In 2014, we donated to Equal Exchange’s Grow Together Fund to support a cashew growing co-op in El Salvador called Aprainores. The money helped the cashew farmers get through a hard, drought season, working on their own farms rather than as day laborers on other farms. Equal Exchange donated funds to plant additional trees and technical assistance to help new farmers join the co-op and transition to organic.
In January, Aprainores sent a report on their progress:
We would like to briefly mention how Equal Exchange has helped us to improve our cooperative!!
We started working with Equal Exchange in 2013. Since then, we have been so blessed with their support and we have increased our technical and productive capabilities.
Before Equal Exchange started working with us, we were only processing 2800 quintales (100 pound bags) of raw cashew nuts because our land certified as organic was only 163 manzanas (280 acres). This last year we hired an agriculture technician to give follow up to a new group of cashew farmers. These farmers were already producing cashew nuts, but were not organically certified, so we put our efforts toward giving them technical assistance in organic agriculture and we got them certified.
We increased our production of organic cashew nuts from 3000 to 3500 quintales.
We increased our annual sales from $350,000 to $425,000; this was because we had more organic cashews available.
We increased labor in our factory one month longer than usual (80 people at the processing plant), providing badly needed jobs for women in the area.
We added 15 new members in the department of Usulután. We now have 62 members.
We have planted 700 new trees (in new areas that represents 25 new acres).
700 old trees were cut and new seedlings were created by grafting new shoots onto the old trees.
We have created a Revolving Loan Fund to make credit available for farmers. We have available a credit line for small cashew farmers who receive pre-finance to do maintenance work on their cashew farms before the harvest time. This helps them increase productivity of their farm and feed their families while they are waiting for the harvest.
On behalf of our cashew farmers, and workers, we thank you and wish that you keep growing and supporting small farmers, not only us, but also all the small producers who really need support to produce the food of the world.