This project aims to strengthen the resilience of small cashew nut growers to climate change.
The Switzerland-based organisation EPER supports development cooperation projects to combat poverty and injustice, and advocates for a life in dignity for all people. This project in Cambodia aims to ensure food security for the rural population and strengthen their empowerment with the objective to promote sustainable rural development. It focuses on sustainable cashew cultivation to fight climate change.
More than 75% of Cambodia’s population lives in rural areas and depends principally on agriculture as its main source of income. Compared with other crops, cashew nut cultivation is profitable for small-scale farmers since financial costs are low and selling prices can rise in response to global demand. The seasonal workload associated with cashew tree maintenance also enables smallholders to carry on an additional income-generating activity, thereby providing their financial security.
However, because of insufficient market information, poor expertise and lack of access to capital and quality inputs (seeds/plants, fertilisers), smallholders are unable to exploit the full potential of cashew nut production. Fertile soils, a favourable climate and the right tree varieties have resulted in high yields in Cambodia, but maintaining this advantage without excessive use of potentially harmful fertilisers and pesticides is a major challenge. The competitiveness of the Cambodian cashew sector also remains weak, with value-added processing activities underdeveloped, even though the quality of the cashew kernels produced is among the best in the world. So far, 95% of Cambodia’s raw cashew nuts are exported to neighbouring countries (mainly Vietnam) for processing and shipping.
The goal of the project is to enable small cashew nut growers to increase their income from cashew nut production and gathering, and to strengthen their resilience to climate change. The project aims to achieve this objective by facilitating access to products, services and training that can help smallholders to produce in a more organic and/or climate-resilient way; helping farmers to access markets and improve returns from their produce or the prices they receive from purchasers; and working with the government and the cashew business federation to improve the political environment for the Cambodian cashew industry.
