International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume VI, Issue II, February 2022 | ISSN 2454–6186

An insight into the macadamia nuts industry of Zimbabwe. Its history, current state and constraints.

Innocent Mharidzo, John Mwandifura, Dr Lovemore Chikazhe, Dr J.Manyeruke and Dr N. Mashavakure
Chinhoyi University of Technology, Zimbabwe

Abstract
Little information is available on the macadamia nuts industry of Zimbabwe due to limited research in the area. This research unpacked the Zimbabwe macadamia nuts industry in terms of its origin and current outlook. The study gathered the required information through use of three search engines, which produced 28 articles rich in information in macadamia nuts industry of Zimbabwe. The search engines results revealed that Zimbabwe’s macadamia nuts history dates back to 1965 when three farmers imported seedling material from Australia for planting and selling. A PECMAC factory transferred to Southdown Estates was processing the macadamia nuts producing oil, cracked nuts, butter and residues for marketing. When the Government of Zimbabwe embarked on the land reform programme this marked the entrance of A1 and A2 farmers into macadamia nuts farming which was by then was only common in Chipinge District. Establishment of macadamias has now spread to other districts of Manicaland province among them Chimanimani, Mutasa, Nyanga and Mutare and to other provinces like Mashonaland East and Mashonaland central. Although the country’s National Export Strategy is basing on macadamia nuts to meet vision 2030, the government does not support the industry, which up to now has no research institute and is experiencing high cost of inputs. Currently macadamia nuts farmers mostly get support from buyers through contracts, which later put them at a disadvantage when the contractor buy their nuts at very low price. Policy regulation to support the industry are still not convincing with only statutory 38 of 2019 the only one in place. However, the statutory does not promote growth of the industry through agitating for value addition. The country is currently exporting nuts in shell and in the process losing millions of dollars. Zimbabwe export its macadamia nuts to Asia and South Africa with Europeans market still closed because of land reform disputes.

Key words: Macadamia nuts; Origin, Value addition; Supply chain.
Introduction
Zimbabwe is a land locked country found in South East Africa. Its border with Zambia is the Zambezi River and Limpopo River marks its boundary with South Africa whilst to the east it shares borderline with Mozambique and Botswana to the west. The country has an area of 390,757km square (https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/zimbabwe.htm). Zimbabwe has five ecological regions based on the annual rainfall, temperature, agriculture potential of the soils and vegetation (Zimstats, 2017). It also possesses good agro- climatic conditions and large stretching arable lands, which provides opportunities for good agriculture productivity (ZEPARU, 2014). These diversified agro-climatic conditions prevailing in the country allows farmers in the different regions to grow different crops (GoZ, 2012).
Rainfall and temperature patterns
Zimbabwe possesses a changing rainfall climate pattern considering the distribution pattern relative to time and places (Brazier, 2015) .The country receives high rainfall and has high temperatures starting from October to March. The dry season coupled with low temperatures runs from June to August followed by the warm dry spell season, which progresses up to the start of October (World Bank Group., 2020). The Eastern and Northern areas located on high altitude usually experience low temperatures and rainfall above 1000mm/year. On the other hand, the Southern and Western areas located in the low-veld characterized by high temperature and low rainfall of around 350-450mm (Brazier, 2015).