Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Global macadamia kernel produc
on by COO
40,000
35,000
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
-
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
FORECAST
Australia South Africa USA Kenya Malawi Guatemala China Brazil Mexico Costa Rica Zimbabwe Others
Fig. 8.23
Global macadamia production by origin. (Source: International Dried Fruit & Nut
Council Statistics Database)
(McConachie
1980
). These orchards were based on imported Hawaiian cultivars and
used equipment imported from the Californian almond industry. This demonstrated
the potential of macadamia in their country of origin, and there was steady planting
of trees throughout the 1980s and 1990s. However, most of the subsequent plantings
were made in the higher rainfall areas of southeast Queensland and northern New
South Wales and the majority of these were less than 10 ha in extent. The land in these
areas is undulating to steep and when combined with the high rainfall, mechanization
is difficult and expensive. The density of the orchards in northern New South Wales
today is such that in many areas they appear to be one large continuous plantation, but
with multiple owners and, consequently, multiple levels and styles of management,
they cannot be considered to be a plantation production system.
In the early 1990s, orchards were established in central Queensland around Bunda-
berg. Land in this area was cheaper than in the traditional southern production areas,
was flatter and had a plentiful supply of irrigation water from various government
schemes. The combination of these factors meant that agronomically manipulable,
economically reliable, large scale mechanized production could be achieved. These
orchards continued to gradually expand until 2003 when a wave of new entrants,
largely from the highly intensive vegetable industry, decided to plant macadamias and
began to create a modern plantation style system of production that prevails today.
This change in crop focus was driven, in part, by the desire of the vegetable produc-
ers to move away from managing the large, expensive labour forces required in the
vegetable industries, towards an industry where mechanisation was rapidly replacing
labour.
Production Drivers Today
As around 70 % of the Australian crop is exported, producers have to compete with
production from low labour cost countries (Anon
2012e
). Labour in Australia is, by
