By Mwanamkasi Jumbe, Mtwara
Mtwara Region has so far raked in TSh 516 billion from the sale of over 203,371 tonnes of cashew nuts as the 2025/26 marketing season heats up.
All transactions were carried out through the Tanzania Mercantile Exchange (TMX) using warehouse receipt system, ensuring fair pricing and transparency for farmers.
The cashew nuts were sold through a series of auctions organized by the region’s leading cooperative unions – Tandahimba Newala Cooperative Union (Tanecu) Limited and MAMCU – each conducting five successful auctions.
Sectoral experts say the strong sales performance underscores Mtwara’s pivotal role in Tanzania’s cashew industry and highlights the success of cooperative-driven marketing models in boosting farmers’ income.
Data from the Regional Economic, Production, and Agriculture Department shows that the two cooperative unions managed to collect a total of 218,203 tonnes of cashew nuts, of which 215,604 tonnes were collected through the warehouse receipt system.
“Of the total, 203,371.6 tonnes were sold through the Tanzania Mercantile Exchange (TMX) using the warehouse receipt system,” the department notes in its latest sales report.
“The average price for this season has been TSh 2,599 per kilograme,” the report adds, highlighting strong returns for farmers.”.
During the initial cashew nut market, 2,599 tonnes of the golden nuts were sold, reflecting strong demand and vibrant market activity.
The report says that the primary goal of this initial market setup is to encourage local processing of raw cashew nuts, adding value within the country.
Under this system, the nuts fetched between TSh 1,800 and TSh 2,547 per kilogramme, offering farmers competitive returns.
To further boost production, Mtwara Region aims to plant two million new cashew trees annually. In the 2024/25 season, the region successfully planted 1,430,552 new trees, signaling steady progress toward achieving this target.
In this year’s cashew nut marketing season, the government has set an ambitious production target of 700,000 tonnes, marking a significant rise from the 500,000-tonne target set for the 2024/25 season.
The upward projection follows last season’s impressive performance, where Tanzania exceeded expectations by harvesting 528,000 tonnes of raw cashew nuts.
Cashew nuts remain one of Tanzania’s top non-traditional exports, alongside coffee and tobacco, generating hundreds of millions of dollars annually and supporting the livelihoods of more than 700,000 farming households, primarily in the southern regions of Mtwara, Lindi, and Ruvuma.
During the 2024/25 fiscal year, cashew exports made a significant contribution to the country’s agricultural foreign exchange earnings, driven by growing demand from India, Vietnam, and the Middle East.
The government, through the Ministry of Agriculture and the Cashewnut Board of Tanzania (CBT), continues to invest in research, processing, and farmer support programmes. Key efforts include expanding local processing capacity to boost the proportion of value-added exports, a cornerstone of the Tanzania Development Vision 2050, which emphasizes agro-industrialization as a driver of economic growth.
