Transition of World Cashew Industry: Challenges Ahead for India

Abstract

Cashew is an important commodity traded across the continents and the world cashew industry is the livelihood of more than three million people worldwide, the majority of whom are womenfolk from the socially and economically backward community of the developing nations. India was the first country to hit the world market with cashew as a commodity and it was she who pioneered cashew processing as an industry. For decades together India was enjoying a monopoly in the world cashew industry. The liberalization of international trade has brought in a big transition in the field of cashew. India started to benefit from the trade policy, but with more raw nut producing countries acquiring the knowhow of processing coupled with vast mechanization in cashew processing, India started losing her premier positions in the world cashew scenario. The inability to make use of opportunity, foreign entrants in the domestic market, foreign suppliers of raw nuts, reduction in the international market share, shift in the processing, identify new market are some of the major challenges that awaits Indian cashew Industry. This transition of world cashew industry and the challenges that await India in the years to come in view of these continued transition were the subject matter of this research work. The findings of the study enable the Indian cashew Industry to gear up to cater the ever increasing demand of the domestic market as well as to contribute in a better way to the growth of the country. Though there has been a lot of research conducted in the field of cashew, the gap of a research in the above mentioned dimension is huge. This prompted the researcher to conduct a study in this aspect