Donafoods to sell shares to cashew farmers

HCMC – Dong Nai Import-Export Processing Agriculture products and Foods Co. (Donafoods) in southern Dong Nai Province’s Bien Hoa City will sell its shares to the local farmers who have large cashew farms as a measure to develop material supply for the company, said Nguyen Trong Tri, deputy general director of Donafoods.
Donafoods is one of the largest producers of processed cashew nuts and cashew oil in the country.
Tri told the Daily on Thursday that in 2009, Donafoods produced nearly 6,900 tons of processed nuts and 4,700 tons of cashew oil, and attained total export revenue of some US$30 million.
However, he said the production of the company has still faced difficulties due to unstable input materials caused by shrinking area under cashew cultivation and thus reduced output in Dong Nai. The output of cashew in the province last year tumbled by nearly 40% compared to previous years.
To stabilize the input materials for the company’s production in the future, the company will sell its shares to local cashew growers when the company completes equitization after this year.
At the moment, Dong Nai Province has total cashew area of some 45,000 hectares comprising some 30,000 hectares of high-yield cashew strains.

By Van Nam - The Saigon Times Daily