The market is growing at a faster pace with the growing importance of healthy eating and consumers are more frequently choosing nuts as a healthy snack option and incorporating them into their daily diets. In addition, organic macadamia is also gaining popularity with increasing demand coming majorly from the European countries. The wide application of processed macadamia in different industrial segments, such as the food and beverage industry, and cosmetics and personal care industry, is also augmenting the growth of these nuts in the global market. Australia, Hawaii in the United States, and South Africa are the largest macadamia production regions in the world. Few other growing regions include Latin America and Asia-Pacific.
As a commodity witnessing rising demand, globally, along with the shortage of supply in the global market, leading to discrepancies in the demand-supply situation of the commodity, there is a dire need for investments in the industry and contributions from government organizations, which, in turn, may act as a growth catalyst for the development of the market. For instance, the Australian Macadamia Society, a government horticulture organization, with the macadamia levy fund, has successfully developed 'Mactrix' to control macadamia nut-borer that allowed the macadamia industry to have one of the highest rates of adoption of Integrated Pest Management.
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They have also published their research works, grower meetings, and conferences in order to spread the message to increase the adoption of the latest and best-practice methods for the cultivation of macadamia. Hawaii Macadamia Nut Association has also researched on topics, such as nutrient management and leaf sampling, integrated pest management, orchard floor, and canopy management, micronutrient management, and many more. One such project was on fertilizing macadamia, which included all the critical factors affecting fertilizing, important soils in macadamia nuts, determining Nutrient Status, soil analysis, tissue concentration for bearing macadamia nut, and other factors.
According to the Australian Macadamia Society, currently the industry has about 6 million trees covering an area of 16,000 hectares varying in tree ages, with approximately 850 macadamia growers which supports the production of macadamia nuts in Australia. According to Australian Macadamia Society, the country has approximately 70% of the world macadamia production is and it has also been involved in the trade of the crop by exporting to more than 40 countries, worldwide.
The changing consumer preferences towards nutritious diets coupled with the growing importance of macadamia nut in the international markets is likely to drive the market for macadamias in the domestic market.
According to the latest tree sales data received from nurseries for 2019, the Macadamia industry is still growing rapidly. In 2019 the Southern African Macadamia Industry planted 5 962 new hectares Macadamias.
KwaZulu-Natal remained for a second year the Province that established the most hectares, followed by Mpumalanga and then Limpopo. In terms of new hectares macadamias established, KwaZulu-Natal planted 2 348 new hectares in 2019. When the growth by the number of trees sold is taken into consideration, there is already approximately 44 775 hectares established in South Africa. Macadamia production in South Africa has increased exponentially and the rate of production is expected to increase even more in the near future due to an exponential increase in new plantings annually.
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