Harvesting the profits
"To start with, we weren't thinking about marketing, the idea was to reforest the land. Today we are marketing cashew seed. We used to depend on maize and sesame seed, our traditional crops. Today we have another source of income, cashew seeds."
Marlon Carrasco García, a farmer in the La Carreta community, in the Somotillo municipality, planted over one hundred cashew trees four years ago, and with his first harvest he had 250 pounds of seed. He hopes to get more when the trees are mature.
In the León and Chinandega departments, Oxfam has been working with the Centre for Promotion, Research and Rural and Social Development (CIPRES) to carry out an Organic Cashew project, funded by the European Union.
The project aims to improve the conditions of hundreds of farming families through the production, processing and marketing of the organic cashew seed, which when processed becomes the well-known cashew nut. While Brazil and India are the biggest producers, the Nicaraguan nut is special because it is 100 per cent organic.
In pictures: Organic cashew project
The background to the project goes back to 1998, when CIPRES encouraged people to plant this tree as a response to the need to reforest and diversify the crops in the area in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch. They chose this tree because besides reforesting, it would also help to generate an alternative source of income without hindering the production of traditional crops like maize, sorghum, sesame, and pulses.
Lorena Ordeñana, the CIPRES project co-ordinator, recalls that “the first hurdle was to convince the farmers to grow the crop as part of the diversification in their fields because it only produces after four years and doesn’t reach maximum production until its seventh year.” Today over 550 people take part in the project.
Process and sell
The seeds the cashew farmers harvest go on to be processed and marketed. This is the work of 50 women who belong to two agro industrial co-operatives in western Nicaragua. There are over 25 women working in each plant where they bring in the seed and classify it according to its size and quality; they cook, peel and toast it, and pack it in various presentations for marketing.
Processing cashew nuts used to be extremely complicated. It was done by hand. “We used to get burned and hurt ourselves a lot to get the nut out,” remembers Maria Salome Padilla, chair and worker at the agro industrial plant run by the Somotillo Women’s Co-operative (COOPEMUS).
Oxfam's Organic Cashew prokect has made it possible to convert the two plants. The new installations and equipment bought have provided an industrial process which is faster, hygienic and safer for the women. It also has a much higher processing capacity.
Today, most of the nuts are sold on the national market. The challenge for the immediate future is to support the men and women who produce the nuts in increasing production, taking it to the two plants, improving the distribution channels and diversifying the market reaching the more attractive and profitable ones, especially international markets like Europe and the United States.
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