The Dominican Republic is now a player in the international macadamia nut market. Corporación Agrícola La Loma has become the first company in the Dominican Republic to export processed macadamia, complying with high-quality standards. La Loma CEO and founder, Jesus Moreno said the first shipment was 22,800 pounds of the fine nut that is processed near macadamia farms in San José de las Matas, Santiago province.
The operations director of the plant, Clara Abreu explains there have been smaller volume exports in the past, but this is the first time the nut is exported on a commercial scale.
The DR is now competing on par with recognized producers and exporters in Colombia, Hawaii, Australia, South Africa, Costa Rica, Kenya, Guatemala and Malawi. The global macadamia trade is estimated to be worth approximately US$750 million.
The La Loma brand is considered a sustainable business model, pioneer in the country by integrating farming and marketing of macadamia nuts, with positive social, economic and environmental impacts for all members that make up the value chain.
“The small producer who reforests the Dominican hills by planting macadamia, to the final consumer who purchases the finished products and becomes a responsible consumer, are all an essential part of the value chain of the crop,” said Moreno, valuing the export as a relevant step for a sustainable future in select forest areas.
Corporación Agrícola La Loma owns the first macadamia processing plant in the Caribbean, with a processing capacity, in a first phase, of 75,000 to 100,000 kilos of the nut with exportable quality. The industrial structure, inaugurated in 2019, is located in San José de las Matas, in Santiago, and was built with an investment of around US$2.0 million.
It currently has a direct impact on 6,700 tareas (1 tarea = 629 square meters), 210 families. More than 200 producers earn their family’s livelihood, while protecting the soil from erosion, guaranteeing water production and reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.
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1 February 2021