While Sri Lanka processes and sells many of its own cashews domestically, other countries export much of what they grow. But it also depends on each country's supply chain. In December, Lahiru's supply has decreased, so prices typically increase. Narrator: This causes prices to fluctuate a bit year-round. As the crop is taken once a year only, cashews are expensive. If cashews could be harvested on a regular basis, the market price would not be that high. We have to invest a huge amount of money and stock them. Cashews can be harvested just once a year. It is not something like coconut, in which you can get a harvest every month. Lahiru: Because cashews are a seasonal fruit. Just stocking the nuts costs Lahiru more than $65,000 each year. Narrator: Because cashews can only be harvested once a year, growers like Lahiru save a portion of the nuts in stock so that they can continue making a profit in the months ahead. The price of the broken nuts will drop down to 2,000 rupees. If the price of 1 kilogram of whole nuts is 2,500 rupees, the price of the split nuts will be 50 rupees less than that. Lahiru: Whole nuts are the most expensive grade. Narrator: Cashews are graded by several features, like color, weight, and condition. If a newcomer joins us, that person cannot do it according to the required standard, meaning the nuts will be broken. This step is not only difficult but also has the biggest impact on price. Experienced workers de-skin only about 2.5 kilograms of cashews each night. Removing it is a skill one masters with practice. Workers must peel off the husk, or the dry outer covering that surrounds each nut, because it's high in tannins and could irritate your throat. The next stage is particularly tedious, as it relies entirely on handiwork. The nuts are roasted to ensure, again, that the toxic liquid inside is destroyed. Narrator: After a machine splits open the shells, the next two crucial stages totally depend on workers, who have to do them by hand. If we use the machine, we can deshell 40 kilograms per day. Let's say that we can only de-shell 20 kilograms of drupes per day by hand. For us to meet the demand for continuous cashew supply, we need more employees. Lahiru: Presently, we do not have many people who can do this job, as many prefer other jobs. Today, machines are advanced enough to crack the shells cleanly, keeping the majority of nuts intact and helping minimize risks to workers. NGOs have called out some factories for overworking employees and putting workers at risk of burning themselves if they can't afford to buy gloves for protection. But doing this by hand has frequently raised issues within the industry. Cashews are brittle, so factories used to do this step manually to ensure machines wouldn't break the nuts. The most difficult and dangerous step is splitting open the nut, since toxic oil still coats the drupes. The nuts must then dry under the sun to help draw out some of the shell's caustic liquid. Narrator: Each fruit grows just one shelled nut, called a drupe, which workers separate by hand. Lahiru Dushyantha: Usually, people think that cashew products just come to the market as they are. It's also why they require more rigorous processing than other nuts. It can cause burns, itches, and blisters, which is why unprocessed cashews are considered dangerous to eat or touch. It's found in the plant itself and the brown oil inside a nut's shell. The trees are a member of the same family as poison ivy, and like poison ivy, cashew plants contain a toxin called urushiol. Cashews grow in tropical locations like India, Vietnam, Ivory Coast, and here, in Sri Lanka. They're one of the most popular and valuable nuts in the world, worth over $6 billion today. In 2017, the world ate 770,000 metric tons of cashews. So how exactly are cashews processed? And is this what makes them so expensive? But without intensive, precise processing, these nuts wouldn't be edible at all. And in the US, retail prices for whole cashews can reach $15 per pound. That's over seven times as much as peanuts. Just 1 kilogram of cashews can cost $10 wholesale. Narrator: Cashews grow in select tropical climates around the world from the bottom of a hanging fruit like this.
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