Today I planted a cashew nut tree that we got from Dash and Erika. Cashew is native to Northeastern Brazil but over half of the 4 million tonnes of cashews that the world consumes comes from three countries, India, Vietnam and Côte d’Ivoire.
The tree produces a cashew apple which is a false fruit that is edible, but at the tip of the apple is where the cashew nut grows and is considered a drupe. The shell of the nuts contain a toxic oil called urushiol that can cause rashes and blistering on your skin like poison ivy.
In India over 500,000 workers, mostly women are employed to peel them by hand in not so ideal working conditions for less than $4 a day. In Vietnam drug addicts thrown into labor camps are forced to peel them. Côte d’Ivoire is where 2 million children are forced to work on plantations… so you get the picture…
We spent the night at Starseed Ranch in one of their cabins and we highly recommend it. This was the first night I spent off the farm this year and it was very relaxing. We ate a lot and hung out with Bobby and saw all the building, growing, plumbing, bambooing, and solar projects he’s been busy working on. We saw a lot of unusual trees that were in bloom or setting fruit. Seeing all of these mature trees was both inspiring and refreshing.
Dash hooked me up with a bunch of trees from their nursery today and I also recently got rare trees from Joe too. Much mahalos guys! So that means I’ll be planting more interesting trees in the coming weeks.
Originally posted on 2021-05-22, part of the daily planting journal behind Ha’a Chocolate’s food forest on Hawai’i Island.