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Cashew

The cashew originates from North East Brazil. In the 16th century, Portuguese colonists took the cashew tree via Europe to India and East Africa, where farmers planted the tree to stop erosion. Cashew trees only grow in areas where it rains less than 30-50 centimetres per year. It is mainly cultivated in Vietnam, Nigeria and India.

Did you know…

 

  • Ripe cashews automatically fall from the trees.
  • The cashew nut is native to northeastern Brazil. In the mid-to-late 1500s, Portuguese traders and explorers introduced the cashew tree to India and to the east coast of Africa.

Most important export countries

  1. Cote d’Ivoire
  2. India
  3. Vietnam
  4. Guinea-Bissau
  5. Indonesia

Most important production countries

  1. Vietnam
  2. Nigeria
  3. India
  4. Brazil
  5. Indonesia

Production chain

Workers collect the cashew nuts from the ground. After fifty minutes of steaming and two days of drying, the nuts are peeled. Because the oil in the peel irritates the skin, protective gloves are used. The nuts are then salted and roasted in their countries of origin and then exported around the world.

Problems

In India, it is common for children under the age of 12 years to be found working on cashew farms. It has been estimated that in the state of Assam in India, 95,000 child workers are employed in cashew plantations. Working conditions in the cashew sector are considered quite poor and some workers get permanent scars on their hands due to the corrosive acids produced by the nuts when shelled. Job opportunities in the cashew sector are often discriminative towards women. Almost all cashew producers are smallholders (especially in Africa) and have little or no access to crop credit and medium term credit. This makes it difficult to invest in their own cashew production, and it makes them unable to purchase agro-chemicals to fight crop disease and limits the possibility to hire labour to rehabilitate farm and facilities. There are fair-trade certified and organic certified cashew nuts on the market, which are produced in Vietnam, Burkina Faso and El Salvador, among other countries.

Major Chain Issues

In the cashew sector, Fairfood International has identified the following major chain issues:

Major chain Production stage
Lack of Access to Financial Services Processing
Insufficient Market-related Infrastructures Processing
Corruption Whole chain
Discrimination Processing
Insufficient income and income insecurity Processing
Unhealthy and unsafe working conditions Processing
Child labour Production

Solutions

The guide below shows certification schemes whose standards indicate a match with some or all of Fairfood’s researched major issues for this commodity. To learn more about the schemes, click on their logo.


EU Organic Labels
Ecocert
Fairtrade
Global Gap

Production
Entire Chain
Entire Chain
Production
Customised sustainability initiatives
In addition to making use of standards and certification schemes, major issues in this commodity could also be addressed in a customised manner. The box below outlines a few examples of initiatives that deal with sustainability issues in this particular sector. Companies could join some of the platforms or roundtables mentioned below. These could serve as a stepping stone to increased sustainability. Other initiatives, in the form of corporate programmes and chain partnerships, could serve as inspiration for replication by other companies within the sector. To learn more about any of the initiatives, click on their logo. 

Platform The African Cashew Alliance was established in 2005 to increase the export of cashew kernels, to stimulate economic growth in the cashew industry and to increase the income of African farmers. It is a public-private partnership whose 23 founding members include food trading and marketing companies, cashew processors, financial institutions, NGOs and development agencies. The ACA aims to improve the yield and quality of cashews by connecting stakeholders across countries and by facilitating the funding of initiatives in the sector. The ACA also facilitates the exchange of information and builds capacity, by improving farming techniques and enabling farmers to process the cashews themselves, which helps to increase income security.
Chain Partnership
 The Sustainable Tree Crop Program was established in 2000 as a public-private partnership between major players in the global cocoa industry, local private sectors, farmers, national governments, NGOs, research institutes and development investors. It currently operates in five West African countries. The Sustainable Tree Crop Program’s goals are to improve the economic and social well-being of smallholders while simultaneously improving the environmental sustainability of their tree crops. STCP aims to achieve these goals by training community farmer groups, providing technical assistance, improving the trade information system and eliminating the worst forms of child labour on farms.