Farmer's Weekly (South Africa)
Paprika farmers face hot times: Part 2
Continuing on from last week’s column ( see FW, 25 February), this article looked at further market constraints for South African paprika farmers at the time, as well as the growing conditions needed to produce this crop.
Once the crushed paprika pods have been milled and pelleted, the pellets are packed into the extractor, where they are soaked in the solvent hexane to draw out the colour-rich oils. When this is complete, the liquid passes to the evaporator, where the solvent is removed by distillation.
The remaining liquid is then passed through a centrifuge, which removes the sludge from the pure oil that is then packed into 200kg drums and offered for sale.
It takes about 20t of deseeded pods to produce 1t of oil. Since the pips comprise about 25% of the pods, about 25t to 30t of pods are needed. The Meintjies team is hoping the new milling process will slightly improve the average 5% extraction level.
The price of paprika oil (referred to as oleoresin paprika or ORP) is based on colour intensity. The benchmark is
100 000 colour units, and the average price for this colour intensity in ORP is about R120/kg [about R570/kg].
South African paprika has a particularly high colour intensity; Koos Meintjies averages 150 000 to 160 000 colour units.
EXACTING REGULATIONS
Another market constraint for ORP is that many countries, particularly those in Europe, have strict health regulations. Not only is there insistence on less than 10 parts per million hexane residue in the ORP, but the solvent itself must conform to stringent regulations.
“The locally produced hexane, although of high quality, doesn’t meet [European] requirements, and it would make our operation uneconomic if we had to import solvent from Europe,” says Koos.
“The result is that we have to accept that for the present, certain markets are closed to us.”
The biggest market in the world for ORP is the US, then Europe and Japan, where synthetic colouring agents are also forbidden. The most important feature favouring South African ORP or raw pod material, he says, is that they can produce high-quality pods with intense colour.
This is because weather and soil conditions are favourable in South Africa. But he believes that neighbouring countries, which have little or no frost, would do as well or even better. This increases the uncertainty of farmers producing economically viable paprika crops.
Paprika and ORP depend totally on the export market because there is virtually no market in South Africa. “There may be a small market for powdered paprika as a spice,” says Koos’s son, Barry. “This is supplied by the few mills in this country equipped with the stone mills needed to get the material fine enough for spice. Their capacity is limited, and to make up the shortfall, the spice companies sometimes have to import from abroad.
“But we’re hoping the freeze-milling process may produce a suitably fine product to offer as a spice. It is widely used as a spice in Europe, but they use a sweeter cultivar compared with the pungent Californian long-pod variety universally grown in South Africa.”
NEEDS GOOD SOIL
“Farmers should remember that paprika is an expensive crop to produce,” says Koos. “It needs good soil and high levels of irrigation and fertilisation.
It is also highly labour-intensive.
“Based on our experience and on observations on many other farms, we believe the minimum workforce should be about one worker for every hectare, apart from tractor drivers and the like.”
The average break-even point for producing this crop is about 1t/ha. Top-quality pods can only be produced under irrigation and with significant fertiliser levels, and these requirements involve substantial costs.
Paprika should be planted yearly, explains Koos.
“In certain frost-free areas, it may be possible to continue harvesting until the plants are 14 to 16 months old. But there’s an inevitable disease build-up, making it advisable to plough in the old material, and even to plant in another field in the new season.”
He warns that, for the foreseeable future, South African farmers should be cautious about this crop. The uncertain future of paprika, of course, has implications for the processing plant. Realising this, the Meintjies team has been researching possible new ventures requiring their technology.
Barry says there is growing demand worldwide for products that can be extracted from plants in this way; there are over 500 natural products in increasing demand as countries all over the world reject synthetic colouring agents and chemical pesticides and herbicides.