NUT growers could be big winners from yesterday's free trade agreement (FTA) with China, saying it could pave the way for massive expansion into an already significant market.
The trade deal will see all nut tariffs phased out over five years and the macadamia industry alone expects the deal to pave the way for a doubling of the $35 million the trade is currently worth.
China's tariffs currently sit around 25 per cent for our biggest exports of macadamias, almonds and walnuts.
China is the world’s second largest market for tree nuts and the Australian industry has invested heavily in marketing.
Part of its strategy is to target health-conscious consumers who will pay a premium for ‘clean, green’ products.
Chair of the Australian Nut Industry Council and chief executive officer of the Australian Macadamia Society (AMS) Jolyon Burnett said the deal “puts Australian on a level playing field with some of our key international competitors into the Chinese market”.
He said export markets were a fundamental aspect of the nut business and projections were for a $1 billion nut export figure by 2020.
Coming on the back of FTAs with Japan and Korea, the China deal would build on the substantial marketing work the macadamia industry had done to develop the Asian appetite for our indigenous nut, Mr Burnett said.
China is already the largest trading partner for Australian macadamias, devouring 27pc of the Australian crop annually.
In 2014, it is expected that 11,000 tonnes will be shipped to China, more than double that sent last year.
Mr Burnett said the industry was already well advanced in its development of trade links with China and other key Asian markets, with significant market research undertaken into the Chinese market in anticipation of the FTA.
He also recently visited China’s main macadamia growing region on a trade mission.
“This is not the beginning of our journey into this market, it’s another significant step,” he said.
“Currently the Chinese market is ‘in-shell’ although we are exploring the opportunities to value-add.”
AMS chairman Richard Doggett said the big challenge now was to lift supply.
Industry leaders were working on strategies to keep farmers on the land and investing in growth of their operations.
Secondly, encouraging investment in the industry from sources outside primary production was also being investigated, he said.
The industry had an “extraordinary future”, Mr Doggett told the recent AMS 40th anniversary industry conference in Lismore.
“Despite its relative youth, our industry boasts a global food product already traded in more than 40 countries - Australia leads the world in production and export - with strong growth in demand potential,” he said.
More than 300 growers, processors, marketers and researchers attended the conference, a biennial event, which also heard from global horticulture experts, including California’s renowned ‘Almond Doctor’ David Doll.
The Australian tree nut industry, Australian horticulture’s largest export industry at more than $600 million, is investing heavily in initiatives to increase productivity and production.
New plantings across many categories, from walnuts and hazelnuts to almonds and pistachios, are happening across regional NSW.
Full report on that growth in this week’s print edition of The Land . More reports from the Macademia conference to follow.