NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

By Trang Chu Minh

From compostable coffee capsules to rice berry, these social ventures have made it their mission to create more social and environmental awareness around our food and drinks consumption by empowering local communities and championing sustainable production practices.

Behind rugged mountains and dense rainforests, the rural villages of East Bali are home to impoverished cashew-farming communities who – due to lack of alternative employment opportunities – rely predominantly on agriculture to make ends meet. 80% of the island’s raw cashews had been traditionally sold off at an extremely low price for processing in Vietnam and India, and most farmers were left to survive with an average income of less than $2.50 a day.

To tackle rampant unemployment and poverty and in the region, in 2012, East Bali Cashews created Indonesia’s first vertically integrated cashew processing business for the local production and sale of raw nuts or other value added products such as flavored cashew or granola. They provide critical infrastructure and training for farmers to take ownership of the entire production process and secure stable employment, with a positive spillover effect on their families’ livelihoods.