SÃO JOÃO DA BALIZA, Brazil — Levi da Silva Kaykûwû smiles as he explains the wealth that Brazil nuts have generated for his community. “We’ve been able to buy chainsaws, aluminum-made boats and motors,” the 48-year-old Wai Wai Indigenous leader tells Mongabay as he sits in his village by the banks of the Anauá River. Collecting, cooking, eating and selling the nuts of the Bertholletia excelsa tree is embedded in the culture of the Wai Wai people, who live across the forested interiors of northern Brazil and neighboring Guyana. Today, Brazil nuts account for the main cash income, as well as the basis of the cuisine and diet, for the 350 families that live in the 406,000-hectare (1-million-acre) Wai Wai Indigenous Territory, which is blessed with an abundance of Brazil nut trees or castanheiras, in Roraima state. After decades of selling raw Brazil nuts to local middlemen, who would pay the lowest price on the market, the Wai Wai community association, in partnership with various nonprofit organizations, began reaching out to national food companies for better prices with fixed contracts. In 2021, Wickbold, one of Brazil’s largest bread companies, bought some 100 metric tons of Brazil nuts from the Wai Wai — their entire production that year. Then, in 2022, Wickbold scaled up the partnership and bought 143 metric tons, the company told Mongabay in a statement. By selling directly to Wickbold, the Wai Wai earned roughly$1.50 per kilogram (about 70 cents a pound) of Brazil nuts, twice as much…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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