Versatile, ethical and nourishing

There is something enormously invigorating about rapidly expanding your knowledge of something you have long taken for granted.

Last month, ahead of Fairtrade Fortnight, I travelled to Malawi to visit a collective of peanut - or groundnuts, as the Malawians more sensibly call them because they grow in the ground - growers.

Nutrition, ethics and environmental issues play a huge part in the way we shop, cook and eat these days, and now it's the humble peanut's turn in the limelight as the new versatile, ethical and nourishing ingredient on the block.

More and more of us are going wheat-free, but did you know that ground peanuts are a joy to use as a flour substitute in baking, as well as being a much more effective sauce thickener than flour or cornflour?

And, groundnut oil is now widely touted as the healthiest fat for frying, since cheffy types have belatedly informed us that olive oil burns at high temperatures and makes everything taste of olives. Yes, peanuts win on so many levels: good for you and good for the not-so-merry-go-round that is world trade.

Due to long associations with salt, sugar (in some peanut butter) and high calorie counts, peanuts haven't enjoyed the same health-giving glory as, say, almonds. But peanuts are actually very good for you, with 85 per cent of their fat being unsaturated, and, due to high levels of something called triglyceride, actually have the ability to lower bad 'LDL' cholesterol levels in your body.

Peanuts are also a great source of B vitamins, which are especially good for your hair, skin and muscle tone, and they contain the same amounts of antioxidants as strawberries.

Peanuts are an ideal crop for the frequently drought-ridden regions of Africa, as the plants add healthy amounts of fertility-boosting nitrogen to the soil and are one of the most widely-grown crops across the continent.

Over the last few years, amazing collectives like the one I visited in Malawi have started to take root, where agriculture provides 85 per cent of the population with its livelihood - and smallholders make up 90 per cent of all farmers.

However, with the global market being largely controlled by multinational corporations, there are still huge obstacles to overcome. The average independent farmer has less than a hectare of land to support themselves and their families. Due to the African Aids epidemic, nearly everyone I met also has adopted orphans - usually anything between one and three, but I did meet one village elder who had 15.

Historically, these individual farmers, with their relatively small harvests, haven't had enough clout to negotiate with the traders who were buying their nuts, so they were constantly being ripped off in terms of true market price and even weighted scales in the marketplace.

But in 1997, with some help from the Norwegian government, the farmers joined forces to start the National Smallholder Farmers' Association of Malawi.

And now Liberation - a Fairtrade nut company - has been set up, in which the farmers own 42 per cent of the company and are involved across the business, including at board level.

Not only does the Fairtrade Foundation guarantee them a fair price for their nuts, but it also delivers an extra sum, called the Fairtrade Premium, which is put back into the local community for everybody's benefit.