On August 4, 2021, Mr. Bob Bauer, the President of the Association of Food Industries (AFI), through VINACAS, sent a letter to the Prime Minister of Vietnam, proposing: Prioritizing the distribution of vaccines to agricultural and food production workers in Vietnam, particularly the cashew sector. The main content is as follows:
am writing on behalf of the Association of Food Industries, the trade association for the U.S. food import industry. AFI’s approximately 1,000 member companies are primarily U.S. food importers and foreign firms exporting food to the U.S. Several Vietnamcse companies are members of AFI and many of AFI’s U.S. members import product from Vietnam. Cashews are a particularly important item for many AFI members.
AFI urges you to prioritize the distribution of vaccines to agricultural and food production workers in Vietnam, particularly the cashew sector. The U.S. market accounts for nearly one- third of the S3.5 billion value of annual Vietnamese cashew kernel exports and keeping a steady supply is key to ensuring continued growth. We urge you to work with VINACAS, the Vietnamese cashew industry trade association, to implement vaccination and other Covid protocols to help Vietnam retain its leadership within the sector, a position that if lost, may never be regained.

With agriculture/food production being such an important industry because it feeds a country’s own citizens and provides many jobs related to domestic and foreign distribution, making this sector a priority will hclp set the stage for Vietnam’s health and economic recovery.
In the dispatch conveying the above letter to the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Health and related sectors, the Executive Members' Board of VINACAS expressed:
“We understand that: over the past time, the Prime Minister, the Government, the whole political system and the whole people have put all their efforts in fighting the epidemic; have been implementing the "vaccine strategy" to contribute to preventing and repelling the pandemic. We earnestly request the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Health and related sectors to consider and allow employees of enterprises of the Vietnam Cashew Association and enterprises in the cashew industry are given priority to vaccinate against Covid."
On August 5, 2021, VINACAS sent the letter of Mr. Bob Bauer to the Government Office, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Industry and Trade and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development

1 - RAW CASHEW MARKET
3 - EVALUATION, RECOMMENDATIONS
a. Raw cashew market
he RCN market was quiet due to the Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) spread. Many factories have temporarily stopped production or reduced capacity, so they have not bought more raw cashews. The seller also offers a lower price than before, but it is still very high. Many factories have difficulty in preparing money to pay for incoming raw cashew batches because they cannot export cashew kernels or have to stop production.
b. Cashew kernel market
he cashew kernel market is still quiet, many overseas buyers are waiting for the price increase of supermarkets and roasters to balance the high freight rates before buying more to avoid risks. On the other hand, they are worried: When they buy, but the factory cannot deliver due to the lockdown, it will be more difficult for them. Freight rates continued to increase higher in August. Cosco shipping line issued a document: Only accept containers with a tonnage of 12 tons; while the cashew container is about 16.5 tons, so factories will have difficulty finding other shipping lines. In addition, due to the lockdown and strict implementation of Directive 16, many factories have difficulty sending employees to work in Ho Chi Minh City. so they could not get the bill of loading to submit to the bank for payment. Ships are many days behind schedule, so factories have to wait a long time from the date of loading to the date of receiving the bill of lading.

I .THE INTERNATIONAL RAW CASHEW MARKET
Guinea-Bissauhipments are slow and hindered by the rains that are quite frequent now.Maersk has informed the authorities that if their pending litigation not settled on a priority basis,they plan to close their office in Bissau by year-end.
Bissau exporters already pay byfar the highest freight rates in theregion.The crop production is estimated at around 200,000 MT. Bissau’s 2020 RCN production was 160,000 tons,
most of them exported. The minimum procurementprice has been fixed as 360 CFA/kg.
Brazil
he 2021 Brazilian RCN crop progress from firstweek of August in the main producing areas of the country.
The sixth RCN crop survey of 2021 done by the IBGE (Brazil’sofficial body of statistics), maintains the previous forecasts that indicate that the country should harvest a total of123,316 tonnes of RCN in 2021, which represents an 11% drop in relation to the 2020 crop. However, these estimates are still very preliminary and it is expected to evolve positively in the next three months.The average local RCN prices are (at farm gate) between June 15 and July 15 was R$ 4.76/kg (USD 0.91/kg).

II. THE INTERNATIONAL CASHEW KERNEL MARKET
India
ashew kernel demand continues to remain impressive and the trend is expected to continue with starting of the festival season such as Onam, Raksha Bandhan to occur in the third week of August.
The supply of pieces and broken continue may continue to remain tight or even there could some shortage and the same is likely to be normalise out in a week or two. This may keep prices of various cashew grades to remain firm or bit higher.
VINACAS office gathered from foreign newspapers