Coffee proves its worth as a valuable intercrop for macadamia farmers

Lowveld farmers have limited options to get around the cost-price squeeze in order to remain profitable amid rising input costs and decreasing crop prices. Father-and-son team Charles and Carel Burger have an innovative approach: they are intercropping coffee and macadamias to maximise returns. Lindi Botha reports.

- Lindi Botha

The Burger family, who farm near White River in Mpumalanga, own some of the oldest macadamia nut orchards in the area. The land below the towering trees is shaded and dark, with only patches of sunlight periodically filtering through. The cool atmosphere among the trees and the spongy, mulch-dense soil mimic that of a jungle, just perfect for growing coffee.

Macvue is headed by father-and-son team Charles and Carel Burger, who both trained as commercial pilots. While on holiday at the farm during his studies, Carel decided to start experimenting with coffee cultivation.

“We had a coffee tree growing in the yard and I wanted to see if I could produce more trees by planting the beans. When they flourished, I started looking into coffee production on a larger scale.”

Charles explains that since coffee plants do best when planted in shade, it made sense to intercrop it with the macadamias. Coffee that receives minimal sunlight is also of a higher quality. In addition, the farm does not have open land on which to establish a new crop.

“Coffee can’t tolerate cold and frost. The ideal altitude for production is above 800m, which is where we farm. The heat and humidity of the Lowveld are also well suited to coffee,” he says.

The Burgers planted their first largescale coffee crop in 2018 under 20-year-old macadamia trees, using spacing of 8m x 5m. A coffee plant was planted on either side of each macadamia tree in the row. Today, the farm has 9 000 coffee trees in production.

LOW-COST PRODUCTION

Beans that are not picked up off the ground will germinate and produce more plants. When the Burgers decided to plant coffee on a large scale, they obtained plants from a nearby farmer, Robbie Nel, who was growing coffee.