Brazil Nuts

Unlike conventional orchard crops, Brazil nuts grow wild in the Amazon Basin and are not commercially cultivated on plantations.  Nuts are sustainably harvested from giant Brazil nut trees (up to 50 meters tall), making them one of the few globally traded wild-harvested nuts.  This, together with a changeable and economic and sociopolitical combine to make production and export volumes variable from year to year.

Brazil nuts cannot be cultivated intensively due to their dependence on intact rainforest ecosystems for pollinators and seed dispersers — contributing to their sustainability credentials and traceability value.

Production is dominated by Bolivia (75%), with Peru and Brazil (25% combined).  Exports of shelled kernels are as follows:

Europe dominates the import market, accounting for 2/3rds of consumption, largely driven by demand from Netherlands and Germany.