The Gympie man who became an important leader of the now worldwide macadamia nut industry, Ian McConachie has come a long way since boyhood days stealing nuts from his Brisbane neighbours.
“We collected nuts from under the trees when permitted, and climbed fences to steal a few when we were not,” he recalls in his fabulous new book, “The Macadamia – Australia’s Gift to the World.”
From a childhood enthusiasm to a lifetime calling and ultimately an Order of Australia, Mr McConachie AM has made it his life’s work to help market Gympie region’s “gift to the world,” the first Australian bush tucker food to be mass marketed internationally.
Now he has given a gift of his own. And it really is a beautiful book, telling pretty much the entire story of the macadamia – its botany, Aboriginal and settler history and the adventures of all the enthusiastic personalities who, over more than a century, energised its emergence as one of the world’s most sought after foods.
On top of that, it’s all in a good cause.
All proceeds go to the Macadamia Conservation Trust, a body dedicated to the conservation of wild macadamias in the near-Gympie region, preserving precious genetics including one “new” variety, a patented commercial macadamia which has already earned $2 million for the trust Mr McConachie got started.
Sales of the book, which is available at Gympie’s Twiga Books in Mary Street, will help save a species which is under considerable threat in its diminishing natural environment, mainly around Amamoor and Bauple.
Ms McConachie is also founder and former chairman of Gympie’s Suncoast Gold Macadamias, which started out as a farmers co-operative in 1985.
The book is dedicated to his wife Jan who, he says, “generously tolerated my eccentricities” and backed him absolutely through a long and sometimes challenging journey.
The story includes the influence of Americans after World War II, who developed the industry in Hawaii before it returned to Australia, where after 50 years it now produces 60,000 tonnes of nut a year.
And that is only a fraction of world production, which now includes Hawaii, California, African nations, Vietnam and a vast and rapidly expanding plantation acreage in China.
From that Brisbane boyhood, Mr McConachie has studied the botany, distribution and history of the macadamia species.
To tell the full story, he draws on a wealth of material collected over decades and the knowledge of many informants.
Former Australian Macadamia Society CEO Jolyon Burnett describes the book as “a story with it all: heroes, villains, wrong turns and lost ways, new inventions, David and Goliath battles over international trade and colourful characters – some with a utopian vision, others perhaps driven by the dream of a quick profit.”
At 324 large pages, the book features full colour illustrations, maps, tables, end notes, a bibliography and index.
Twiga has it for a recommended $49.95 retail and it will soon also be available as an e-book, with bulk discounts available for macadamia industry outlets.
It can also be purchased online at scholarly.info/book/the-macadamia-australias-gift-to-the-world/
