustainable economic development within the extractive industries.

The PS said the government will work with Kilifi farmers to ensure they produce enough cashew nuts for the factory to operate at the maximum with purely Kenyan nuts.

Nuts & More Processing (EA) EPZ Ltd CEO Thomas Haffa said Kilifi has the best quality cashew nuts.

He called on farmers to increase the acreage under the cash crop.

“Our intention is to revive the Kenyan cashew belt. The potential is really huge and if you want, the sky is the limit,” Haffa said.

Kilifi Governor Gideon Mung’aro said the county government is on a programme to sensitise farmers on the potential of the cash crop.

He said it could earn the farmers up to a million shillings per acre per annum.

“We want to partner with the factory to see how we can mobilise our farmers through the agriculture department. Then we will see if each farmer can come up with an acre of cashew because there is a market now,” Mung’aro said.

PS Hassan said the government is planning to set up another cashew nut factory in Lamu. This means there will be even more need for the nuts to be produced.

“But for us to sustain these two factories we need to produce more cashew nuts,” he said.

The PS said there is need to work with county governments to sensitise and encourage farmers to come up with more cashew even if it means subsidising their production.

Nuts & More Processing (EA) EPZ Ltd is doing around 30-40 per cent value addition.

PS Hassan said the government is ready to work with the investor to bring up the value addition to about 100 per cent.

The Coast region is emerging as an industrial hub with the cashew nuts value chain being a priority value chain in the coastal belt for the government.

Kwale and Kilifi counties are emerging as the most industrial counties in the region under Kenya’s EPZ programme.

The Kenya Kwanza administration has licensed 28 EPZ enterprises so far and half of them are at the Coast.

Out of these, 14 enterprises are at the Coast. About 60 per cent of them have been set up in Kilifi county.

“So we are seeing that Kilifi county is coming up in terms of the industrialisation agenda,” Hassan said.

He said the government is working on a programme to ensure the EPZ footprint covers the whole coastal region.

At the moment, majority of them are in Kilifi, Mombasa and Kwale counties.

“So we want to target Lamu, Tana River and Taita Taveta counties. We are working with the governors to actualise this,” the PS said.

Haffa said the factory has employed 200 people working one shift.

“If we work two shifts, it is 400 employees permanently,” the CEO said.

He said the biggest social impact is with the small scale farmer community with approximately 13,000 farmers registered with the factory, who supply cashew nuts.

Haffa said the last season was poor for them because of the El Nino rains.

“But we are hopeful that starting this year October and November we will get more raw materials,” he said.