{"id":439384,"date":"2026-02-22T09:27:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T09:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/439384\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T09:27:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T09:27:18","slug":"stakeholders-call-for-value-addition-financing-reforms-in-cashew-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/439384\/","title":{"rendered":"Stakeholders call for value addition, financing reforms in cashew sector"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The <\/a>The Summit was organised by the Tree Crops Development Authority<\/p>\n

Speakers at a cashew session of the maiden Ghana Tree Crops Investment Summit and Exhibition have called for reforms to promote local processing, improve financing and strengthen value addition. <\/p>\n

The Summit, organised by the Tree Crops Development Authority in partnership with the World Bank, the Bank of Ghana, GIZ and other partners, opened in Accra on Tuesday, February 17, on the theme: \u201cSustainable Growth through Tree Crops Investment: Resetting and Building Ghana\u2019s Green Economy.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mahama Ayariga, Majority Leader, said developments in the global cocoa sector underscored the need for Ghana to diversify and prioritise value addition in other strategic crops such as cashew. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf supply exceeds demand, what happens? Price falls. That is basically what has brought us where we are,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Ayariga described cashew as \u201ca strategic national asset\u201d that supported more than 200,000 farmers and contributed significantly to export earnings but noted that over 85 per cent of Ghana\u2019s raw cashew nuts were exported without processing. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou produce cashew in Ghana, you put them in ships, you send them to India, they process it in India, then they put it back in the ship and bring it to your shores. How ridiculous,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He said Parliament was ready to support legislative and fiscal measures to boost domestic processing, enhance regulation and improve traceability. <\/p>\n

Sylvester Adinam Mensah, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Export-Import Bank, said tree crops offered a pathway to economic transformation beyond primary production. <\/p>\n

\u201cInvesting in tree crops is not only a narrow agricultural agenda, it is an economic transformation agenda,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

On cashew, Mensah said the greater potential lay in processing, quality enhancement, branding and market access, and gave an assurance that the Ghana Export-Import Bank was committed to providing affordable financing tailored to the long gestation periods of tree crops. <\/p>\n

\u201cTree crops require patience. There is a time gap between investment and returns,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Oseadeeyo Kwasi Akuffo III, Okuapemhene, who chaired the session, called for improved productivity, sustainable land use and tailored financial products for farmers and processors. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t just lift our hands and say there is risk in financing smallholder farms. I disagree with that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The Okuapemhene emphasised that \u201csustainability and climate reliability are paramount,\u201d and noted that responsible cultivation could support carbon sequestration and land restoration. <\/p>\n

The speakers agreed that stronger policy consistency, investment coordination and stakeholder collaboration were critical to positioning Ghana as a competitive cashew processing hub within the green economy agenda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Summit was organised by the Tree Crops Development Authority Speakers at a cashew session of the maiden…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-439384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}