Major Courage Quashigah (rtd), Minister of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) on Tuesday said the government has negotiated for a concessional loan of 13.32 million dollars from the African Development Fund for the implementation of a Cashew Development Project in selected areas of the country.

The loan agreement is currently before Parliament for ratification.

The project aims at increasing cashew cultivation and processing of the nuts for export, Major Quashigah said in an answer to a question by Mr Joseph Tsatsu Agbenu, NDC-Afram Plains North, on the support and protection the Ministry would give to farmers, who go into the cultivation of cashew in the Savannah areas of the country.

He said the recent recognition of cashew as a major export crop for the savannah zones has sparked off the rapid establishment of commercial holdings in the Northern, Upper West, Brong Ahafo and Central Regions thus creating a high demand for cashew seeds.

Major Quashigah said farmers in the Savannah and the transitional zones have discovered that cashew grows well in dry areas and on soils unsuitable for most staple crops such as maize and rice.

He said the high demand and favourable world market price for raw nuts and kernel have attracted the attention of the government and farmers as a source for income generation and foreign exchange earnings.

The Minister said the project would diversify the country's export base, generate employment and support women, adding that under the project, MOFA would assist the Cocoa Research Institute to upgrade its research on cashew at the Bole Station so that farmers would have access to improved techniques.