Cashew is one of those everyday foods that turns out to have a much darker supply chain than most people, myself included until I looked into it, ever think about.
The Basics
Cashew, Anacardium occidentale, is native to northeastern Brazil, though the vast majority of the roughly 4 million tonnes the world eats each year now comes from India, Vietnam, and Côte d’Ivoire. It’s in the same family, Anacardiaceae, as our mango.
Origin and Habitat
Native to coastal, seasonally dry parts of Brazil, now grown across the tropics wherever there’s a market for it.
What It Looks Like
The tree produces a cashew apple, a colorful false fruit that’s actually edible on its own, with the true fruit, a single drupe containing the nut, hanging off the tip of it.
Uses and Flavor
The nut shell contains urushiol, the same toxic oil found in poison ivy, capable of causing real rashes and blistering, which is part of why processing cashews safely takes real infrastructure, not unlike the careful handling our ackee needs before it’s safe to eat. That processing, unfortunately, comes with a heavy human cost in parts of the supply chain: in India, over 500,000 workers, mostly women, hand peel cashews for less than $4 a day; in Vietnam, people in labor camps have reportedly been forced into the work; and in Côte d’Ivoire, an estimated 2 million children work on cacao and cashew plantations. Not exactly a fun fact to sit with, but worth knowing.
Growing It Here
Got this one from Dash and Erika, and planted it the same trip we spent the night at Starseed Ranch up in Hawi. Unfortunately, it didn’t make it, it was already too old and root bound by the time it went into the ground, which gave it a rough start it never really recovered from. Alongside our kukui, it was one of the few nut-bearing trees we’ve tried here, and a reminder that starting material matters just as much as the planting itself.
Pests and Diseases to Watch For
Nothing to report on pests, root-bound stock was the actual problem here, not a pest or disease.
Kenta’s Take
Growing our own cashew wouldn’t have fixed a global supply chain, but it would have made me appreciate every bag of them a lot less casually than I used to. Worth trying again with healthier starting stock.