Cultivating cashews and rice in West Africa to meet market requirements

Context

With global and regional demand constantly rising, cashew and rice production and processing offer important potential for training, employment, and wealth creation. This can be achieved through private sector development, help to mitigate climate change, and bring economic empowerment to women and youth.

Rice is one of the most important staple foods in Africa. About 90 per cent of locally grown rice is produced on small fields of less than one hectare, while most of the rural population in the rice-growing areas live at or below the poverty line.

The African cashew sector accounts for about 56 per cent of the world’s cashew harvest, thus offering high economic development prospects for producing countries. About 90 per cent of the crop is exported annually to Asia for further processing, while more local processing would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Objectives

Improved income and employment prospects have been created in the ECOWAS region along market-oriented and resilient value chains (rice and cashew)

Approach

With the merger of the Competitive Cashew Initiative (ComCashew), Competitive African Rice Initiative (CARI) and Resilience Against Climate Change (REACH), the project puts multi-stakeholder partnerships at the heart of its implementation. The aim is to ensure long-term, sustainable results and competitiveness in five West African countries.

The project aims to support inclusive development through the following activities:

• Selecting bankable projects and support the resilience of the private sector through Matching Grant Funds, increasing value addition of the rice and cashew value chains in the ECOWAS region and the OACPS Member States respectively.

• Improving the economic and environmental sustainability of agricultural systems using good agricultural practices (GAP) for climate-resilient, resource-conserving agriculture and carbon sequestration.

• Increasing the demand for regional products, local consumption of cashew and rice product.

• Improving successful agribusiness training approaches and tools are scaled through self-paced e-learning and blended learning (online and face-to-face formats) for cost-effective capacity development in large scale. Youth and gender inclusion: developing and sharing good examples of inclusive business models by integrating gender transformative approaches (GTA) and information technology (IT) capabilities.

• Strengthening policy advice and South-South cooperation; consolidating public-private cooperation in policymaking to reduce regional trade barriers and to support social transformation, promote policy dialogue and South-South cooperation.