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BRAZIL NUTS
Brazil nuts grow only in a specific region of the Amazon rainforest that encompasses these three countries. They are a vital part of attempts to save the rainforest because they provide local communities with a way to earn their living which does not involve cutting down precious timber resources. The trees grow pods which contain many brazil nuts in shells arranged like the segments of an orange. The pods drop to the floor of the forest during the rainy season (January to March) and are collected by gatherers. Huge 70kg bags are filled deep in the forest and then transported by boat or on the gatherers’ backs to the shelling and drying factories. Nut gathering is a traditional family activity and each group of gatherers may leave their homes for several months and live in the forest collecting and transporting the nuts.
Through organising themselves into co-operatives, gatherers can work collectively, storing, transporting, and processing the nuts, ensuring that their members have control of the nuts further up the supply chain and receive the most profit. One nut gatherer, Benedicto Gonzalez, from the COINACAPA co-operative in Bolivia says: “Since we started the co-operative it’s as if we’ve gained our freedom. It feels like we’re not slaves any more. We have more income, more work and more dignity.” The establishment of the co-operatives and the guaranteed fair price which comes with Fairtrade can be crucial in contributing to improved livelihoods and development in the region. It creates autonomy and stability for small-scale nut producers. The increase in earnings together with the additional Fairtrade premium can bring other benefits such as improved health care and education. |
Gathering Brazil nuts from the heart of the Amazonian rainforest is an exhausting task and provides vital income to hundreds of farming families in Bolivia, Brazil and Peru who are supplying Fairtrade nuts to Twin Trading and will now be guaranteed a fair return for their hard work.
Before co-operatives of Fairtrade and organic gatherers were established, gatherers were completely dependent on intermediaries who bought the nuts from them at very low prices and then sold them to the national or international markets. Small-scale gatherers at the bottom of the supply chain usually gained little in return for their intensive work whilst their crops generated significant returns to those further up the supply chain.