By Abdulkarim Ssengendo
Living seven kilometres from Fort Portal town, Julius Bigabwa joined Macadamia farming nine years ago.
He had been growing macadamia with several problems, especially the lack of market.
“I started growing macadamia as a by the way because the land where I was growing it was not good. I started growing it in bananas. When I put it there it was supported by soils very well and from there my interest grew bigger and I ended up adding other pieces of land and now the project is big, I even have more acres in Kitagwenda and Kyenjojo districts,” he stated.
He advised that macadamia is planted at 7 metres apart because it has so many branches, saying that the more the branches the more the nuts (seeds) and yield increases.
“When you plant and it grows up to one metre you have to cut off the head and it starts bringing branches. At 6-7 years a tree of macadamia you will be getting like 100-170kgs,” Bigabwa explained.
“If you are a business person and you calculate, you will see you are going to get the best out of it, “he added.
He said a kilogram of macadamia nuts in a shell is sold between shs6,000-10,000, but when you sort it first class shs17,000.
“Another good thing about Macadamia, it has the sweetest nut on the world market,” he said. He encourages farmers to always add value by crushing the nut, dehydrating it, packing it and then advertise and begin to sell it, with this he said a kilogram of nuts will give you shs10,000. “Even if you plant 10 trees it is enough money, you will not suffer with what people always cry for, “He said.
