Wundanyi is like Kenya’s Tatranská Lomnica. The town with about four thousand inhabitants in the Taita Hills in the south of Kenya lies on a turnoff from the main road between the port city of Mombasa and the capital Nairobi. It is from here, from the terraced fields on the steep slopes, that macadamia nuts, still not very well known to many people, are also imported to Slovakia.
Farming is hard work here too. With one difference: local farmers, the highlanders, receive no government subsidies to support agriculture. They stopped growing coffee, which was once widespread here, after its prices on world markets fell sharply and coffee growing became deeply unprofitable. That is also why, with support from Slovakia, they decided to invest more in another commodity, tasty and nutritious macadamia nuts, which are also in demand in the cosmetics industry. Kenya is the fifth largest exporter of these nuts in the world.
This time, the Macadamia Nut Growers Association in Taita should avoid potential price fluctuations on world markets and being underpaid for their nuts. Their business partner is Ten Senses, a Fair Trade specialist founded by the Slovak Integra Co-op Družstvo.
The company buys the nuts under a contract and at a pre-agreed price, which also includes a storage premium and the so-called social premium. The purchase price of the nuts does not change even if prices on world markets fall. Conversely, if they rise, the company pays the farmers more, at the market price. The guaranteed stable price is an investment for the farmers: they can focus more on planning and improving productivity, without worrying that they will not have enough to live on. The farmers’ association involved in this fair trade project also commits to saving from the so-called social premium for investments in something that benefits the entire community. In this case, they are considering using the saved money to invest in building wells and improving access to water.
The small, work-bent Baldwin Mwangoji, who represents 450 local farmers, proudly shows the sacks of nuts prepared in the warehouse for transport to Nairobi. Despite his age, he moves briskly between the warehouse and the office, and like the other farmers here, he anxiously awaits the inspection that is to confirm the internationally recognized Fair Trade certificate for their nuts.
As part of a project financed by Slovak Aid, the association received training on more efficient, environmentally friendly nut growing, helps its members purchase new seedlings and invest in new varieties that produce larger fruit. Macadamia trees take six to seven years before they begin to bear fruit. However, they are the only source of income for these farmers. Everything else they grow is only for their own consumption.
The farms are scattered across the surrounding slopes. These are not large-scale production sites with terraced rows of trees. Some farmers have only a few macadamia trees, others dozens. There is no “heavy” machinery to be seen here either. Everything is done by hand, as machines are difficult to use in this mountainous area. Even the journey from the town to the more distant farms at the foot of the mountains is quite a trek without a car. Some are as far as 14 kilometers away. Motorbikes are the means of transport.
The trees yield their crop gradually from March to September. Fallen nuts are collected every day and cleaned of the green husk, similar to that of our walnuts. This husk does not stain fingers like walnut husks do, but on the other hand, the shell hiding the macadamia kernels cannot be cracked open with just a little hammer or pliers.
The nuts in their hard shells are dried in Taita and later transported to Nairobi. In a small factory hall rented by Ten Senses on the outskirts of the capital, the nuts are dried further for several days in a large dryer. Because of the hard shell, they are then ground so that ten employed women can extract the white nuts, about the size of larger hazelnuts. The cleaned nuts are then sorted, with the high-quality ones packed for export to Europe and the damaged ones pressed for oil. The shells are used as fuel.
In 2009, Ten Senses bought 11 tons of shelled macadamia nuts from farmers in Taita. This year they plan to buy 26 tons. Similarly, Ten Senses also buys macadamia nuts from farmers in another part of Kenya, from the Chogoria area at the foot of Mt. Kenya. Overall, Ten Senses bought 49 tons of nuts from Kenyan farmers last year, and this year it plans to buy 280 tons.
Interest in tasty, high-quality nuts is growing. Their quality was finally verified this summer by an international audit, which confirmed that the macadamia nuts from Kenya distributed by the Slovak company Ten Senses meet the demanding criteria for the Fair Trade certification, Fair Trade. Once the entire process is completed, they will become the first macadamia nuts with the Fair Trade label in Europe. And together with coffee from Ethiopia, they will also be one of the first Fair Trade products in Europe from a Slovak distributor.
Author: Daniela Balážová More information: http://www.tensenses.com
The article was published in the bulletin Development Aid - Autumn 2010. It is published by the Platform of Non-Governmental Development Organizations (MVRO), an association of legal entities - an umbrella organization of 31 Slovak non-governmental organizations (23 full members and 8 observers) that are primarily involved in foreign development and humanitarian aid.