After
having spent most of the time in the villages, we also visited several rubber
and cashew nut companies (processors, depots and traders) in Dawei, the hub
city for many agricultural products from the Southern region of Myanmar.
Cashew nuts,
betel nuts and rubber are quite popular agricultural products in our case study
sites. So we decided to follow their path a little bit. This blog post will
give you some impressions of what we found out so far about cashew nuts and
rubber.
Cashew
nuts:
A baby
plant for cashew nuts: Many farmers grow the plants themselves and have small
nurseries in their backyard. As soon as the plants are strong enough, they are
planted on the cultivation sites.
Cashew nut
trees: The farmers plug the nuts by hand.
Farmer
showing us his harvest of the day.
Another
farmer lady brings her harvest to the trader in the nearby big village (Kan
Pauk). The trader lady (she runs a depot) weights the bag and pays the
according price to the farmer.
This is the depot of the trader lady in Kan Pauk. She also trades coconut and betel nut.
The cashew
nuts are then sent to Dawei by truck, where one of the larger traders
(processor and depot) in a first step dries the cashew nuts for several days
under the hot sun, until the nuts’ skin turns rather bright (still in the
shell).
Here in
this large depot, the cashew nuts are then boilt in pure water, where the nuts’
skin and the water turn black (due to the latex the cashew nuts have inside
their shell).
Afterwards,
many very swiftly working women open the nutshells by crashing them under a
very old looking machine. The women operate the machines with a foot pedal. The
now appearing nuts are separated from the black shells.
In the
oven, the nuts are now roasted.
After the
roasting, women, men and often also children with sure instincts
(Fingerspitzengefühl) separate the remaining fine skin from the rest of the nut
(similar to the peanuts, also the cashew nuts have such a very fine skin).
Now the
cashew nuts are ready to be packed and shipped / transported to the markets.
The nuts which are still intact can be sold for a higher price. Slightly “damaged”
cashew nuts are cheaper. In packages of 10 or 20 kg, these cashews here are then
sent from Dawei to the biggest market in Yangon, from where many products leave
the country.
Now I understand
why cashew nuts are so expensive in our supermarkets in Switzerland!
Rubber:
The rubber
tree is wide spread in Southern Myanmar. When one cuts the bark of an adult
rubber tree (usually older than 7 years), a white liquid dribs out; the
original substance of latex. Wikipedia gives the following information on what
the rubber liquid is often used for; and you will see, it is used for very many
purposes of our Western world…
“The flexibility of rubber is often used in hoses, tires, and rollers
for a wide variety of devices ranging from domestic clothes wringers to
printing presses; its elasticity makes it suitable for various kinds of shock
absorbers and for specialized machinery mountings designed to reduce vibration.
Being relatively impermeable to gases, rubber is useful in the manufacture of
articles such as air hoses, balloons, balls, and cushions. The resistance of
rubber to water and to the action of most fluid chemicals has led to its use in
rainwear, diving gear, and chemical and medicinal tubing, and as a lining for
storage tanks, processing equipment, and railroad tank cars. Because of their
electrical resistance, soft rubber goods are used as insulation and for protective
gloves, shoes, and blankets; hard rubber is used for articles such as telephone
housings, parts for radio sets, meters, and other electrical instruments. The
coefficient of friction of rubber, which is high on dry surfaces and low on wet
surfaces, leads to the use of rubber both for power-transmission belting and
for water-lubricated bearings in deep-well pumps.”
Many
farmers and especially also many small-scale and large-scale investors grow
rubber on plantations, hoping to become rich. This was probably the case up to
6 years ago. But the price has decreased a lot over the last few years, which
does not make the investors and farmers happy. Nevertheless, there is still a
lot of rubber, also in our case study sites.
This is one
of the many plantations.
The liquid is extracted by cutting the bark and collecting the latex with little buckets.
The farmers
then process the liquid with a special machine to make it thicker. Then, they pour
the liquid into a form (rectangular and flat) where it becomes solid. As soon
as the “mat” is solid, it is put out on a line to hang and dry a bit more.
The farmer
himself or a trader then brings the rubber mats to another trader (processor
and depot). Our farmers from our case study sites all send their rubber mats to
Dawei. When the rubber mats arrive at the depot in Dawei, the material gets
checked.
Is the
rubber of high quality and already rather dry, the colour on the inside turns
transparent. If the rubber mat is still not dry (high degree of moisture) and
therefore of lower quality, the colour on the inside is rather white. Of
course, the company pays more for high quality rubber to the farmers.
The mats
are then hung up on bamboo sticks in an oven where wood shavings are burnt. The
mats get smocked and dried for several days.
Low quality
mats are hanging lower (for better drying), high quality rubber mats are
hanging higher (need less heat).
After the
processing, bundles of 55 kg are packed together and transported to Yangon,
from where the rubber again leaves the country. Some years ago, there was an
illegal route to Thailand by boat (to an illegal rubber market in Thailand),
but this business has been cut off. Nowadays, there’s “only” the legal market.
What you
cannot see on the pictures: The rubber stinks!!! It smells like a new plastic foot mat in a car or like rain boots, but in
a veeeery intense way… :-)
