Processing methods for canarium nuts in the Pacific

Abstract

Nuts have huge potential to improve the livelihood of the rural poor in developing countries and meet the Millennium Development Goal to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Nuts often have a high protein and oil content, giving them excellent nutritional value. They can be processed and stored for long periods and therefore can improve food security, be sold for cash or be processed and exported to distant markets, thus helping the rural poor to participate in the cash economy. We report here on three processing systems for Canarium indicum nuts developed in three Pacific Island countries: Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Centralized processing has been developed in Papua New Guinea and fruit is purchased from smallholders at a central processing facility. The fruit is depulped, the nut-in-shell is cracked, the testa is removed and the kernel is dried using ovens in this facility. This provides a very high quality product and reduces the risk of microbial contamination. In decentralized processing systems, the farmers in remote locations crack and dry the nuts using traditional methods (Solomon Islands) or solar driers (Vanuatu) then sell the dried kernel to a centralized processor. This reduces transport costs and requires no infrastructure, but there is a greater risk of poor quality kernels or microbial contamination. In village cracking systems in Vanuatu, the fruits are processed and cracked in the village and supplied as fresh, high moisture content kernel-in-testa to secondary processors. This is a hybrid system that minimizes transport costs and risks of contamination. However, this system requires delivery to the processor immediately after cracking to stabilize the kernel. The most appropriate system for processing will depend on the unique circumstances of each country.