AGRICULTURE
Cashew-In Platform
Building a Sustainable Cashew Sector in West Africa Through Data and Collaboration.
Africa is a leading producer of raw cashew nuts , accounting for a significant portion of global production. In 2023, West Africa’s cashew harvest reached a record-breaking 3 million tons, marking a 15% increase from the previous year. Specifically, Côte d’Ivoire stands out as the world’s top producer, with a crop of approximately 1.2 million metric tons. Other major producers in the region include Nigeria, Ghana, and Benin.
Cashew farming in West Africa is predominantly carried out by smallholder farmers, with over 2 million of them contributing to more than 30% of the global supply. The profitability of cashew farming varies based on factors such as market information, yield, market access, and global prices.
Comprehensive and reliable data is required in order for cashew farmers, producers, processors, and other stakeholders in the West African cashew sector to increase profits, reduce losses, and improve global competitiveness.
As part of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Food for Progress PRO-Cashew project for West Africa, Development Gateway collaborated with Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA) to develop a data collection and analysis platform, Cashew-In. This platform aims to enhance cashew productivity and competitiveness by supporting informed decision-making across the value chain in Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Nigeria. By improving access to data and insights, stakeholders can increase yields per hectare and reduce post-harvest losses, improve competitiveness through high-quality cashews meeting global standards, and help create more jobs.
The project came to an end in August 2024 after four years of working with government agencies, producers, traders, processors, and development partners in the five implementing countries to co-create the Cashew-IN web portal, aimed at informing, supporting, promoting, and strengthening Africa’s cashew industry. The platform includes i) a regional dashboard managed by the International Cashew Council (CICC) and ii) country dashboards managed by an officially designated country administrator.
As the Cashew-IN platform is regional in scope, DG identified the International Cashew Advisory Council (CICC), an intergovernmental organization promoting cashew value chains, as a sustainability partner. The CICC comprises 11 countries, including the five Cashew-IN countries, and is decentralized at the level of each member country, with focal points per country from the cashew sector’s regulatory bodies or, failing that, the Ministry of Agriculture.
At the regional level, the CICC has taken ownership of the platform by providing two IT staff who have been trained to manage, update, and use the platform as well as adding new features. The Executive Director of the CICC also announced a plan to include other CICC member countries that are not involved in the Pro-Cashew-In programme and create a consultative committee made up of the three CICC technical committees (Production, Research, and Processing).
To support ownership and sustainability at the country level, DG worked with national stakeholders from government institutions, producer associations, and the private sector to set up national committees responsible for managing their own version of the Cashew-IN platform in compliance with their laws and regulations governing data collection, ownership, and publication.