S. Africa: Macadamia market demanding higher quality
Speaking at the Valley Macadamias study group at the end of June, chairman Alan Sutton warned that farmers whose sound kernel recovery (SKR), owning to high unsound kernel levels, dipped below prescribed levels could struggle to find buyers for their crop.
While the acceptable standard for macadamia nuts is an Unsound Kernel Recovery USKR of below 3%, the past season saw those figures increase to more than 5%.
Sutton said that the last twelve year’s records show that the past two years have shown the worst quality across all macadamia varieties.
“The market is demanding higher quality. Product satisfaction guarantees offered to Chinese consumers by retailers leave very little margin for error so processors are being more stringently policed. Farmers will have to get a handle on the high unsound kernel level because if the crop does not meet the quality requirement it just won’t be taken in.”
Sutton explained that the market was becoming ever more stringent in quality controls. “The acceptable SKR levels have evolved over the years. A decade ago it was expected that a Beaumont variety macadamia reach a SKR of 30%. When it reached 35% the industry said it was inexplicable. Now it is the minimum expectation. This can only be achieved by minimising the USKR percentage.”
The South African crop is expected the reach 74 000t by 2017/2018, up from 47,000t this year. The market is split nearly evenly between kernel exports and nut in shell (NIS), with the latter market requiring a higher quality nut with a lower USKR percentage.
“South Africa has a very limited capacity for cracking the nuts and exporting the kernel. I don’t foresee any new processing facilities going up in the near future due to the high cost of entry and the lack of power from Eskom. This means we need to look after the NIS market to ensure that we have a market for our product. Since NIS requires a higher quality nut to meet requirements, farmers have to up their game.”
The decrease in crop quality is largely to blame on an increase in stinkbug prevalence. “When one considers the cause of the marked change in quality over the last two years then the removal of endosulfan from the list of crop protection chemicals available to farmers is the likely culprit. This has left farmers with only pyrethroid based chemicals, which has led to a resistance build up in stink bugs.”
Sutton said that orchards required intensive management in order to maintain high quality levels. “Scouting for stinkbugs has become fundamental as we can no longer simply spray according to a calendar programme. Joint approaches are also becoming important and farmers need to look at combining aerial sprays with soil drench applications. Calibration of tractors is pivotal as spraying becomes redundant if the chemical isn’t reaching every branch of the tree.”
He noted that there was no one size fits all approach as each farm and their circumstances were unique.
Sutton concluded that macadamias were still a very lucrative crop but farmers must be mindful about where the industry is going in terms of quality requirements.
For more information:
Lindi van Rooyen
Valley Macadamias Group
Tel: +27 0824948005
Email: marketing@svmd.co.za