Hawaii-Australia
By Jerry Tune
nut battle
intensifies
Star-BulletinHawaiian macadamia nut growers, worried about imported nuts from Australia, are moving to require honest advertising on products which claim to be "Hawaiian". At the same time, the local growers are talking to a Washington D.C. attorney about filing an anti-dumping lawsuit to deal with Australian nuts which they claim are sold at below production costs.
Dave Rietow, president of the Hawaii Macadamia Nut Association, said the Australian nuts from Agrimac International Enterprises Pty. Ltd. are coming in Thursday to be warehoused in Honolulu at Martins Warehouse & Distribution Inc.
"The Australians are dropping their price, which forces the Hawaiian nut prices down and the growers are taking the shot," Rietow said.
Rietow is working with the state Department of Agriculture to see whether there is an existing labeling regulation that would require producers to declare the origin of the macadamia nuts. If not, legislation will be introduced in the next state legislature, Rietow said. The Hawaii association also is preparing a response to the recent report of the U.S. International Trade Commission which dealt with macadamia nut practices and barriers from Australia, Kenya, South Africa, Malawi, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Brazil.
In that report, it was noted that the relative cost of growing nuts are generally higher in the United States than Australia. But Rietow believes that the Australians undercut production costs in that report, and will make that claim in the anti-dumping lawsuit.
In 1990-91, prices also dropped and there were accusations of Australians "dumping" maca-damia nuts at below-production costs. When Hawaii growers hired a Washington D.C. attorney, the Australians backed off and the lawsuit was dropped, Rietow said.
But in October, Agrimac International Enterprises Pty. Ltd. of New South Wales came to Honolulu to sell kernal, and now the container load of nuts is on its way to the Honolulu warehouse.
Paul Nielsen of IndoMed USA, agent for Agrimac, had no comment on the size of the shipment or price of the macadamia nuts.
"I don't know how much they have sold because local businesses are reluctant to buy from out of state, but it forces local nut prices down and it shoots Hawaii growers in the foot," Rietow said.
Hawaii's macadamia nut industry, the largest in the United States, employs 4,000 workers, 700 growers and 12 processing plants, he said. In the past two years, the price of macadamia nuts to the growers has dropped from about 80 to 85 cents a pound to 58 to 62 cents a pound, said Richard Schnitzler, president of Hamakua Macadamia Nut Co. He said it's a "break-even" situation for the grower when the price drops below roughly 70 cents a pound.
The situation is getting so serious that Schnitzler said he has heard stories of some mac nut farmers actually cutting down trees in order to plant coffee.
