Over 230 Irula families in Ariyalur find steady income through cashew harvesting initiative

Over 230 families from the Irula tribal community in Ariyalur district are moving away from precarious livelihoods to sustainable sources of income through innovative cashew harvesting, thanks to the joint efforts of the Tribal Welfare and Forest Departments over the last four years.

Officials of the Tribal Welfare Department said Irula families living in 15 villages across the Jayankondam, Udayarpalayam, and Andimadam regions traditionally depended on seasonal jobs such as wild honey collection and other low-paid occupations, with little access to stable employment. To address this, the Tribal Welfare Department joined hands with the Forest Department to enable them to directly participate in cashew cultivation and marketing.

“For several years, cashew plantations managed by the Tamil Nadu Forest Plantation Corporation Limited (TAFCORN) remained inaccessible to tribal communities because participation in public auctions required a substantial Earnest Money Deposit (EMD). To overcome this barrier, the Tribal Welfare Department facilitated financial support of ₹86 lakh under the Tholkudi Livelihood Scheme, enabling the allotment of 549.21 hectares of cashew plantations to Irula tribal welfare societies in 2022 for a five-year lease,” an official said.

Under the initiative, members of the Irula tribal welfare societies received training in plantation management, pest control, and scientific harvesting practices from experts at the Directorate of Cashew Research, Puttur, in Karnataka.

G. Ramesh of Vettiyarvettu village said the initiative had been extremely beneficial. “Earlier, we used to depend only on daily wage work. Now, with the government’s support, we have leased the land by paying for it and are cultivating it ourselves. We now feel like owners rather than labourers,” he said. D. Annadurai of Sozhankurichi village said: “Earlier, we used to work only as agricultural labourers, and the income was not stable. But now, this provides us with stable employment for four months apart from the net profit.”

During the 2025-26 season, they harvested 96,400 kg of raw cashew nuts. By marketing the produce directly to wholesale buyers and sending the remaining produce to the modern cashew processing facility and marketing centre at Koovagam village, where 164 tribal women are employed, they generated revenue of ₹1.37 crore and a net profit of ₹45.48 lakh. The earnings translated into an average net income of nearly ₹19,800 per participating family. Apart from their share of the net profit, each member of the society received a daily wage of ₹350 for four months during the harvesting season, which runs from January to April, official sources said. The State government is also planning to establish another cashew processing unit in the district, they added.

Supriya Sahu, Additional Chief Secretary, Environment, Climate Change and Forests, said: “It is a transformational initiative and a collective effort of the people and government departments. Empowerment cannot be achieved in isolation; it has to be synergistic. The members of the society have also undergone the best training programmes. There is a fantastic opportunity to scale up such an initiative.”