Hawaiian macadamia nut farmers face economic devastation due to false labeling of imported mac nuts as "Hawaiian"

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Macadamia nuts are one of my favorite foods for providing health-enhancing oils. They're rich in monounsaturated fats and contain many other phytonutrients that contribute to human health. I think that eating handful of macadamia nuts a day is a great way to control blood sugar, satiate your appetite and boost your nutrition.

One of the best regions in the world in which to grow macadamia nuts is Hawaii, but the industry there is about to be devastated, and in another five years it may not exist at anywhere near the same level it does today. Sadly, thousands of acres of macadamia nut trees, along with the farmers who tend them, could be economically wiped out. Given that macadamia nut trees take about seven years to produce their very first nut and 15 years to reach maturity, this is not an industry that can recover overnight.

There are many issues contributing to this coming collapse of Hawaii's mac nut industry, but one of the worst is the fact that macadamia nut processors physically located in Hawaii can import macadamia nuts from other countries (most notably Australia) but label them as 100 percent Hawaiian macadamia nuts. It is not illegal to do so, even though it is deceptive to consumers.

As the Dallas Business Journal reports, "Sources in the macadamia nut industry on the Big Island say that some companies, notably Hershey-owned Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corp., add non-Hawaiian mac nuts to Mauna Loa products sold on the Mainland."

You didn't know Hershey's was involved in the macadamia nut business, did you? They've bought out many farms and now virtually monopolize the processing and packaging of mac nuts on the Big Island. Since big business is now dominating the macadamia nut industry, we can only expect the deceptions to get even worse. Big business often seems to be all about exploiting consumers and squeezing every last dime it can out of a resource in order to maximize profits, even if it means destroying an industry and the farmers that go along with it, and that's what we are seeing in the Hawaiian macadamia nut industry today.

My research for writing this article, by the way, comes from talking directly to macadamia nut farmers. I conducted in-depth interviews with three mac nut farmers, and spoke casually to another five. One mac nut farmer I interviewed finally gave up in disgust, sold his farm and left the Big Island altogether. His operation was ultimately destroyed by two things: 1) The big business domination of the mac nut industry and the economic destruction of the small farmer (the big mac nut processors on the island simply stopped buying mac nuts from local farmers, since they could buy cheaper mac nuts from Australia and label them "Hawaiian"), and 2) The massive meth problem on the Big Island, which lead to repeated property theft from his mac nut farm. Meth heads actually stole his farm equipment and tools, and the local cops seemed remarkably uninterested in solving the case.

This is one of those stories you'll probably never hear in the mainstream media. The Hawaii press isn't interesting in printing anything strongly negative about the macadamia nut industry for obvious reasons. Plus, the big business macadamia nut processors are highly influential in the economic and political circles in Hawaii. At the same time, Hawaii doesn't really want to talk about its meth problem because the truth about Hawaii's unprecedented drug abuse problem scares away tourists.

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