Ghana’s cashew apples get a second life | News

Sunyani, Ghana – At harvest time in Ghana’s cashew-growing communities, the bottom beneath the timber tells a well-recognized story.

Whereas farmers rigorously accumulate the nuts that shall be offered to consumers, the fleshy cashew apples hooked up to them are sometimes left behind. Inside hours, the fruit begins to spoil, turning a probably useful a part of the harvest into waste.

Ghana is one in every of Africa’s main cashew producers, harvesting roughly 1 / 4 of 1,000,000 tonnes of uncooked cashew nuts every year. The timber additionally produce way more cashew apples than nuts and business officers say a lot of the fruit is rarely processed or offered.

For many years, the cashew apple has remained largely exterior the market financial system. Farmers have had few consumers for the fruit, and with out close by processing services, transporting it earlier than it spoils is tough.

Now, researchers, farmers and business leaders consider the discarded fruit might change into a brand new supply of earnings for rural communities – if Ghana can construct the programs wanted to gather, course of and promote it.

From waste to worth

For Francisca Aba Ansah, the chance turned clear after subject visits revealed the size of cashew apple waste. She is a meals post-harvest scientist on the CSIR-Meals Analysis Institute and undertaking lead for MA-CASH, a analysis initiative centered on increasing worth from cashew manufacturing.

“MA-CASH mainly means Maximising Beneficial properties from Cashew Manufacturing for Youth Growth,” Ansah instructed Al Jazeera. “The undertaking began by trying on the stage of waste in rising areas and the processing choices out there.”

Working with farming communities, researchers developed merchandise together with juice, juice blends, sausages, bagels and different meals comprised of cashew apples.

One of many greatest challenges was the fruit’s excessive tannin content material, which impacts style and client acceptance.

“Cashew apples have excessive tannin content material, so we did a variety of analysis to cut back the tannin and minimise the anti-nutrient results when folks devour the merchandise,” she stated.

An excellent larger barrier was the fruit’s quick shelf life. Recent cashew apples can spoil inside 24 hours of harvest, making transport from farms to processing centres problematic.

“If you harvest cashew apples, inside 24 hours it goes dangerous,” she stated. “We developed the know-how that permits farmers to maintain it for as much as six days earlier than it’s shipped to the processing centre. When it will get there, it may be refrigerated for the entire yr for manufacturing.”

The preservation know-how has been examined by means of pilot work beneath the undertaking and will make business assortment and processing potential for the primary time in lots of farming communities.

The undertaking can also be exploring low season earnings alternatives, together with beekeeping beneath cashew plantations.

“Through the low season, when you’ll not be working there, you possibly can really do beekeeping,” she stated. “The honey that comes from cashew has good high quality, so farmers can nonetheless have their enterprise working.”

Past the nut

For some farmers, the thought of making worth from cashew apples is already shifting from risk to observe.

Samuel Nortey Adumoah has experimented with turning the fruit into pito, a standard native drink, in addition to wine and different drinks.

Like many farmers, he as soon as seen the cashew apple as little greater than a by-product. Now he believes it might change into an necessary supply of earnings.

“Cashew drinks have sturdy market potential,” Adumoah instructed Al Jazeera. “I name on traders to come back into this house to help us as a result of it is rather profitable.”

His expertise displays each the promise and the problem of constructing a brand new business. Farmers can create merchandise, however scaling these concepts requires funding, infrastructure and dependable hyperlinks to markets.

The lacking provide chain

Raphael Godlove Ahenu, Nationwide Coordinator of Cashew Watch Ghana, says many farmers nonetheless want help to know the financial potentialities past the nut.

The organisation has been working with farmers, significantly within the Bono Area, to advertise worth addition and encourage communities to discover processing alternatives.

“For the previous two years, we’ve been mobilising farmers into teams and educating them on find out how to course of cashew into fruit juice and different merchandise, other than promoting the nut to international corporations,” Ahenu instructed Al Jazeera.

However he warns that processing services alone is not going to assure success.

“This isn’t the primary time a cashew processing manufacturing facility has been established,” Ahenu stated. “Some non-public corporations have arrange processing crops, however sadly many have struggled or collapsed as a result of they may not safe sufficient provide from farmers.”

Many farmers depend upon advance financing from export consumers supplying main markets comparable to India and Vietnam, which regularly determines the place their produce is offered.

“More often than not, international consumers give farmers comfortable loans in the course of the low season,” he stated. “Earlier than the cashew season arrives, farmers have already taken cash and are compelled to promote to those consumers.”

With out different financing, farmers might wrestle to take part in new worth chains, even when alternatives emerge.

Creating demand

Monetary consultants consider cashew apple processing might create further income streams and strengthen farmers’ capability to entry credit score.

Aaron Owusu Nketia, a monetary adviser and mortgage officer working with cashew farmers within the Bono Area, stated native processing might enhance confidence amongst farmers and lenders.

“If the federal government is ready to set up processing factories for cashew upcycling, it would assist farmers with further income streams to pay again their loans, and it’ll encourage banks to present extra loans to farmers,” Nketia instructed Al Jazeera.

However creating an business requires greater than producing new merchandise. Cashew apple juice and different merchandise should compete with established drinks and persuade shoppers {that a} fruit as soon as handled as waste has business worth.

For Robert Abongo, a instructor and neighborhood help activist working with farmers in Sekyeredumasi in Ashanti Area, consciousness stays a significant problem.

“Most farmers rely solely on the nuts,” Abongo instructed Al Jazeera. “The federal government should intensify schooling on worth addition so farmers shall be knowledgeable and plan with the fruits in thoughts as an alternative of relying solely on the seeds.”

A strategic useful resource

The federal government believes cashew apple processing might change into a part of Ghana’s wider agricultural transformation agenda.

Andrews Osei Okrah, Chief Government Officer of the Tree Crops Growth Authority, stated the fruit is more and more being recognised as extra than simply an agricultural by-product.

“As soon as considered a by-product, the cashew apple is now a strategic financial useful resource with immense potential to drive agro-industrialisation, create jobs, enhance rural livelihoods and contribute to Ghana’s financial progress,” Osei Okrah instructed Al Jazeera.

Ghana now has a chance however should concentrate on implementation, stated John Y. Kupagme, a researcher and head of the Agriculture Sector on the African Chamber of Content material Producers.

“The coverage framework gives a stable basis. What is required now could be coordinated motion and sustained funding,” Kupagme instructed Al Jazeera.

The subsequent harvest

The push to develop a cashew apple financial system comes as Ghana searches for methods to diversify agricultural earnings.

For years, Ghana’s cashew farmers measured the worth of their harvest by the nuts they carried away.

Now, they’re starting to take a look at the fruit that was as soon as left behind. Whether or not it turns into a brand new supply of earnings will depend upon if Ghana can construct a price chain that works from the farm to the manufacturing facility and eventually to shoppers.

As one other harvest season approaches, the cashew apples will as soon as once more fall beneath the timber. The query is whether or not they are going to be left to spoil, or collected, processed and offered because the crop that Ghana has been overlooking all alongside.

“Now we have the fruits. Now we have the concepts. We simply want the funding to make it work,” Ahenu stated.