The Quiet Revolution
Brazil is the native home of the cashew tree. The word caju itself comes from the Tupi-Guarani language of Brazil's indigenous people. And yet in 2025, Côte d'Ivoire produced a record 1.5 million tonnes of cashew, up 25% year-on-year. Brazil produced approximately 136,000 tonnes, down 15% on the prior season. A country that introduced cashew to the world is no longer the top producer.
That gap is the beginning of a more interesting story.
The problem is structural. The solution already exists.
Brazil's cashew belt sits almost entirely in the semi-arid Northeast — Ceará, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte — where climate volatility is a recurring operating condition. The sector is forecasting a 15.2% output decline for the 2025/26 season due to persistent dryness. This is the pattern, not the exception.
The traditional cashew orchard made this harder. Giant trees take up to five years to fruit, grow difficult to harvest, and offer limited drought resistance. Across much of the Northeast, ageing orchards have been abandoned rather than renewed.
Embrapa, Brazil's federal agricultural research agency, changed that equation. Their dwarf cashew clones begin producing within 6 to 18 months, yield over 1,000 kg per hectare, and are engineered for drought resistance and pest protection. For family farmers — who occupy 77% of rural properties in the cashew belt — this is a faster return on investment in a climate that does not forgive slow ones.
The science exists. The shift is already happening. The question is pace.
At Ossiano Capital, we work with producers and exporters across the Brazilian cashew sector to close the gap between completed transactions and received payment. When a processor has finished a shipment and is waiting 60 to 90 days to get paid, we step in. That freed capital is what pays for new seedlings, irrigation upgrades, and the orchard transitions that determine long-term productivity.
The nut is not the whole story.
Brazil produces 2.7 million metric tonnes of cashew apples annually. Rich in vitamin C and suited to juice, fibre, and plant-based protein products, the cashew apple is a significant asset. Currently, 88% of it is discarded as waste.
Against a domestic juice market valued at USD 3.45 billion and rising global demand for functional beverages, that figure represents an enormous unrealised revenue stream sitting in fields across Ceará every harvest season. The zero-waste cashew processing model is coming. The financing infrastructure needs to keep pace with it.
Carbon adds a third revenue line.
A single hectare of cashew trees can sequester up to 160 tonnes of CO2 equivalent over 25 years. Piauí's Jurisdictional REDD+ programme is targeting over 20 million high-integrity carbon credits by 2030, potentially generating between USD 100 million and USD 300 million for the region. For farmers navigating raw nut price volatility, carbon revenue is a hedge, not a bonus.
The pivot.
Brazil's cashew industry is a USD 2 billion ecosystem being rebuilt from the orchard up. Dwarf clones replacing ageing trees. Cashew apple waste becoming industrial input. Carbon credits turning forest cover into balance sheet assets. Federal credit programmes like the R$ 516.2 billion Plano Safra providing the financing backbone.
The country that originated the cashew is repositioning within the global market — from low-margin commodity supplier toward a higher-value bio-industrial model that West African volume producers are not yet positioned to replicate.
Ossiano Capital is active in this market. We finance the sellers, processors, and exporters who are building this next chapter — and we publish research on the sectors we work in because we believe that informed markets are better markets for everyone in them.
Origin is not destiny. But it can still be an advantage.
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