From Tanzania’s Rains to India’s Dal Prices: How Weather Moves Commodity Markets

A farmer in Tanzania’s Simiyu region watches the sky in March. A dal trader in Indore checks the same forecast in July. Neither has met the other, but they are standing at two ends of the same price. This piece explains how weather on one continent ends up in the cost of a packet of toor dal or cashews on another, using the two crops where the link is clearest: pigeon pea (toor) and raw cashew.

Why an Indian staple depends on African weather

India is the world’s largest grower and eater of pigeon pea, the crop that becomes toor or arhar dal. It still does not grow enough of it. The gap is filled by imports from Myanmar and from East Africa: Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania. In Tanzania, the crop regulator COPRA puts 2024/25 production at over 400,000 tonnes, making the country one of the largest producers in the world, and Tanzanian industry leaders describe the crop as relying heavily on a single buyer: India.

India keeps that door open on purpose. On 31 March 2026 the Directorate General of Foreign Trade kept tur in the “free” import category, with no licence needed, until 31 March 2027, citing fluctuating production and rising demand for pulses.

Cashew runs the other way round. India grows cashew, but its processing industry needs far more raw nuts than Indian orchards produce. Tanzania harvested a record 617,683 tonnes of raw cashew nuts in 2025/26, up about 17% on the year before, and more than 90% of its crop leaves the country unprocessed, mainly for India and Vietnam.

The calendar is the mechanism

Weather moves prices through timing. Each crop has a window when it is planted, a window when it flowers, and a window when it is sold. A shock in one window shows up in a market months later.

• East African pigeon pea is marketed from around July. In 2026, Tanzania’s commodity exchange opened pigeon pea trading in the week of 8 July. Shipments reach Indian ports in the months before India’s own crop arrives.
• India’s tur crop is sown with the June–September monsoon and harvested from around December. So the monsoon decides how much India needs to import, and the African crop decides how much is available to fill the gap.
• Tanzanian cashew is harvested and auctioned roughly from October to January, outside the main Indian and West African seasons, which makes it an important bridge for processors.

When a dry spell hits East Africa during flowering and India’s monsoon is weak in the same year, the two shocks stack. India needs more imports just as there are fewer to buy.

2026: a live example

This year shows the chain at work, step by step.

July. Tanzania’s pulses network reported pigeon pea “progressing well” and production projected to be around average. Early auction prices were TZS 1,270–1,300 per kg, and traders expected them to ease as more supply arrived.

June to September. India’s monsoon fell short. According to India Meteorological Department figures reported at the end of the season, rainfall was 759 mm against a long-period average of 868.6 mm, about 13% below normal and the weakest season since 2015. June alone was close to 40% below normal, and drought was declared in parts of Karnataka and Maharashtra, two of India’s main tur-growing states. El Niño conditions were blamed for the shortfall.

October. Market reports said African pigeon pea prices had risen by about ₹10 per kg in a few weeks, on lower-than-expected production in Mozambique and Tanzania and weather problems in Karnataka and Maharashtra. Mozambique pigeon pea was quoted near $825 per tonne for October–November shipment.

Looking ahead. El Niño reached very strong levels in September, and the US-funded early-warning network FEWS NET expects below-average rainfall in southern and central Mozambique from October 2026 to May 2027. That is the season in which next year’s African crops are planted.

The same market had been through the opposite swing a year earlier. In 2025, global oversupply pushed Tanzanian pigeon pea prices from about $1.60 per kg to between $0.60 and $0.75. Weather and supply can move this market sharply in either direction within a year.

How the price travels to your kitchen

With imports open, the price of toor in India tends to settle near what traders call import parity: what it costs to buy the crop at origin and land it in India. That landed cost is built from several pieces, and weather can touch every one of them.

1. The origin price. Set by the size of the African crop and by how many buyers are bidding for it.
2. Freight and insurance. Shipping costs rise when fuel, war-risk premiums or congested routes push them up. We look at this in our guide to global shipping routes and bottlenecks.
3. The rupee. Imports are paid in dollars, so a weaker rupee makes the same tonne more expensive.
4. Policy. Import windows, duties and stock limits can change the arithmetic overnight.
5. Milling and packing. Raw pigeon pea still has to be cleaned, dehusked, split and graded before it becomes dal.

Domestic prices also react to expectations, not only to what has already happened. A forecast of a weak monsoon can lift prices before a single field has failed, and a forecast of a big harvest can pull them down before it is picked.

Cashew: weather changes quality as well as quantity

For cashew, weather affects how good the nuts are, not just how many there are. The trade measures raw nuts by “outturn”, the pounds of usable kernel recovered from an 80 kg bag. During the record 2025/26 Tanzanian season, traders reported lots from Mtwara and Lindi with high moisture and an outturn of 42–44 lb, against 48–50 lb for premium lots. Rain at harvest and slow drying raise moisture. Higher moisture means more care in storage, because damp nuts are exposed to mould.

A big crop of lower-outturn nuts can therefore leave kernel prices firm even when raw-nut tonnage is high. That is one reason the price of a kilo of W320 cashews does not simply follow the headline harvest figure. For how grades work, see our guide to cashew grades W180, W240 and W320.

What a careful buyer watches

• The monsoon forecast and its progress. The India Meteorological Department’s April and June outlooks, then weekly rainfall against normal in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
• The El Niño and La Niña outlook. It shapes rainfall in India and East Africa at the same time.
• Origin auctions. Opening prices and volumes on Tanzania’s commodity exchange, and quotes from Mozambique and Malawi.
• Policy notices. Directorate General of Foreign Trade notifications on import windows, and any stock limits on pulses.
• Freight and the rupee. Both move landed cost even when the crop does not change.

What this means for Aplus Foods

We make pulses under Aplus and dry fruits, nuts and seeds under Nuts About You, and we source across several continents. The price on our shelves is the end of the chain described above. We cannot control the rain in Simiyu or the monsoon over Vidarbha. What we can control is how we clean, sort, grade and pack what arrives, so that a packet of Aplus pulses or Nuts About You cashews is the same from one season to the next, whatever the season was like.

Related reading

• Global Shipping Routes and Bottlenecks: What They Mean for Food Trade
• Food Safety and Hygiene: How Our Standards Work, Step by Step
• Cashew Grades Explained: W180, W240, W320