From AgAlert, California Farm Bureau Federation
by Ching Lee
Macadamia nuts: Not just a product of Hawaii
The exotic reputation of the macadamia nut can be misleading.
Like pineapples and coconuts, the macadamia has long been synonymous
with Hawaii, where it was first grown as a commercial crop.
And
while the Aloha State went on to dominate world production of the
lavish nut—and did so for decades—that dominance is now being
challenged as other countries are planting their own macadamias.
There's even some competition from across the Pacific—namely, from the
Golden State, where farmers have been known to grow just about anything.
To
be fair, competition from California, in terms of volume, is not much
of a threat to Hawaii—at least not yet. Compared to the millions of
tons of almonds, walnuts and pistachios that come from California farms
each year, the state's production of macadamia nuts is a mere blip on
the radar.
San Diego County farmer Jim Russell has
established a base of customers willing to pay
a premium price for his organic macadamia
nuts, which he sells at farmers markets, to
restaurants and through his mail order business.
But
humble beginnings didn't stop San Diego County farmer Jim Russell from
pursuing the rare and unusual. For Russell, the motivating factor was
simple: He was a big fan of the nut, so much so that he wanted trees of
his own.
"I like the taste of macadamia nuts," he said. "I figured I could sell those little suckers."
Located
in Fallbrook, Russell's 4 1/2 acres of macadamia trees, which he
planted in the 1970s, produce about 16,000 pounds of nuts a year. The
trees are tucked among a hodgepodge of other specialty crops, including
gourds, avocados, lemons, limes, kumquats, pummelos, banana trees,
chestnuts and hachiya persimmons.
Most macadamia farms in
California are small like Russell's, and they're mostly concentrated in
Southern California, especially along coastal regions such as San Diego
and Santa Barbara counties where the climate is frost-free. In the
north, some are found in the Berkeley area and Butte County.
Russell,
who is also president of the California Macadamia Society, a nonprofit
group that teaches farmers about the nut, estimates there are some
3,000 acres of macadamias in the state, a mere fraction of Hawaii's
15,000 acres. Together with Florida, which also grows macadamias on a
small scale, the United States is the world's No. 2 producer of
macadamias, topped by Australia, where the nut originated. Other key
producers include South Africa, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Kenya.
Born
and raised on a Pennsylvania farm that raised chickens and beef cattle,
Russell first latched on to the idea of farming macadamias while he was
working on his master's degree at San Diego State University. As part
of a research project, he did an analysis of the many different crops
that California farmers could grow and discovered that macadamias were
one of them.
"So I did research to see if I thought it was cost effective to do that," he said. "My research said it was, so I did.
"I figured that if I liked (the nuts), so will other people, and they're going to buy them," he added.
Indeed,
people have been buying them. Although macadamias are among the most
expensive nuts on the market, Americans in particular have been
developing an appetite for the rich, buttery kernels and now consume
more than half of the world's production, according to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. Demand for macadamias is expected to grow as
U.S. consumer income and spending continue to rise.
Good news
about the health benefits of macadamias and other nuts are also helping
to boost worldwide demand. The nuts provide a good source of protein,
calcium, potassium and fiber, but more importantly, they are high in
monounsaturated fats—that's the "good" fat—which means a diet that
incorporates macadamia nuts may help to lower cholesterol and reduce
the risk of heart disease.
And that's good news for growers like
Russell, who sells his nuts at farmers markets, to restaurants and
through his mail order business, where he has established customers who
are willing to pay a premium price for his organic product. He charges
$9.50 a pound for the ready-to-eat kernels and $3.50 a pound for the
in-shell nuts.
California macadamia farmers also sell their
products through Gold Crown Macadamia Association, a growers'
cooperative that's been around since 1971 and handles all the drying,
processing, packaging and shipping for its member-farmers
(www.macnuts.org).
Interestingly, the co-op's No. 1 customer
happens to be owners of exotic birds, primarily macaws, which need the
macadamia's tough shells to chew on to prevent their beaks from getting
soft, said Russell, who doesn't have any bird customers.
"They
eat palm nuts out in the wild," he said of the birds. "Now that they
sit in a cage, they don't have that. So yes, their owners will pay a
premium for those macadamia nuts."
The trees themselves are
large and bushy evergreens. Once mature, the trees are rather hardy,
tolerating temperatures as low as 24 degrees, a blessing for those
farmers who endured last January's freeze that devastated the state's
citrus and other crops. Like farming other tree fruit and nuts,
macadamias require at least four to five years of investment before the
trees begin to produce nuts and six years before the trees are in full
production.
The nuts fall to the ground when they're ripe and
ready to be harvested, which generally happens during the late fall to
early winter but will continue through June, Russell said. Once he
collects the nuts from the ground, he processes them on his farm and
home, where he first removes the exterior husks, then dries them in
trays for a minimum of two weeks, after which the nuts are run through
an additional dryer at 95 degrees for about four days. That takes the
nuts down to about 1 percent moisture.
"At 1 percent moisture, they're almost indestructible and will last almost forever if you keep them dry," Russell said.
Because
the macadamia shells are one of the hardest to crack, Russell uses a
special cracking machine that is strong enough to get through the tough
shell but gentle enough not to crush the kernel inside. Separating the
unblemished kernels from the cracked shell bits is tedious and labor
intensive, hence customers pay a hefty price for shelled macadamias.
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