Growing cashew enterprises
Earning an income from cashew trees, vegetable farming and honey production.Why is this project needed?
In Northern Ghana, over half of the population live in poverty and rely on farmland for food and income. But the climate crisis is making it more difficult to grow enough crops to eat and sell.
57% of the world's cashews are grown in Africa. The cashew farmers that we are supporting, work hard to grow cashew nuts and apples. But without business skills and links to buyers, their produce doesn’t always fetch the price it deserves.
Our aims
The project will train 3,000 cashew farmers in farming techniques and business skills. We will support them to process their produce into things like cashew apple jam and provide links to people that will buy it for a good price.
We will also work with communities to develop legume and honey enterprises which will diversify their income sources. The legumes they grow — things like beans and peanuts — have nitrogen-fixing roots that provide the land with nutrients, helping trees and crops to grow.
Our impact
Despite the COVID-19 global health crisis delaying parts of this project, we made significant progress in the first year of this project. We began working with 150 enterprise groups who got stuck into training.
30 of these groups learned about setting up beehives to make honey, and processing cashew apples to sell. Three tree nurseries were also set up and cashew seedlings are already being grown by the communities.
