Cashew Nuts

Cashew Nuts, Goa

Cashew is one of the predominant cash crop in Goa with even the local wine from the breweries are of cashew nuts. The people love to drink the cashew wine which is Feni. If the Cashew farming is to be believed it was first found in Brazil and it was later introduced in India at the later half of sixteenth century. It was just cultivated as a step to eradicate soil erosion because it kept the soil intact. The various nuts such as Hazlenuts along with almonds etc are also grown and cashew nuts enjoys the most cultivated crops in Goa giving high return.

The farming of cashew and its importance could be understood by the fact that the current cashew production with an estimated annual production of India accounts for 23.00% of global production. It is estimated that nearly two million people are involved in cashew production which is also into processing and marketing. In the cashew farming the general notion is that “cashew is one of the modest in soil requirements and it adapts itself in varying soil condition with excessive alkaline and saline soils also supporting the cultivation of Cashew nuts thus making it easy to get the crop cultivation at Goa.

The Goa cashew nut is of the most important varieties as it can be said to be of the good variety in which the variety could be classified as:

. Goa-1( Balli 2)

. Vengurla-4

. Vengurla-7

The planting materials and methods of planting is simple as the soft woods grafting is one of the process in which pre-curing along with filling the pits with top soil helps to mix thoroughly with one basket in which (15-20 Kg ) of compost or farm yard manure with 400-500 gram rock phosphate and 100 gram of Lindane helps to overcome termite problem. The trimming and pruning is done up-to a height of 1m by removing side branches. The initial stages of infestation takes a much more time as the mechanical removal of immature stages of the pest during the initial stages of infestation.

Much of this cash crop gets value by stakeholder’s where most of the output is controlled by agricultural farm houses and they try to keep the ground realities of cashew economy in Goa which helps in incorporating more of farming with the subsequent action plan which mostly done through Goa tractors like Mapusa-Goa and with the super yield done at the harvesting season which commences from February till May makes the Cashew apple separated and with proper washing and drying under The Sun to make it suitable for longer consumption.

Location: Bardez, Bicholim, Pernem, Ponda, Sattari, Tiswadi, Dharbandora, Canacona, Mormugao, Salcette, Sanguem and Quepem.

Weather Temperature

Months Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Average Low (℃) 20.2 20.2 24.6 24.6 24.7 24.7 24.7 24.7 24.7 23.8 21.6 21.6
Average High (℃) 31.8 31.8 32.6 32.6 30.3 30.3 30.3 30.3 30.3 31.7 32.8 32.8