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However, cashew nut gained importance in international trade only in the early 1920’s.
Today, it is cultivated mainly in India, Mozambique, Tanzania, Brazil, and Kenya.
The total annual world production is estimated to be about 570,000 tons.
The area under cashew in India in 1976–77 was estimated to be 423,000 ha with a production of 179,000 tons raw nuts.
We, in India, have been discussing for some years now the problems of our cashew industry arising out of a shortage of nuts in the international market for import for processing.
The situation arose because, until recently, most of the cashewnut produced in the world was being processed using the finger skills of rural women and men of Kerala State.
With increasing mechanisation in processing in the countries from where we have been importing raw nuts, India has been finding it difficult to give full employment to the labour which has been engaged in cashew processing until now.
It is not my intention to dwell upon this aspect of the cashew problem in this Symposium.
I shall restrict the present discussion to analysing the yield potential of the cashew plant in relation to the yields currently being obtained in India with a view to stimulating an in depth discussion of methods for increasing the production and productivity of this crop.