Cashew nut industry has been thriving in Vetapalem since the British times as colonial rulers from Madras Presidency took special care to promote it in Prakasam district, thanks to the abundance of raw material in the coastal Chirala mandal.
The fabled Vetapalem edible nuts used to get pride of place in dryfruit stalls in different parts of the country. Those were the hay days when the processed nuts from here would be sent to Madras (now Chennai) for use by British officials and some portion of it used to be exported. It is no longer so as the cashew processing units are crumbling due to alleged ‘unimaginative’ EXIM policy. “We are losing to our counterparts in Vietnam, a new entrant in processing of the raw cashew nuts for re-export,” say propreitors of cashew manufacturing units in the sleepy village.
“The locally available raw material is not even enough to meet 5% of the demand of the processing units here, and as a result, the industry is in its death throes,” laments Vetapalem Cashew Manufacturers’ Association President Atmakuru Sudhakar. “Shortage of skilled labour is also adding to our woes,” adds its Secretary G.Naganjaneyulu.
In the Southeast Asian country, the entire process including shelling, drying and grading is mechanised unlike in Vetapalem, where shelling alone is done with machines. The raw nut processing cost had gone up by 75% but the product cost had not increased even by 30%. “That’s why many units are folding up,” explains a nut processing unit owner M.V.Sagar.
Fluctuating prices
As the seeds are not available locally, we are forced to import it from African countries and give commitments to food processing companies to supply cashew for the following year at a specific price. But they were not able to meet their commitments for various reasons, including fluctuating nut price in the international market. In some cases, the overseas sellers had even sent empty containers, they complain.
They want the Union and State governments to come to their rescue by providing subsidy for mechanisation, allow duty free import from countries such as Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria and grow cashew plantations from Ichapuram to Tada under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
Moisture stress
Meanwhile, a group of farmers in nearby Kadavakuthuru village explain that cashew nut plantations required little to no maintenance in reaching the fruit-bearing stage and some of them survived for nearly 100 years. They were also now facing severe moisture stress in view of severe drought prevailing in the district for the fourth consecutive year.
The plantations in over 1000 acres belonging to the Forest department are the only ones to survive as it leases out the plantations to tenant farmers who take special care to get maximum returns. “But the crop condition is not at all encouraging this year. We will not be able to realise even the lease rent this year,” says a tenant farmer Ganta Venkatesh. The real estate boom also had forced a section of the farmers to uproot the trees, adds another farmer G.Ram Babu.
