SRI LANKA: Women Cashew Workers No Longer Need Middlemen

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

VANATHAVILLUWA, Sri Lanka, Feb 14 2001 (IPS) - Like many other women in this north-western Sri Lankan village, Sriyani Prithika works hard to produce delicious cashew nuts that are sold in big stores in the national capital.

She is one of the estimated 35,000 people in the Indian Ocean island nation, most of them women, who depend on ‘cadju’ (cashew nut) for their livelihood.

They are either cashew farmers themselves, like Prithika, or work on the farms of others. Many more work in cashew processing factories where the raw cadju is sunned, shelled, ‘peeled’ and heated again, before it is packed for sale.

Prithika grows cashew on a small plot of land. A few years ago, she had to sell most of the harvest to middlemen, who in turn sold to large processing units.

“In those days I used to shell some of the raw cashew that we grew at home, but it took much time. The nut would also break. So we had to sell to middlemen, at their prices,” says the 30-year- old.

“Now I get a better deal, because we are workers and also owners of this factory,” she adds proudly.

Prithika works at the Thammanna Agro Production Company Cashew Processing Unit in Vanathavilluwa, some 175 km from the national capital Colombo.

Set up with the help of the Britain-based Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), the cashew processing unit is owned and run as a cooperative by the women.

The only man at the cashew factory is its manager Anupa Tissa. According to Tissa, before the factory was set up, more than 90 percent of the annual cashew crop grown in the village, was sold to middlemen.

“Poverty compelled the women to sell their produce in bulk at once. So the middlemen could buy very cheap and sell at much higher prices to the big processing units,” he says.

Things are different now. Though the work is still hard, the village women earn more from cashew. Prithika works at the factory for about eight hours a day, from four to six days a week.

She shells the cashew even as she speaks. Time is precious for her because the workers are paid by the amount of cashew they shell in a day. Prithika can shell about 25 kg daily, which fetches her about 150 rupees (about two U.S. dollars).

Another worker, Nilmini Chrysanthi, cannot earn as much because she goes home in the afternoon to prepare lunch for her two children when they return from school. She can shell only about 15 kg of raw cashew a day.

The work is not easy. The women have to wear long-sleeved blouses with high necks, over their clothes, despite the hot, tropical climate. They also wear gloves to protect their skin from cashew milk.

“If it falls on the skin, the skin burns and sores erupt,” says Chrysanthi. The women suffer backache, caused by hours of sitting in one position as they shell the nuts.

According to Cowan Coventry, chief executive of the London-based ITDG, the project is primarily for women.

“If women are prime beneficiaries, the net benefits for the rest of the family would be much higher than if a man was the main worker,” said Coventry, during a visit to Sri Lanka in the second week of February.

“It is very important that we ensure that when we think about technology development with local communities, we do so taking into account the women’s perspective,” he added.

Some 25 women work in the factory, 12 of them engaged in shelling and the rest in peeling, or removal of the red skin, which is done by young girls.

The processed cashew is sold to big companies, with ITDG helping find the buyers.

An ITDG survey in Vananthavilluwa eight years ago, found that the villagers had to sell the raw nuts in bulk because they did not have the facilities to process these. The locals did not know how to dry the cashew without causing discoloration.

“We decided to help out and provided a dryer on an experimental basis. The dryer was in use in Peru, using gas or electricity, but we modified it to run on local raw material like paddy husk or sawdust,” recalls Vishaka Hidellage, policy director at the ITDG office in Colombo.

Once the dryer was set up, the cashew worker women began meeting in one place to use the machine. This eventually led to the establishment of the factory, says Hidellage.

Though ITDG has since pulled out of the project, it has set up a cadre of trained extension workers, based in the central Sri Lankan hill town of Kandy, who are available for technical advice to run the cashew factory.

The project has also checked the migration of young women from the village in search of work.

“This is not a difficult job. I can peel about six kilos a day and earn around 100 rupees, which I use for my personal expenses,” says 19-year-old Sudira Iranthi, who has passed the secondary examination.

“There’s nothing to do here in Vanathavilluwa after leaving school. Half the village girls have gone to Puttalam to join the garment factory there. But this is better, because we can live and earn at home,” she adds.