ACA News

Value Chain and Gains - A Preview of This Year's Conference Theme

One Tree, Many Benefits: Potential Gains in the Cashew Value Chain

Last year in Ghana, 60,000 small holder farmers tended to cashew trees on around 60,000 hectares of land. While best known for producing a kidney-shaped snack nut, these trees and their products hold potential far beyond one type of consumption. From pastes, to juice, to cookies, discovering the many uses of the products of the tree is crucial to truly taking advantage of this unique natural resource and to boosting a sector which accounted for 6% of Ghana’s total GDP last year.

Cashew...

ACA Featured in WTO's 4th Review of Aid for Trade

On July 9, 2013, Georgette Taraf, ACA President, Partheeban Theodore, Advisory Board member and Vice President & Head of Export Operations at Olam International, and Arie Endendijk, Managing Director of Intersnack Procurement at Intersnack Group, represented the ACA at a U.S. sponsored event in Geneva, Switzerland. The event was part of the WTO’s 4th Review of Aid for Trade, which focused specifically on adding value along production chains, and the benefits of participation in global value chains.

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Introducing Dr. Kantha Shelke: A Speaker at the ACA World Cashew Festival and Expo 2013

The African Cashew Alliance is excited to introduce Kantha Shelke as a speaker at the ACA World Cashew Festival and Expo 2013 on 16-19 September in Accra, Ghana. Dr. Shelke, a leading food scientist, will present during the "New Market Opportunities" portion of this year's plenary discussion. We were lucky enough to ask her a few questions about her background and even get a sneak-peak at what she will be presenting at the conference.

Ms Shelke, can you please introduce yourself?...

ACA Benefits Come Full Circle in New Partnership

The ACA recently saw its mission realized by a new team of cashew processing companies. In late June 2013, the Food Processing Co. Ltd. (Food Pro) was in the process of implementing the ACA Quality and Sustainability Seal program at their plant in Nigeria. In order to better understand the necessary elements of an efficient and quality factory, the Food Pro team hoped to tour a working and Seal approved facility. Their search led them to a man and company that had once been in their position.

Just 3 years ago, Patrick Wainaina came...

A Discussion with ACA's Global Development Alliance Private Sector Partners

On April 26, 2013, the USAID officially awarded the African Cashew Alliance (ACA) with a Global Development Alliance (GDA) grant. Pegged as a market-based approach to meeting business and development objectives, the GDA grant to ACA is meant to result in $10M of additional income for rural communities, over a two-year time span. The African Cashew Alliance will be leveraging its public-private partnerships to meet these benchmarks. ...

Value Chains and Gains - The ACA World Cashew Festival and Expo 2013

The ACA community truly comes alive for a couple of days each year at the annual ACA Cashew Conference. This meeting of cashew industry representatives is now the largest cashew industry event in the world, and it brought together over 500 delegates from 36 different countries in Benin last year. For the past 7 years, conference participants have benefited from new business partnerships, information on the latest market trends and technology, and first-hand exposure to some of Africa’s most prominent farms and processing factories. The conference is truly a microcosm of the...

IDH and ARECA Now Official Partners of ACi

ACi relies on the support and expertise from both private and public sector partners in fostering a competitive and growing cashew industry. The month of July saw two milestones for ACi as it gained two new Core Partners: The Sustainable Trade Initiative – IDH and The Regulatory Authority of Cotton and Cashew in Ivory Coast, ARECA.

A two year cooperation agreement for the 2nd Call of Applications for the Cashew Matching Fund was signed with IDH as it decided to cooperate closer. IDH officially became a funding partner to the ACi Matching Fund...

When Money Really Does Grow on Trees: The Rise of the Cashew Industry in Ghana

Though only a little larger than a one cedi coin, the cashew nut has the potential to be economic dynamite in Ghana, and it’s just beginning to spark. Over the last couple of years, cashew production in Ghana has grown at a rapid pace. This increase within Ghana is part of a larger trend throughout Africa, as cashew production has nearly doubled on the continent over the last 10 years. Now, over two million African farmers grow about 48% of the world’s cashew, slowly replacing previous hubs for the nut, such as Vietnam and India. As cashew nut production rises...