An NGO has begun buying macadamia, doubling the earnings of farmers who previously relied on exploitative middlemen as the only buyers of their nuts.
Selling their macadamia nuts to One Acre Fund, since 2022 over 20,000 macadamia smallholder farmers in Central Kenya are earning Sh130 for a kilogram of their nuts, a massive improvement from the Sh60-Sh20/Kg they previously got.
According to the Agriculture And Food Authority (AFA), the average farm gate price for nuts-in-shell macadamia nuts in 2023 was Sh57. These nuts were then sold by brokers on the global market for Sh518-Sh648 a kilogram. Poor macadamia prices which have persisted since 2019 had seen many farmers abandon macadamia farming.
“We give farmers our macadamia price, which we adjust every two weeks depending on the global macadamia market, and if it is satisfactory to them, we visit their farms, weigh their nuts, measure their quality, and pay them right there, before leaving with their produce,” explained One Acre Fund’s communications specialist Karigu Ekumbo.
She adds that the company which is currently working with 20,000 farmers in the country’s main macadamia farming region of Mt. Kenya is able to guarantee them premium prices because they do not sell the macadamia with an eye on maximising profit but rather to meet their operating costs. The macadamia is collected at one of the more than 20 buying centers in the region.
James Gatibiria who has 10 macadamia trees is one of the beneficiaries of One Acre Fund’s venture into the macadamia business. “They come directly to my farm to pick up the macadamia which means I do not incur transport costs. One Acre also offers a premium price. What I currently earn is more than double what I was being paid before by brokers,” said the retired prison warden.
At Gatibiria’s farm, a One Acre Fund buying center officer assesses the quality of his macadamia by measuring the level of insect damage on the macadamia, the number of immature macadamia in the harvest, and if there is any mold on the macadamia kernels.
The nut-in-shell macadamia is packed in One Acre Fund’s collection centers before being transported to its factory in Kirinyaga County which has a 4,000 metric ton nut in shell processing capacity.
Here, the macadamia’s quality is again assessed and sieved to remove any debris and undersized nuts from being taken into the drying chambers.
Macadamias are then washed with acid to remove any contaminants and dried to whittle down their moisture from 25 per cent to just 1.5 per cent.
At 1.5 per cent moisture content, the macadamia is cracked, colour, and manually sorted by the factory’s 160 staff to remove any shells. Its quality is again asses in terms of mold and insect damage as well as if there are any immature kernels.
The quality macadamias that are left are graded according to company or customer specifications. They are then passed through quality control checks to ensure they look alike and are taken through UV sterilization, and metal detection and packed in 11.34kg bags under 12 degrees Celsius controlled warehouse.
The macadamia are then exported to the USA (25.3%), Vietnam (46.6%), Spain (17.1%), Italy (4.7%), Poland (5.4%) and Slovenia (0.9%).
According to AFA’s Year Book of Statistics 2024, Kenya exported 7,800.3MT of macadamia valued at Sh5.73 billion, mainly to European and US markets. The country exported a further 1,876.76MT of nuts-in-shell macadamia valued at Sh219.68 million to China and Vietnam which are major processing hubs for nuts-in-shell macadamia.
Photo Courtesy: One Acre Fund