In Papua New Guinea, its price is used to calculate the cost of living. In Solomon Islands, it is a pastime and the main source of income for many out-of-work urban dwellers.

In Taiwan, it is a multi-billion dollar industry involving some 600,000 farmers nationwide. Betel nut it is.

Betel nuts are the fruits of the betel palm. They grow in clusters of 200 to 300 just under the palm canopy.

Like all Melanesian and some Micronesian countries in the Pacific, betel nut chewing is widespread in Asia. Only the ways they are prepared vary by region.

In Taiwan, for example, betel nuts are slit open and filled with a lime paste. A betel leaf from an unrelated plant called the Piper betel is wrapped around the nut. These are then sold at roadside stalls in bags or boxes of 20.

Buai, as the nut is commonly called in PNG, is big business in Taiwan, particularly in the southern and central regions. It brings in megabucks in income for farmers. It is the chauffer of the local economy. 

Take Pingtung County in the Kaohsiung area of southern Taiwan, for example. Half of the nation’s betel nut farmers are found here, sharing 50,000 hectares of betel nut farms—that’s more than five times the size of the palm oil plantations on the Guadalcanal Plains, just outside Honiara in Solomon Islands.

In terms of distribution, Pingtung County is number one, accounting for 35 percent of production. The central county of Nan-tou is second with 30 percent, and the balance comes from other parts of the country.

Betel nut haul: In 1998, considered the peak production season for the crop, betel nut hauled in US$4.2 billion for the local economy – lot of dough! Although production has declined due to low prices, betel nut still occupies the number two spot on the country’s cash crop account.

On November 6, I took the Taiwan High Speed Rail [HSR] to the southern county of Pingtung where the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology [NPUST] hosted me for two days.

After two hours, travelling at speeds of up to 286kmph, I sat down with Yeh Weng Cheng at his home at Neipu, a township in the county, to see what lessons the Pacific can learn from this mega cash crop, also viewed by some as a potential health hazard.

Yeh is one of Pingtung County’s 300,000 betel nut farmers. This warrior of a farmer has been in the industry for more than 40 years. His farm occupies a 10-hectare lot on the roadside with 13, 000 trees which turn in 80 tons of crops at harvest time each year.

It earns him between NT$400,000 and NT$700,000 [about US$12,186 to US$21,326] a year. Because agriculture is a protected industry in Taiwan, income from farm production is tax-free.

For betel nut, the harvest season lasts five months to September each year. Widower Yeh and his son employ four others to help get their crops ready for sale on time. By any standard, his employees are rewarded handsomely.

For example, each employee receives NT$1000 in wages a day [about US$30.47] or NT$30,000 [about US$914.10] a month. With 10, 000 hectares, Yeh’s farm is one of the top five in Taiwan, where the average farm is 0.7 hectares.

Because betel nut is harvested only once a year, farmers here have turned to growing other cash crops as well. Yeh, for example, also grows coffee and banana. He began harvesting the 5,000 coffee trees in his farm last October.

“The timing is good for me,” he said with a smile while his son served us freshly brewed coffee from their betel nut plantation. We finished harvesting betel nut in September. We are harvesting coffee now,” Yeh said.

Like many parts of Melanesia, the significance of betel nut and its usage in Taiwan goes back centuries; its use and cultural significance span thousands of years, particularly amongst the country’s indigenous people.

Lavaus, a member of the Paiwan tribe, is unequivocal about the betel nut’s place in modern Paiwan society.

Cultural role: “Betel nut is the most important thing in our lives,” she told the Taiwan Review.

As to how long betel nut has been around, we turn to archaeologists. They have, for example, excavated human teeth said to be 4,000 years old at dig sites near Kenting, on the southern tip of Taiwan, that were found to contain trace deposits of betel nut.

“The way the teeth were damaged is consistent with abrasion caused by modern betel nut chewing,” according to an article in last February’s Taiwan Review.

“Furthermore, ancient relics associated with indigenous tribes confirm the acorn-sized betel nut has played an important cultural role for almost as long as people have inhabited Taiwan,” it said.

Today, it is estimated that 1.5 million Taiwanese chew betel nut on a regular basis.Prior to the 1960s, the economic value of betel nut in Taiwan was marginal.

“But both production and consumption grew rapidly through the 1970s until 1998, when overall production reached a peak value of NT$141.5 billion [US$4.2 billion]. In 1990, it became the second largest cash crop in Taiwan after rice,” the Taiwan Review said.  

A study conducted in the 1990s at the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology [NPUST] found that as demand increased farmers rushed to supply the burgeoning market.

“Farmers even chartered aircraft to fly the betel nut to wholesalers as soon as they came off the trees. We could do it that time because the price was good,” farmer Yeh told me.

According to the NPUST study, bosses handed out the stimulant freely to blue-collar workers in the 1970s to increase productivity as Taiwan’s labour-intensive economy gained momentum.

“As demand increased, rice farmers found betel nuts easier to cultivate than rice, and they began converting rice paddies into betel nut plantations. Consumption actually increased,” the study found.

Identity: But betel nut is more than just a source of income for Taiwan farmers. 

During the 1980s democracy movement, for example, betel nut chewing became a symbol of Taiwanese identity and more people took up the habit.

By tradition, indigenous women were bigger users than men.

“In addition to its stimulant effects, women were lured to chew betel nuts because the juice would stain their lips a pretty red hue,” the Taiwan Review said.

As well, for the indigenous people an offering of betel nuts expresses welcome and acceptance.

“At weddings for many of Taiwan’s tribes, betel nuts are seen as an auspicious symbol of union and fertility. Presenting them to the parents of the prospective bride is considered mandatory,” the magazine said.

In the Yami tradition, once a woman becomes pregnant and the husband dreams of betel nuts, the newborn will be a girl. But if he dreams of a betel plant, it will be a boy.

In 1994, the Taipei Government launched a nation-wide anti-betel nut chewing campaign aimed at discouraging Taiwanese from the habit. It was in response to mounting evidence that betel nut chewing was the single largest cause of oral cancer in Taiwan.

The Taiwan Review reported, “cumulative efforts have gained traction”.

So much so that by 2006, betel nut production had declined 30 percent from its 1998 peak. Despite the decline, betel nut continues to rake in an estimated US$2.8 billion annually into the local economy today.

Betel nut is consumed widely in the Pacific, but unlike Asia, no Pacific country is known to have engaged in commercially exporting it.