The Guinea Mission of the U.S. Agency for International Development: Advancing Democratic Governance
USAID Supports Marketing of Tasty Roasted Cashews in Guinea
Since 2002, USAID has been working to generate employment and income in the cashew sector by forming alliances with local farmers and businesspeople. The goal is to help Guinea increase exports of high-quality cashews.
Kandjoura Fofana, a small farmer and businessman in rural Boké, had just made his first trip to Conakry, the capital city, to sell his commercialized product—tasty salted and roasted cashews from Guinea. Guinea’s climatic conditions, its fertile soil and long rainy season are all favorable for growing large, high-quality cashews.
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| Kandjoura Fofana owns a farm and small family business in Boké, in the region of Guinea bordering Guinea Bissau, where he processes and commercializes cashews which he then sells in the capital city of Conakry. |
Through technical support from a USAID project, Fofana is now in the forefront of a growing number of Guinean entrepreneurs who seek to produce and commercialize cashews, and who can envision a lucrative future for Guinea as a cashew exporter.
Since 2002, USAID has been working through several partners to generate employment and income in the cashew sector by forming alliances with local farmers and businesspeople, and through technical support to village natural resource management committees who have included cashew culture as part of their local natural resource management plans.
USAID would like to see Guinea reach its potential through bringing about a well-developed, efficient cashew production and marketing system in Guinea by the end of 2005. Specific goals include rehabilitating 1,600 hectares of old cashew plantations, supporting the planting of cashews on 12,000 hectares of new plantations, supplying inputs including improved seeds, strengthening farmers’ associations, and training 1,600 farmers’ associations in cashew harvest, post-harvest, handling and conditioning techniques. USAID has up until now supported the creation of 2,800 hectares of smallholder cashew plantations, in addition to providing technical support for old plantation rehabilitation, and cashew commercialization.
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| Hassan Diallo, a plantation owner in the Boké area, indicates a tree he has cut down in his orchard to let the surrounding trees thrive. Diallo has worked with USAID-sponsored SPCIA to prune and space out the cashew trees on his plantation. |
Cashew processing can bring Guinea numerous development benefits. It can contribute to family food security, with benefits to large-scale producers but also small-scale farmers and women -- the latter who are largely responsible for the gathering and processing of cashews. In addition, cashews are a species used for reforestation to protect water sources and hillsides, and are already being used in Guinea as live fences to protect fields, and as “boundary plantations” since they are drought, wind and fire-resistent.
Although Guinea currently produces roughly 3,000 metric tons of raw cashews annually, unprocessed cashews are largely exported in bulk to India, where they are processed and then sold to western companies for sale in North American and Europe. USAID would like to see Guinea be able to export its high-quality cashews directly to Western companies, and has already signed a Global Development Alliance with several of its partners and U.S. food giant Kraft, who along with two other research organizations have agreed to give technical and research-based support to the Guinean cashew sector, conduct sector analyses, and identify potential local, regional and overseas markets.
To make export possible, however, cashew production must first increase in Guinea, and farmers as well as businesspeople must be set up to process cashews efficiently in-country. In spite of certain taboos surrounding cashews, most of which were originally created to prevent the population from cutting down cashew trees when they were first planted in Guinea during colonial times (for example, that one could die from eating cashews and milk together) a small local market already exists for the sale of cashews in the capital city of Conakry. There, traditionally processed cashews--raw nuts burned over a fire and smashed open with stones -- are sold as snacks in the streets.
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| USAID through partner EWW has conducted training sessions in cashew commercialization for local businesses. Cashew gathering and processing is largely done by women, who can use income earned to contribute to family food security. |
USAID is helping Guinean producers establish small-scale processing units using efficient and inexpensive technology currently being used in India and Brazil to obtain a higher-quality end product. USAID partner Enterprise Works Worldwide (EWW) has over the past year conducted training sessions for two businesses, COPALIME and Fofana Cajou, in cashew processing. Both of these businesses have started marketing their salty roasted cashews directly to consumers in the capital city of Conakry through sales of 100-gram sacks to bars, restaurants, gas station convenience stores and supermarkets.
As Guinea’s cashew processing industry grows, lessons are being incorporated from neighboring countries--Guinea Bissau and Senegal in particular--where cashew production is more developed. To ensure that all necessary equipment for processing can either be made or obtained in-country, EWW is currently carrying out a training session this month by an experienced Senegalese welder in the making of cashew dehullers, steamers, centrifuges and production tables for welders in Conakry and Boké. Similar training sessions are expected to be held in Kankan, another cashew-rich region of Guinea.
However, as technology advances, lessons are also coming out of the Guinean experience. Says Faya Norbert Oliano, a COPALIME employee in Boke who participated in USAID-sponsored training in cashew processing, “I want to thank USAID for what we’ve learned. I’ve worked in cashew processing for a long time in Guinea Bissau, and we didn’t know, for example, that we could use vapor to soften the cashew shells. Before, we boiled the nuts, but it took a long time for them to dry. Now that we use vapor, our work process is much faster.”
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| Senegalese welder Sagna Kelountang at work with Conakry welders. Here he shows a nut cracker that he and the welders have just made. |
SPCIA, a USAID partner that sells agricultural implements to farmers and exports raw cashews, has also been giving good advice to cashew plantation owners to help them prune and space out trees to help increase cashew production.
Hassan Diallo, a plantation owner in the Boke area, worked with SPCIA to prune and space out the cashew trees on his plantation. Using Diallo’s cashew orchard as a demonstration site, SPCIA invited area cashew growers to the pruning and spacing session. Says Diallo, “I knew I needed to space out my trees, that it would make them more productive, and I thought it was a good idea that SPCIA use my trees as an example so that others could see what they need to do with theirs.”
Diallo has cashew trees planted on 22 hectares of his 55-hectare plantation, and although not all of the trees are old enough to produce cashews, Diallo expects better yields in the coming season after the pruning and spacing done in his orchard. He obtained four-and-a-half tons of raw cashews this year, and expects five to six tons in the coming year.
Because the unique biodiversity found within Guinea’s borders, and the major significance of Guinea to surrounding countries in West Africa (Guinea is known as “the water tower of West Africa” since it is the source of three major West African rivers, providing water resources to over ten countries in the sub-region), USAID seeks to to encourage conservation of the Guinea’s natural resource base through appropriate agricultural practices, and the promotion of economic growth.
In a country where 80% of the population is dependent upon revenue from the agricultural sector, encouraging farmers to use environmentally friendly and productive agricultural methods, find appropriate sources of revenue such as that obtained from cashew and other cash crop cultures, and help farmers and businesspeople market their products is essential. It is through this strategy that USAID is helping to increase household income for rural Guineans, a big factor in the natural resource management conservation equation in Guinea.
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| A welder in Conakry learns to build a centrifuge for cashew processing through training sponsored by USAID. |
Winrock International, another USAID-sponsored partner in Guinea has also helped plant cashew trees on local plantations, as well as coffee, palm and citrus trees, and some local species such as acacia and leuceana, to help increase farmer’s cash crop yields.
Where the desire to start or increase cashew production was expressed in village natural resource management plans, Winrock has helped farmers obtain cashew seeds to help them get off to a good start. Village co-management committees then distribute the seeds for a fee to their members, and the earnings are then kept as common savings to be used for other community projects related to natural resource management.
Says Papa Meissa Diop, “The village committees need both the short-term projects like vegetable gardening or soap-making and marketing to ensure steady household revenue from day to day, but they also need to plan for the future. Cashew trees will bring them income in four to five years, with the other big benefit of helping promote reforestation.” Adds Diop with a smile, “It’s always good to plant trees.”
Story and Photos by Laura Lartigue
Last updated February 5, 2007.
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