South Africa Going Nuts

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A few years ago one of my old army friends told me he was moving away from his normal 9-5 work and was going to start farming. Not your normal type of farming, but Macadamias to be precise. He is not the farming sort and knowing him would only take the risks if it had a bag of gold at the end. Everything he has done throughout his career has involved risks and I can imagine this took some time to sell it to his family. Imagine upping everything to go and live in the countryside and grow trees having little knowledge about farming in general. He is originally from the area he has moved to and has farming friends so I gather he will be well looked after.

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Lindt the chocolate people had spread the word a few years ago that they needed nuts and South Africa has the right climate. It is not just used in chocolates, but Macadamia oil is also fairly pricey. His trees are already 3 years old now so he has at least managed to get past the half way mark. Five years is not a lot of time really if you can afford to keep yourself busy in the meantime.

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In some ways I envy him as he took the risks and moved his entire family up to the Natal Midlands which is another beautiful part of the country leaving the rat race behind. At one stage it was a no go zone as the farm murders were horrendous in that region so I envy only parts of what he is doing. I would consider it in another country, but definitely not here.

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The going rate is around $14 per kilogram and it is not labor intensive like other crops. A tree takes around 5-6 years to be ready for harvesting and it is just a numbers game after that on how many trees you have. From my understanding China is the biggest producer currently of Macadamias and why is that not surprising. It seems they are into everything and no trick is missed. Just to give you and idea a 5 year old tree will supply on average around 14 kilograms of nuts per harvest and a 10 year old tree will yield 22 kilograms on average.That is over $300 per tree per season so you would need a few thousand of them at least to make a decent living.

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Farmers in this country are swapping over from various other crops and going all in for the nuts as the prices are very decent and they don't have to worry much about them. Unlike bananas and cane sugar which is labor intensive this takes far less people with bigger profits.

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The only problem I can see eventually is with more nuts hitting the market the prices will have to drop. I know one sugar can farmer who is still keeping some cane as he doesn't want to put all his eggs in one basket. This could create a shortage of other crops like bananas and avocados. Most of the bigger sugar cane farmers moved into Mozambique as far back as 20 years ago now. The land was more valuable for building housing estates with sea views and was seen as a better option replacing the land at a fraction of the price in Mozambique.

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The Natal North Coast which used to be covered entirely in sugar cane was a sight to behold. Most of the Indian population arrived in Durban as cane cutters and why they became such a big community. Sugar cane has to be rotated to give the soil a chance to recover whereas the nuts just keep on supplying each year with little to no effort and the crop gets larger as the tree matures.