Mighty Earth is an environmental advocacy organization that investigates and campaigns against destructive agricultural practices. This text focuses specifically on the cashew industry in Côte d'Ivoire, where cashew cultivation has expanded rapidly over 40 years to meet global demand.
The organization documents how cashew farming has replaced native dry forests across 1.6 million hectares, threatening biodiversity including critically endangered Western Chimpanzees in protected areas like Comoé National Park. The report details environmental impacts including deforestation, pesticide pollution of soils and groundwater, and loss of medicinal plants.
Socioeconomic issues include food insecurity as farmers shift from traditional food crops to cashew monoculture, dangerous working conditions for women manually processing caustic cashew nuts without protective equipment, and economic instability from market gluts.
Mighty Earth provides recommendations for creating sustainable cashew production, including implementing traceability systems, halting expansion into native ecosystems, diversifying crops and incomes for small farmers, restoring forests in critical wildlife areas, funding sustainable farming research, and banning imports linked to deforestation in major consumer markets like the US and EU.