cashew nuts and a September departure

“Young cashew nuts” by Vinayaraj – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

September it is then early or late, depending on my job situation and plan printing and distribution. I know I can keep deadlines, but that is not guaranteed here.

I’ve already laid the ground with VSO to expect an earlier departure. I am a bit cross with them really. There are 7 in the staff team and about 9 volunteers and despite my flagging up issues via email I have had no response, not even a phone call from my manager. I thought Cameroon was bad on the people management front, but I think they were better than here. VSO are very blasé about ‘duty of care’. You really are dumped and left to sink or swim. Anyway, when you leave, they don’t need much warning to get you a ticket – 2-3 weeks is probably ample.

I read in the Sri Lankan Sunday Times yesterday that there have been increasing attacks on tourists, particularly female tourists here and they are warning women not to travel alone. Again, for health & safety reasons VSO should be flagging that up with us as we are predominantly women – I think there is one man.

Yesterday I went to meet a professor at the University (who endorsed my findings and suggestions so far which is ace) and then in the afternoon to a cashew nut plantation. One of the big issues for the East is that they don’t process their harvest so don’t benefit from what they refer to as ‘agricultural extension’. This is because with the war there has been no investment in small – medium business in the area.

I shall be ‘boff’ on issues facing Batticaloa by the time I leave!

Cashew nut cultivation

There are 45,000 acres of potential cashew nut cultivation and at the moment only 9,000 acres are being cultivated. Due to the conflict, much of the cashew cultivated lands were neglected, destroyed and abandoned by the owners. There are currently 7,500 active cashew growers and they produce between 100-125 million tonnes a year. 5 kilos have to be processed to get 1 kilo of whole nuts. The harvest is from March-July, but this year it has been poor because it has been too dry. Normally it is fine. Cashew saplings do not require watering beyond the first year so are quite low maintenance. Batticaloa, Puttalam and Mannar are the best cashew nut growing areas in Sri Lanka.

The corporation have a target to plant or replant 500 acres a year. An acre requires 80 plants and the nursery grows 26,000 plants a year which are given free. The Hardy plantation in Kiran provides valuable employment in a vulnerable area to men and women.

Cashew is a profitable crop, but there is no processing plant in the district other than a small, Muslim privately owned one in Eravur. Apparently USAid gave processing machinery and an oven to two groups, one in Oddamavady and another in Kirankulam, but this came to nothing. Raw cashew is worth 250Rs a kilo. Processed cashew is worth 2,000Rs. The majority of the cashew crop goes to the west to processing factories in Puttalam and Galle. The plantation also gets its organic fertiliser from Polonnaruwa.

At the moment they only have 3 field officers and need 11 more to cover the 14 D/S

 

 

Table 1.3: Cashew extent

	Actual Extent (ac)	Potential Extent (ac)
Cashew	1665	42,500

Source: EDP 2012 – 2016 VOL III –Agriculture Development

 

Table 1.4: Land availability for cashew cultivation

Type of Land	Land Availability (Acre)	Cultivated up to 2010
For Plantations	40,000	10,015
For Home Plots	7,500	1,050
TOTAL	47,500	11,065

Source: Statistical Hand Book -2010/2011

 

Batticaloa District Development Plan DRAFT 2013