5 In fact, cashew nuts are in the country's top four agricultural products, alongside basmati rice, spices and tea, generating nearly 1 billion USD in foreign exchange. 4 India plays a big part in this exchange as the world’s second largest supplier after Vietnam, supplying cashews to over 60 countries world-wide. Today, cashew nuts have grown to become one of the most valuable processed nuts in global commodity markets, with a market value of 6.27 billion US dollars. It wasn’t until some 400 years after the Portuguese first planted cashew trees on Indian coasts that the nuts’ commercial value was realised. 3 This was the beginning of what would grow to become a multibillion dollar global industry today. Greedy elephants were largely responsible for propagating the nut – after eating the trees’ fruit and dispersing its seeds across the country’s peninsula in their droppings, in states such as Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and West Bengal. Once the tree had set down roots in India, it soon came to conquer India’s entire coastal region. The trees’ expansive branch system which extends horizontally also serves as a natural umbrella, shielding the soil from rain. Cashew nut trees are used to mitigate soil erosion because of their extensive root system, which keeps the soil beneath them firmly in place. The cashew tree, Anacardium occidentale L, was first introduced to India in the 16th century by Portuguese explorers sailing from Brazil, who first planted it in Goa to prevent coastal erosion. A master of deception, the real fruit dangles from the bottom of the cashew apple, guarding within it a single seed, known to us as a cashew nut.

The fruit, or ‘cashew apple’, which resembles a bell pepper, is what is called a ‘false fruit’. The cashew nut is a particularly interesting example of this.Ĭashew nuts come from fruit producing trees. If I were to ask you how cashew nuts are grown and harvested, or what they look like in their shell, would you know? The funny thing is, most of us couldn’t pinpoint where our food comes from, or even what it looks like in its natural form. Read on to learn more about this cosmopolitan nut, how cashews are processed and how Vietnam came to overtake India as the world’s leading supplier. Brought over from Brazil, nurtured in India and commercialised all over the world, the cashew nut has grown to become an emblem of globalisation.

Cashew on tree