Ghanaians are Nuts!...

...about cashews:-)

I took this picture after I virtually devoured this bag of cashew nuts, which is going at ç10,000 (Ghanaian cedis) or just under $1.00. Even for Ghanaians, cashews are rather prohibitive, or expensive. If you really think about it, this small bag, with some fifty cashews or so is priced this way, so you can imagine what a slightly bigger bag may attract, by way of price!

I found out that from 16-19 April, Ghana celebrated Cashew week, and there's plenty on the website of what is actually a cashew association. The length of the name of the association is sufficient to put you off alphabet soup...with plenty of cashew nuts in them;-): Cashew Processors and Exporters Association of Ghana (CAPEAG).

The theme of the week was "Cashing in on Cashew". You can read more about it on their website here: http://www.ghanacashewproducts.com/about.html.

Either way, here's a hot fact you might not have known:

Cashew is an important tropical crop because of its nuts which is the real fruit. It provides a valuable kernel which ranks third in world nuts economic importance after almonds and walnuts. World demand for raw cashew nuts in 2005 was 1.75 million metric tonnes with a supply of about 1.4 million metric tonnes. Ghana exported 47,962 metric tonnes in 2006 earning US$ 24 million. This figure is considered very small when compared with world excess demand of 430,000MT of raw nuts, valued at US$270 Million, and growing at a rate of 5-8% per annum

Anyone, now, for cashews?

(a belated MayDay!)