Macadamia investment to boost sugar farmers

Macadamia nuts are proving to be a valuable diversification tool for sugar cane farmers near Pongola in KwaZulu-Natal, who have been struggling amid low market prices.

Due to the expansion of production, the first processing facility has been opened in this region.

Marquis Macadamias opened a depot at the end of January, where nuts would be dehusked, dried, sorted and quality-tested before being sent to the company’s main facility in Alkmaar, Mpumalanga. The depot would serve the estimated 2 000ha of macadamias produced in the region.

Speaking at the opening of the facility, Roelof van Rooyen, director of Marquis Macadamias, said Pongola was one of the fastest-growing regions for macadamia nut production in South Africa.

“As the world’s crop is set to triple over the next 10 years, reaching around 600 000t, more sophisticated marketing will be required to grow the market.

“This also requires a consistency in product specification and quality to allow product developers to slot nuts into their line of staple foods.”

He said that bringing this consistency to a greater pool of macadamias, sourced from across the world, would ensure that prices remained stable even as supply grew.

While the price of sugar had been declining over the past few years amid cheaper imports and lower world prices, many farmers were turning towards macadamias, whose price had risen consistently.

Pongola farmer Laurie Brecher told Farmer’s Weekly that although he did not believe all sugar cane fields would be converted, there was a definite shift towards planting more nuts.

“There’s a general feeling in Pongola that we need to keep the local sugar mill in production, which means we have a certain quota to fulfil. But farmers are using marginal lands, and those not currently under [sugar] cane, for macadamia production.

“There are also those whose sugar quotas have been cut and they’ve converted those lands to nuts. Overall, there’s a lot of macadamia expansion happening.

“But input costs are high for macadamias, and not everyone has that kind of capital to invest and then wait five years for a harvest. This presents a challenge to smaller farmers, in particular, so many are converting small lands [at times] when cash flow is available.”

Brecher added that even if farmers achieved half the expected average yield per hectare, they would still be better off than if they planted sugar cane. “The Eskom bill alone is cut in half.”

Van Rooyen said Marquis Macadamias was geared to grow with the industry, and would invest in more facilities as needed.