Landline has featured stories on the Sandalwood Industry in the past. The difference with this story, “Making Scents” which has been aired over the last 2 weekends on the ABC, is that it focuses heavily on the Sandalwood nut industry.

It presents an overview of the current state of the Sandalwood industry, including the nuts use as a new bush tucker food and oil for a variety of uses. Our fellow edible nut producers, WA Sandalwood Nuts in York, are interviewed in relation to the nut as an edible product. You can see the labour intensive process by which the nuts are collected and de-husked from the paddock. What you don’t see is that after this takes place, the Sandalwood nuts need to be cracked, separated from the shell, graded, cooked and packaged. It is a involved process, using machines designed for the Macadamia industry in QLD, and others used in Agricultural practices. It is somewhat a reason as to why the price/kg is currently so high. In future, as the story touches on, we hope that the nut and nut oil industry grows into a sustainable and lucrative forestry enterprise. Other companies interviewed are Wescorp, WA Sandalwood Plantations, Margaret River Chocolate Factory and Mia Davies Minister for Forestry.

Follow this link to read the transcript or watch the Landline story.

If you would like a farm tour of the Santaleuca Sandalwood Farm, please contact us.