The willingness of cashew-nut farmers to sell their crops under the newly introduced warehouse receipt payment system has significantly raised commodity export volume and value. During last January, the export volume of cashew nuts went up to 36,639 tons compared to 21,806 tons exported in December 2007. According to the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) February Economic review, the hefty increase in cashew-nut exports was for the most part responsible for raising the total value traditional exports by 8.7 percent to USD 54.7m.

The warehouse receipt system is basically an approach to crop marketing. Under the system, farmers are given receipts or war-rants documents stating the ownership of a specific amount of a commodity or good with specific characteristics which is then stored in a specific warehouse for a specific fee. When backed by provisions that enhance their value as collateral, warehouse receipts can play an essential role in agricultural marketing. They can be traded, sold, swapped. The system has greatly helped to increase cashew-nut farmers’ earnings during last season. In addition, all traditional export crops across the board enjoyed price hikes on the global market save for cashew nut which registered a marginal decline to USD 580.6 per ton. For the year ending January this year, the value of traditional exports increased by 33 per cent to USD 340m compared to USD 255.7m recorded in the corresponding period.