The Amazon Nut Project

Sacha Inchi or “Amazon Nut,” a legume that originates in the Peruvian Amazon, may become a force in helping to preserve the Amazon rainforest. The plant can provide Amazonian families with a source of sustainable income and food without destroying the forest. Planted in abandoned banana and yucca fields, sacha inchi reduces the need for slash and burn agriculture in the Amazon basin, as well as detrimental sources of income, such as logging or making charcoal.

The community of San Jorge is located one hour by boat upriver from the town in Nauta in Loreto, Peru. The farmers of San Jorge have formed a Fair Trade cooperative to grow and market Amazon Nuts. The project is new and if successful, gives hope to not only the families in San Jorge but in surrounding villages as well. Hope for better nutrition, hope for schooling, and hope for more sustainable income.

Marco and Kimberly of Made By Hand (a 100% Fair Trade retail shop) have produced a wonderful CD set and children’s book in order to raise funds for this project. A Journey in the Amazon features the smooth rhythms of Bossa Nova of the Brazilian coast to the ancient pipes and strings of the high Amazon  jungle, plus a CD with sounds of jungle animals recorded at night. The wonderful “children’s” book of the same name teaches us all, young and old, about the rainforest, its riches and its needs.  Traveling down the Amazon is a journey we all need to take, in words if not in canoes, to understand the rich diversity of our planet and why it is at risk.