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Macadamia Trees Offer Lifeline to Small Farmers
By Elizabeth Eames Roebling
On a small holding of one hectare, a farmer can plant about 200 trees, for an anticipated first harvest price of 2,500 dollars.
SANTO DOMINGO, May 26, 2011 (IPS) – A project to help reforest after the devastation of Hurricane David 32 years ago has grown into a plan to lift small coffee farmers out of poverty, all by the introduction of a gourmet ice cream.
Hurricane David hit the Dominican Republic as a Category 5 storm in 1979, killing 2,000 people and wiping out 70 percent of the country’s agriculture. In 1980, local businessman Manuel Arcenio Urena, working with the Dominican environmental group Plan Sierra, introduced the macadamia nut tree from Australia as a means to both reforest the island and replenish eroded topsoil. Because the tree has a shallow root system, it is capable of holding down precious topsoil.
For 15 years, the trees were simply planted. They began to produce nuts but the shells were very hard and the nuts were unknown here. Since there was no market for them, the macadamia nuts – the most expensive nut on the world market – were left to rot on the ground. Because the trees were seen as having no value, peasants began to cut them down and use them to make charcoal.
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