Aniyamma Baby from Payyavoor, Kannur district, Kerala, has come up with a technique to rejuvenate old cashew trees, and protect them from cyclonic storms and the recurring borer infestations that bore holes in the roots and trunk of trees.

Aniyamma, a 55-year-old farmer cultivates cashew trees. She came up with a technique where, from the branches of old cashew trees, new trees can be regenerated, and now, instead of planting new cashew saplings, a new tree can be readied from the branches of the old one.   

“Many people in Kannur grow cashew and are plagued by pest infestations,” Baby Jacob, Aniyamma’s husband told Gaon Connection.

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“In 2004, Aniyamma, while she was harvesting the cashew from her trees, noticed that one of the sagging branches that was hanging low near the soil, had new roots  growing from it. And these were growing rapidly,” Baby said.  

The following year in 2005, the Baby noticed that the borer infestation had affected only the old tree and had left the new ones growing from the roots they had observed the previous year, well alone. 

This led Aniyamma to graft new saplings from the old tree. She wrapped the lower branches in soil and covered them with arecanut leaves. She also weighed down low hanging branches that touched the ground with weights and let them set in the soil. Both her techniques worked and this way, she has been gradually rejuvenating  her cashew garden. While she initially had 50 cashew trees, Aniyamma now has more than 100.

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Nearly 10.11 lakh hectares of land are under cashew cultivation mostly in the states of Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka.  The annual yield of cashew is about 7.53 lakh tonnes and many farmers depend on cashew cultivation for their livelihoods. Most cashew plantations are near the coast making them vulnerable to cyclonic storms. 

The National Innovation Foundation (NIF), based in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, helped spread the good word about Aniyamma’s techniques to save the cashew tree. NIF in turn shared her innovations to rejuvenate old cashew trees and the multiple rooting technology with Indian Council of Agricultural Research- Directorate of Cashew Research, Puttur, Karnataka and with Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur, where in 2020. Her methods were tested and proved to make the trees pest resistant and strong enough to withstand cyclones. They were also an effective way of regenerating old cashew trees.

“Aniyamma’s innovative techniques will be of great help to cashew farmers who often face great losses as their tree that has been giving fruit for five to six years falls prey to borers or are knocked down by cyclones,” Smita Kaul Sharma, National Innovation Coordinator, of NIF, told Gaon Connection.

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“A farmer cannot keep replacing his cashew trees. But using the technique Aniyamma has innovated, the farmer can prepare new trees from old ones,” she said. Also, with the kind of support the tree gets from weighing down its branches, like Aniyamma did, it will make it stronger and not so easily uprooted by cyclonic storms, Sharma pointed out.

Indian Council of Agricultural Research- Directorate of Cashew Research, Puttur, Karnataka, also plans to take Aniyamma Baby’s techniques to the next level to enable more cashew farmers to adopt them. 

Read the story in Hindi.