India: Bad Weather to Pull Down Cashew Output.

India's cashew production, which accounts for more than a fifth of the global production, is projected to come down due to unseasonal rains and erratic temperature in the producing regions, officials of the Kochi-based Directorate of Cashew and Cocoa Development (DACCD) said. The cashew crop for 2011 is likely to be delayed by more than a month due to slow flowering, Venkatesh Hubballi, director of DACCD told FE. "Flowering of cashew trees across South India is expected to be down by almost 40%. If the rains and erratic temperature continue we may see more damages," he said, adding that further rains could lead to flowers and cashew apples withering away.

Fruit setting in cashew will be good if rains are not abundant during flowering and nuts mature in a dry period, DACCD sources said. Dry spell during flowering and fruit setting ensures better harvest. Cloudy weather during flowering enhances scorching of flowers while heavy rains during flowering and fruit damage production. Nuts are generally harvested in India from February up to May. According to the data provided by the agency, India's cashew production during the last crop year (2009-10) stood at 6.13 lakh tonne. In 2008-09 it was around 6.95 lakh tonne and 6.6 lakh tonne in 2007-08.Cashew is mainly cultivated in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. To a limited extent it is being cultivated in Chhattisgarh, north eastern states and Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

India has to import more than half of its requirement of raw cashew due to the poor productivity in cashew plantations. Indian productivity is lower by three to four times that the productivity achieved in Vietnam. While Vietnam has hardly 10% of the world's cashew farming area, it produces 34% of the world's cashew. India, on the other hand, has the largest share of land under cashew (24%) but has a share of only 19% of the total production. The productivity of Vietnam is 2.8 tonne of cashew nuts per hectare, while the average productivity in India is only 663 kg per hectare. Import of raw cashew for 2009-10 was higher by 15 % in value terms and 24% in volume terms as compared with 2008-09. In dollar terms the value of imports for the last fiscal stands at $ 640.25 million as against $ 572.39 million during 2008-09.

Source: msn.com