Export performance of Indian cashewnut – An analysis Guledgudda S. S.1,*, Patil B. L.2, Rajur B. C.2 1RARS, Bijapur-586 101, Karnataka, India 2Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad -580 005, Karnataka, India *Corresponding author: sguledgudda@gmail.com
Online published on 5 January, 2015. Abstract The Indian Cashew industry provides employment to more than 5 lakh people both directly and indirectly, particularly in the rural areas and it thus plays a very vital role in the economy. Today nuts constitute an important part of diet in several countries of the world. In Indian cashew processing factories, over 95% of the workers are women. The total export earnings from export of cashew kernel and cashew nut shell liquid has increased from  447.80 crores in 1990–91 to 4390.68 crores in 2011–12. India is facing tough competition from Vietnam and Brazil in the exports of Cashew Kernels. The NPC for the period 2004 under exportable hypothesis was 0.98, which also revealed that the domestic prices received by the farmers were lower than the international prices, which also implied that the domestic producers were disprotected or rather taxed compared to a situation prevailing under free trade condition. USA was one of the most stable countries among major importers of Indian cashew kernel as indicated by the high retention probability of 70.49%. India could not retain the previous export share to Singapore. The major competitors for India in the world market are Vietnam, Brazil, Indonesia and Tanzania. A dependency on one or two export market would increase the trade risk in the near future. Hence, appropriate export promotion strategies are to be evolved to diversify the geographical concentration. Top Keywords Nominal protection coefficient, export growth, cashew industry, export demand, free trade. Top |