Currently, brokers are buying the nuts at as low as Sh50 a kilo and stockpiling the produce, waiting for the start of the harvesting season in March and offload the produce at super profits.
At peak harvesting season between March and July, a kilo goes for as high as Sh170 with prices hitting their highest at Sh200 in 2019.
Players in the macadamia nuts sub-sector are worried that huge quantities of the immature crop being bought by brokers might compromise quality of the produce in the international markets.
Currently, brokers are buying the nuts at as low as Sh50 a kilo and stockpiling the produce, waiting for the start of the harvesting season in March and offload the produce at super profits.
At peak harvesting season between March and July, a kilo goes for as high as Sh170 with prices hitting their highest at Sh200 in 2019.
Meru Macadamia Farmers Association chairman Joshua Muriira said growers, desperate for money to take their children to school, were selling their immature nuts to brokers at less than Sh70 a kilo.
“We cannot tell them not to sell because they need the money. The challenge we have is that farmers cannot access credit with their produce before it is ready for harvesting,” Mr Muriira said in an interview.
“Although we were told macadamia would be included in the warehouse receipt system this has not yet happened.”
Processors sounded the alarm after they rejected several consignments of the crop mainly sourced from Meru and Embu.
Two weeks ago, a broker who attempted to deliver 10 tonnes of nuts worth about Sh800,000 to a processor in Nairobi was forced to take the consignment back, with reports that several other brokers were buying the produce.
Processors now say the nuts will most likely to be mixed with the new crop when the harvesting season begins on March 15.
NutPAK chief executive officer Charles Muigai said despite the nuts being rejected, the brokers would try to offload the produce by mixing it the mature nuts.
He said they buy in January at low prices whether the nuts are mature or not and keep them. During the harvesting season, they blend 100 kilos in each tonne, selling at prevailing prices which average between Sh100 and Sh170 a kilo, thus making a kill.
“It is not easy for processors receiving thousands of tonnes daily to detect this immediately but during processing, the bad ones are sorted out leading to losses. This also tarnishes Kenya’s reputation in the international markets,” said Mr Muigai, who is a director at the World Macadamia Organization (WMO) which was formed in November last year.
He regretted that the development comes at a time Kenya has been recognised in the global macadamia market, earning a name with its quality produce which led to his being named a director at WMO.
“The organization has embarked on programmes to market consumption of nuts and ensure there no glut when millions of trees that have been planted globally mature in the next few years. We cannot afford to lower our standards because farmers in the country stand to benefit from this marketing,” he said.
According to the Nuts and Oil Crops Directorate at the Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA), the value of macadamia nuts exported in 2020 declined by more than half from Sh5.6 billion in 2019 to Sh2.7 billion as a result of the low farm gate prices.
The total annual production of raw nuts decreased by 1.7 per cent from 39,814.9 tonnes recorded in 2019 to 39,134 in 2020, attributed to reduced farm activities and delayed harvesting storage losses as most processors shut operations due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
