Supply chain of cashew nuts and rubber

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… :-)