Illustrative image (Source: VNA) Le Van Duc, deputy head of the Department ofCrop Production under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD),blamed the yield decrease on unseasonal rains in January-March, which destroyedcashew flowers.
Meanwhile, local farmers have neglected extremeweather developments and diseases on cashew trees, said participating businesses.
A report released by the MARD shows that cashewoutput in the southern province of Binh Phuoc contracted by about 17.41 percentper ha; southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau province, 15.13 percent; and the CentralHighlands province of Lam Dong, over 50 percent.
Representatives from cashew-growing provincessaid the bad harvest was more noticeable in reality as several localities have yieldedzero.
Therefore, the country’s total cashew nut outputis forecast to hit over 252,000 tonnes in 2017, decreasing nearly 52,000 tonnescompared with the previous year’s figure. The amount meets only around 15-20percent of businesses’ demands for raw cashew nuts.
Given this, Nguyen Trung Anh, director of theresearch and development centre of PAN Group, suggested local farmers pay moreheed to intensive cultivation and technological improvement.
Nguyen Duc Thanh, Chairman of the Vietnam CashewAssociation (VCA), said the unexpected reduction may affect business plans ofcashew processors.
To ensure sustainable development for the cashewsector in the time ahead, he suggested the MARD adjust the national cashewdevelopment strategy until 2020 by expanding the cashew area from 340,000 ha to400,000 ha.
MARD Deputy Minister Le Quoc Doanh urged the VCAto boost its connectivity with localities and farmers to ensure stable cashewproduction areas.
In 2016, cashew nut was Vietnam’s major farmproduce, only behind coffee in terms of export value. The country shipped348,000 tonnes of cashew nuts for 2.84 billion USD, up 5.6 percent in volumeand 18.4 percent in value from a year ago.-VNA
VNA
