The Cashews of Goa

Goa is a place is known for having the best time with its magnificent beaches, a wide variety of adventure sports, beautiful churches and houses and wildest beach parties but all my sister could talk about after visiting Goa was the cashew plantations and how Goa is the largest producer of them. Later I read that the Kaju tree isn’t native vegetation of India! Where did this plantation come from?

The cashew trees in Goa; Image source: Pixabay

The Kaju plantations in Goa are a sight to behold. The beautiful ripe cashew apples are laden in trees all along the roads. Even looking at the photos you can’t help but get intrigued. They form a significant part of Indian festivities as if they have existed here since time immemorable however, they aren’t native to India but were in fact brought by the Portuguese!

After Vasco Da Gama had discovered the sea route to India, the Portuguese were quick to act. They sent viceroys to India hoping to establish their control before any other European country could.

The first viceroy to India didn't have much luck however, the second viceroy to India, Albuquerque is known to be the real founder of Portuguese power in India. Apart from conquering the Hormuz, the busiest waterway in the world that was crucial for trading with India, he managed to capture Goa from Vijapuri rulers in 1510.

The Portuguese made themselves feel quite at home in their newly captured area. Since their motive was to trade and spread Christianity, they began promoting cash crops like tobacco, spices and cotton and built many churches.

What they realised was that since Goa was situated in the coastal regions and was subject to strong Goan monsoon, the land suffered from heavy soil leaching. This hindered the plantation of the desired crops.

They came with a plan- introducing cashew plantations in Goa. The soil in Goa was laterite which was subjected to a lot of leaching of nutrients because of the monsoon but cashews had such strong roots that they could stop this erosion to a great extent.

Apart from that since Goa was a coastal region and they needed more and more land for the production of crops, they had an excellent solution in mind- reclamation of land. Land reclamation is a process of creating new land from oceans, seas or riverbeds. As it turns out Cashew plantation is an excellent natural method to reclaim land from the sea.

The Portuguese quickly developed cashew plantations in Goa. It solved the problems of soil erosion and moreover, the Goan soil turned out to be very well suited for Cashews. Today, if you decide to go for a bike ride in Goa, it is very likely that you will run into beautiful cashew apples in your way. Goa has the highest land for cashew production (around 15,000 hectares) than any other state and makes India one of the largest producers of cashews in the world.

After a successful harvest, cashews quickly found a place in the local markets of Goa. Apart from being sold as Kajus, a loved dry fruit delicacy, sweet shops like Bikaner soon began buying the Kajus to make India’s most well known sweet- Kaju Barfi. Can you imagine what would the festival of Diwali would look like without Kajubarfi?

Kaju barfi wasn't the only application of the cashews in Goa. The native drink ‘Feni’, an alcohol made from the distillation of cashews became very popular. The Portuguese were heavy drinkers and suggested this method of alcohol production. It’s been 60 years since the Portuguese left but Feni is still going strong in India. This drink made only from the ripest cashew apples has procured the GI tag which means the origin of Feni would always be sourced to Goa making it on par with Scotch from Scotland and Tequila from Mexico though it wasn’t heavily marketed like these other drinks until now.

It’s not just cashews that the Portugues introduced, they also brought potatoes, tomatoes and chillies which today form the staple diet of India. Also, cashews weren’t a Portuguese native plant, it’s actually from Brazil but the Indian soil suited cashews much more than they suited even the Brazilan soil. It’s interesting how countries’ interdependence on each other affected the vegetation.

Sure colonialism by countries like England has done a lot more harm to India but if the exchange of knowledge between countries is done in the right way it can also do a lot of good as well.