SRIKAKULAM: Andhra Pradesh’s cashew industry is located in Palasa in the much-neglected Srikakulam district.The industry, largely located on the outskirts of Palasa-Kasibugga town, gives work to 15,000 people, 90 per cent of whom are women from the Uddanam region of Srikukalam.Although the business turnover exceeds about Rs 400 crore per year, there is not even a Cashew Board in the state to pilot its fortunes.Consequently, cashew imports and exports are completely controlled by about 20 middlemen.They control the procurement of local cashew produce of 34,000 hectares in the district, and also imports from 35 countries including Nigeria, Ghana, and Ivory Coast.Cashew growers have no way of getting better prices for their produce as the middlemen decide everything, right from getting sales orders to transportation to markets.The middlemen negotiate deals with parties based in Bangalore, Noida, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kanpur, Kolkata and Ahmedabad.Producers have no go but to sell to these middlemen who take care of export and transportation logistics.Cashew producers are deterred from undertaking their own deals lest their produce be rejected by the quality control wings of cashew boards of other states.“We just cannot take the risk of direct marketing.We have to do our business through middlemen,” says M Suresh Kumar, a cashew producer.M Srinivasa Rao, president of the Palasa Cashew Industry Society, says they have lobbied four chief ministers -- Chandrababu Naidu, Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, K Rosaiah and Kiran Kumar Reddy -- to set up a Cashew Board but to little effect.“Even our local MLAs leave us to our plight,” he says.In the absence of a Cashew Board, there is no quality control and no initiative for infrastucutrue development.If there were one, a quality control wing could be located at Visakhapatnam, proximate to the port, which would facilitate easy exports.Credit access would be easier too.The cashew industries of Kerala and Karnataka are better organised which allows them to raise up to 90 per cent of investment by way of loans.Banks in AP do not lend to cashew units.Srinivasa Rao laments that organisations located in AP themselves do nothing to encourage the cashew producers of Palasa.The society offered to high-quality cashew to the Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanams (TTD) at half the price of Kerala cashew. But the Tirumala temple would not budge from importing the commodity from Kerala cashew.
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