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‘Cashew apple products can be game changer for increas­ing farm­ers income’

Dir­ector of Dir­ect­or­ate of Cashew Research (DCR), Put­tur, J. Dinakara Adiga said on Wed­nes­day that value­added products of cashew apple can be a game changer for increas­ing farm­ers income. Speak­ing at the inaug­ur­a­tion of a three­day national work­shop on ‘Sci­entific Innov­a­tions for Sus­tain­able Cashew Pro­duc­tion and Value Chain Devel­op­ment’ organ­ised by the DCR, under ICAR, in Put­tur, he reit­er­ated the insti­tute’s com­mit­ment towards sus­tain­able cashew research and tech­no­logy trans­fer. There is a need to bring together research­ers, policy makers and stake­hold­ers on a com­mon plat­form to address emer­ging chal­lenges and oppor­tun­it­ies in the cashew industry, the dir­ector said. K. Kamala, con­ser­vator of Forests and man­aging dir­ector, Karnataka Cashew Devel­op­ment Cor­por­a­tion Lim­ited (KCDC), Mangaluru, said cashew is a prom­in­ent crop of cli­mate resi­li­ence and for improv­ing live­li­hood of farm­ers. A major­ity of the area under cashew comes under plant­a­tion cor­por­a­tions and is low­yield­ing with 3­4 kg/ tree. The latest tech­no­lo­gies of the dir­ect­or­ate must be employed for improv­ing the pro­ductiv­ity of cashew, and proper man­age­ment is the key to real­ising this goal. Value addi­tion of cashew apple should be pro moted in the com­ing days for income enhance­ment of farm­ers, she said. Dadasa­heb Desai, deputy dir­ector, Dir­ect­or­ate of Cashewnut and Cocoa Devel­op­ment, Kochi, briefed the par­ti­cipants about the widen­ing demand sup­ply gap of raw cashewnuts in India and the need to strengthen the raw cashewnut pro­duc­tion through coordin­ated efforts of research insti­tutes, State hor­ti­cul­ture depart­ments and cor­por­a­tions. The work­shop aims at capa­city devel­op­ment of the State­level hor­ti­cul­ture and agri­cul­ture offi­cials, sci­ent­ists of All India Coordin­ated Research Project (AICRP) centres on cashew and ICAR insti­tutes and officers of Plant­a­tion Cor­por­a­tions. A total of 50 del­eg­ates rep­res­ent­ing nine States are par­ti­cip­at­ing in the work­shop.