Native of the commune of Djidja, 149 km from Cotonou, Emilienne, 33 years old, was born from farmer parents and merchant mother whom she helped. Married and mother of 3 children, she sells various foodstuffs (soybeans, peanuts) that she grows herself. For the past 5 years, she has mainly been running the family cashew plantation of almost 2 hectares. She started her collaboration with the BeninCajù project almost 2 years ago. "Before, I just knew how to plant and leave my orchard uncultivated; I did not do any maintenance of my plantation; I worked without any precise harvesting objective. I harvested 100Kg of cashew nuts per season. BeninCajù trained me on the good practices of planting, maintenance, harvesting and post-harvest (pruning, spacing, etc. ... For this year's campaign, I harvested 300Kg of nuts. "Emilienne GBEWA.
Emilienne's income has increased significantly with the increase in her production. She supports her husband with household expenses, schooling and supplies for their children. She even manages to help some of the needy in her community with medical care and food.
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The Government of Benin is paying particular attention to the cashew sector, which it aims to increase from 150,000 to 300,000 tons of production through the planting of 60,000 hectares of new cashew orchards and the local processing of at least 50% of the national cashew production. This is a noble ambition that accompanies the BeninCajù project financed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and implemented by TechnoServe Benin and CRS for the integration and acceleration of the cashew sector in Benin. Indeed, the Sectoral Policy and Institutional Support (SPIS) component of the BeninCajù project provides, among other things, technical assistance to public institutions in the sector, training for cashew seedling nurserymen on entrepreneurial management, and targeted support for cashew nut production techniques. Thus, as part of the professionalization program for agricultural enterprises producing and distributing certified cashew seedlings, conducted jointly with ATDA4 and FeNaPAC Benin, BeninCajù organized several capacity-building activities on the production techniques of certified cashew seedlings.
Downstream, a post-training follow-up mission was carried out in January 2021 coupled with the coaching of ATDA4 Advisors. It allowed to visit the nurseries installed in the municipalities visited, to assess the 2020 campaign and to evaluate the progress of the wood yards. More details here. 

In 2016, the  BeninCajù project for the integration and acceleration of the cashew sector in BENIN, funded by the USDA and implemented by TechnoServe  in partnership with CRS was launched. With producers, processors, cashew industry professional associations, and public structures concerned with cashew industry development as beneficiaries, the overall objective of BeninCajù is to strengthen and expand the cashew industry and make it a more productive and profitable sector for Benin's socio-economic development. The results of BeninCajù's activities will be an increase in the volume of cashew nuts processed, an increase in the volume of sales of cashew products, an improvement in the yield and income of producers, large-scale job creation, and maximum value added from cashew by all stakeholders. The Access to Finance component builds the capacity of small and large financing institutions, as well as the capacity of stakeholders in financial management and education, in order to prepare them to receive financing and manage it well, and to link stakeholders with financing institutions.
 As such, the company TOLARO GLOBAL is a beneficiary of the Fund for Innovation and Enterprise Development (FIDE) through the project BeninCajù following a call for projects under the second cohort. It was selected by BeninCajù for its project of acquisition of several equipments among which a line of dry roasting and a line of packaging for flours and cashew butter. These equipments will allow TOLARO GLOBAL to valorize the unprofitable broken almonds, which are less sold than the whole ones, into cashew flour and cashew leg/butter beyond the traditional transformation and to answer to existing needs, which were ignored until now.
BeninCajù has contributed to the acquisition of this equipment to the tune of CFA francs 125 million. On December 8, 2020, these materials were officially received at the TOLARO factory in the presence of various officials of the project and the factory including the General Manager, Mr. Serge KPONOU.... More details here.