Specification :

The cashew tree, was introduced to India in the sixteenth century by the Portuguese, as a means of controlling coastal erosion. It was spread within these countries with the aid of elephants that ate the bright cashew fruit along with the attached nut. The nut was too hard to digest and was later expelled with the droppings. It was not until the nineteenth century that plantations were developed and the tree then spread to a number of other countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Cashew processing, using manual techniques, was started in India in the first half of the twentieth century. It was exported from there to the wealthy western markets, particularly the United States. In the 1960s, some of the producing countries in East Africa began to process nuts domestically rather than sending them to India for processing. This allowed them to benefit from the sale of both processed nuts and the extracted cashew nut shell liquid. Cashew is held with great esteem in many customs and cultures. Its value can be estimated from a question that appeared on the household census in Mozambique that asked whether the house owned any cashew trees.
Cashew is known by many names. In Mozambique, the Maconde tribe refer to it as the " Devils Nut" . It is offered at wedding ceremonies as a token of fertility and is considered by many to have aphrodisiac properties. The cashew tree and its products are known by the following names in other parts of the world:
Portuguese caju, cajueiro, pe de caju, castanha de caju, maca de caju French cajou, acajou, ancardier, noix de cajou, pomme de cajou, amande de cajou English cashew, cashew tree, cashew nut, cashew apple, cashew kernel Spanish maranon, nuez de maranon Hindi cadju Sinhalese cadju Italian anacardio, noce danacardio, mandorladanacardio Dutch acajou, kashu German acajuban, kashunuss Swahili mkanju, korosho Somali bibbo, bibs Indonesian jambu mente, jambu mete
Source: Andrighetti et al, ( 1989) .
The cashew industry ranks third in the world production of edible nuts with world production in 2000 at about 2 million tonnes of nuts-in-shell and an estimated value in excess of US$ 2 billion. India and Brazil are the major cashew exporters, with 60 percent and 31 percent respectively of world market share. The major importers are the United States ( 55 percent) , the Netherlands ( ten percent) , Germany ( seven percent) , Japan ( five percent) and the United Kingdom ( five percent) .
Cashew kernels are ranked as either the second or third most expensive nut traded in the United States. Macadamia nuts are priced higher and pecan nuts can be more costly, if the harvest is poor. Cashew nuts have a well established market in the United States with a great variety of uses. Retail prices range from about US$ 4 to 11 per pound ( US$ 9 to 23 per kg) depending on the size of nut and the packaging.