Media Release

Macau (Hong Kong), Feb 12: As the chairperson of the most important session of the recently concluded three-day World Cashew Convention in Macau, Hong Kong, Walter D'Souza, former chairman of the Cashew Export Promotion Council of India (CEPCI) and the Federation of Indian Export Organization(FIEO) gave a clarion call to intensify promotion of cashew consumption in all the continents of the globe. The session had expert panellists from the USA, Germany, Japan, China, Hong Kong and India.

The annual World Cashew Convention was attended by over 450 stakeholders from over 45 countries from all the continents of the world. Walter D’Souza projected the global raw cashew nut production to be of the order of 5 million metric tonnes by 2025 and cross 10 million metric tonnes by 2030 from the current figure of 3 million metric tonnes. The exponential growth in production will throw open new opportunities at every level of the supply and value chains, he said.

Walter D’Souza opined that the growing crop will also come with challenges in terms of ensuring growth in consumption on par with the growing production which can be achieved only by promotions of the health benefits and usage as a regular food ingredient.

Walter D’Souza expressed the urgent need to remunerate the growers with a sustainable price for their produce, so that there is no migration to other commercial crops in lieu of cashews. His opinion was strongly endorsed by fellow speakers Marc Rosenblatt of the USA, Vincent Rieckmann of Germany, George Ishiguro of Japan, Chen Ying of China and Soo Choi of Hong Kong.

It may be recalled that Walter D’Souza had initiated the process of bringing the major cashew processors of the World under one umbrella while he was the chairman of the CEPCI in the year 2006. The first ever bilateral MoU for cashews was signed between India and Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in 2006, followed by a tripartite MoU with India, Vietnam and Brazil in Florida, USA in 2007. He was the signatory to both the MoUs on behalf of India and was unanimously elected as the first convenor of the global cashew alliance. Since the tripartite MoU was entered into, lot of efforts have been initiated to give a boost to cashew cultivation, processing, marketing and promotion through the length and breadth of the world.

With the world crop growing at an accelerated pace, the Global Cashew Alliance, which is now functioning as Global Cashew Council (GCC) under the International Nut Council (INC) it is imperative to promote consumption at a healthy pace matching with the growth in cultivation. GCC has already initiated various R&D studies to validate the health benefits of cashews on patients with diabetic, cancer and other diseases. The world community of cashew growers and processors pledged to join hands in the initiative of promotion with greater vigour during the days to come.