The Cashew Watch Ghana (CWG) has called on the government to reshape the deplorable and worsened condition of roads in cashew growing communities in the country.

This would make the sector more attractive to woo investors, processors and buyers.

The CWG is a platform of civil society comprising cashew farmers, media practitioners and Non-governmental organisations that advocates and promote the economic livelihoods of especially women farmers in cashew production.

Mr Simon Asore, the National Steering Committee Chairman of the CWG who made the call expressed worry that most of the roads linking cashew growing communities were unmotorable.

He said road networks, particularly in the Tain and Jaman North District as well as Jaman South Municipality, the largest cashew growing areas in the Bono Region had worsened and needed to be reshaped to boost the growth of the sector.

Mr Asore was speaking at a media engagement with cashew farmers drawn from the Jaman South, Jaman North and Tain District held at Sampa, border town in the Bono Region.

The engagement was in line with a project being implemented by the CWG with support from the Star Ghana Foundation titled "amplifying the voices of cashew farmers".

It sought to further identify, advocate and help tackle the bottlenecks and challenges confronting the growth and development of the cashew sector in the country.

Mr Asore indicated that the cashew sector alone had more than 300,000 farmers and about 800,000 people were also in the cashew value chain, including processing, buying and transport, saying the sector had huge potential to widen the nation's foreign exchange earnings.

However, challenges ranging from unstable and low pricing, poor roads and lack of ready market access remained inimical to the growth and development of the sector.

Mr Asore regretted that the price of cashew dropped from GHC8.5 per kilo in 2023 to GHC7.5 per kilo in 2024, and therefore, called on the government to do something about the cashew pricing too.

He lauded some government interventions in the cashew sector including the formation of the Tree Crops Development Authority and the Cashew Development Board, and added more ought to be done to improve the sector.

Sompaonline.com/K.Peprah