A factory for a better future
Farmers Co-operative will keep profit in the community instead of exporting it
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A fresh cashewnut. The farmers in UVUKI will open their own factory to keep the profit from processing the nuts in the community
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09. March 2006
On the top of a hill near Kibaha in Tanzania a building is under construction. The walls are finished, but the factory, as it is going to be, still needs some work before it is ready to process cashewnuts for the world market. However, the unfinished factory represents the hope for a better life for about 690 cashewnuts farmers in the Kibaha area. They are all members of the Kibaha Agricultural Marketing Co-operative Joint Enterprise. One of them is Emmanuel Msangi. His family has been farmers for generations.
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Emmanuel Msangi is cashewnut farmer in Kibaha and member of UVUKI
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”We have never been able to process the nuts for direct sale in stores and we have to sell them as raw material at a very low price to India, where they can process them. That does not only cost us potential income, but it also feels bad to see others taking profit from your work,” says Msangi.
He has 70 cashewnut trees and since the price for processed nuts is up to ten times as high as the raw material, the factory could mean a lot of extra money for the Msangi family and others like them. But even without the factory the farmers have already benefitted from the co-operation. They were offered workshops on budgeting, credit possibilities, sustainable farming and sharing of machines.
”In the two years our co-operative has been here we have made a lot of progress. It is important and encouraging for us that we are now close to reaching our goal of finishing the factory. It will not only bring in more money but also generate jobs for about one hundred women in the area,” says Msangi.
The farmers in Kibaha hope to be able to use the factory for their harvest next year.
FACT BOX
The cashewnut production in Tanzania is 120,000 tons, and there are only 12 cashew nut processing factories in the country, but none of them working properly. This means that most cashewnut farmers have to sell their harvest to India, where the production capacity is much bigger. Almost 90 percent of the raw cashewnut harvest is exported.
