Pre harvest visit in Benin
The harvest season starts soon and raw cashew nuts are already falling from the trees.
Production
The harvest season starts soon and raw cashew nuts are already falling from the trees.
It has been two months that I’m now working for Gebana. After my first Togo trip I spent a month in the office in Zurich and I’m now flying back from Cotonou, Benin.
Founding a cocoa cooperative and gebana Togo comes with major challenges for both the farmers and gebana. But it’s worth it: the quantity of exclusive organic and fair-trade cocoa from Togo is continuously growing.
The cashew growers are making the most of the skyrocketing cashew prices that have come about as a result of demand from Asia, and are selling to the highest bidders — in spite of their contracts with gebana. What do the farmers themselves say about this?
The cashew harvest began in February as it always does, but it soon became apparent that everything would be different this time.
When, in January 2011, the Tunisian dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia, a breeze of freedom swept through not only North Africa but the whole Arab world. For the first time in many decades, people throughout the Arab world had the feeling of possessing the power to change their own circumstances. Tunisians, Egyptians and other people throughout the different countries let an “Arab Spring” begin.
So auch der 51-jährige Haji Hamidullah, der mit seiner Frau und seinen vier Töchtern in der Hauptstadt Kabul Unterschlupf fand. Wie viele der Geflüchteten kehrte die Familie 2004 zurück und begann erneut, Trauben zu pflanzen.