Efeitos do beneficiamento artesanal da castanha de caju: condições de vida e de trabalho no território indígena Mendonça do Amarelão

Abstract

The artisanal processing of cashew nuts is the main economic activity practiced by the Mendonça Potiguara indigenous people whose territory, known as Amarelão, is located in the rural area of the municipality of João Câmara/RN. Commonly, the processing is performed in three stages: burning of fresh chestnut, cooling of roasted chestnuts in soil and manual breaking and dispeltion, in working hours that reach nine hours a day. This activity carries with it unhealthy working conditions, also because it generates significant amounts of waste: cashew nut liquid (CNL), smoke and ash, which affect workers health and the environment, as they are disposed of improperly. The present work proposes to perform a diagnosis of the artisanal processing activity of cashew nuts in the light of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a view to indicating alternatives for mitigating the socio-environmental liability generated by the inappropriate disposal of ash. For this purpose, we used as a basis the narrative of on-site observation obtained from the extension activities carried out in Amarelão by OASIS in partnership with SISAN-Universities (RN). For the identification of socio-environmental liabilities, three stages were adopted: observation of the process of artisanal processing, identification of the residues generated by it and analysis of the perception of the Mendonça indigenous peoples about the impacts caused by the activity. For data collection, three sources were considered: focus group, observations and records collected between 2019 and 2021. The diagnosis was based on an important tool for identifying the social, economic and cultural aspects that characterize the Mendonça Potiguara Indigenous People and points out that the socio-environmental liability identified results from the environmental impacts caused by the inappropriate disposal of ash from the bark of cashew nuts, among which are the dispersion of particulate matter by the wind, contamination of the soil and groundwater, etc..