Battling snakes to gather Brazil nuts

Business Daily

BBC

Business

4.4 • 816 Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2023

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Despite the name, Bolivia is actually the world's biggest exporter of Brazil nuts.

We travel to the hot and humid north of the country to look at the production process which can be extremely dangerous.

Plus we hear how the business of Brazil nuts is helping stop deforestation in the Amazon.

Presenter: Jane Chambers Producers: Jane Chambers and Helen Thomas

(Image: A worker unloading Brazil nuts from the Pando region at a nut processing plant in Riberalta, Bolivia. Credit: Bob Howard)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Unmissible stories from around the globe from the BBC World Service.
0:05.1	My happy place, this is who I am.
0:08.2	Search for the documentary, Lives Less Ordinary and Amazing Sports Stories, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
0:38.4	Hi there, I'm Jane Chambers. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. Today, the production of Brazil Nuts. They're a popular snack in Europe and North America. But actually, contrary to what you might think, the biggest producer is not Brazil, it's Bolivia.
0:45.9	Brazil nuts is a wild harvested product originating from the Amazon jungle. It's spread across Bolivia, Brazil and Peru. It's gathered wild from the jungle, then it's processed and exported
0:51.9	and lands on European retail shelves. The export market
0:56.3	split. Bolivia is about 75%, Peru, 15%, and Brazil approximately 8%. Worldwide, around 27,500
1:06.0	tonnes of Brazil nuts are eaten every year, a lot less in other nut varieties like almonds and walnuts.
1:12.5	This could be because Brazil's are extremely difficult to produce and harvest.
1:18.7	It's the rainy season.
1:20.5	So as well as using machetes to get the nuts,
1:23.2	we need them to kill the snakes,
1:25.2	which are around at this time of the year and can bite us.
1:28.8	As well as difficult working conditions, nut collectors are at the mercy of volatile market prices.
1:36.0	It's been a bad year for us, because the prices we're getting from the Osirian nuts are so low.
1:42.2	I think they're paying a lot of money for them in Europe, but we don't see it.
1:48.2	The story of the Bolivian Brazil nut, majority of Brazil nuts are grown in the wild.
2:18.2	No pesticides are used and the trees can grow as tall as 50 meters.
2:22.9	Harvesting the produce isn't for the faint-hearted.
2:28.8	In November and December, the nuts start to fall from the trees and it's dangerous.
2:39.0	When the wind starts, you have to take cover because if you get struck by one, it can kill you.
2:45.0	Juan Carlos is one of 15,000 people who work in Bolivia's Brazil nut sector.
	...

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