New market for sandalwood seed

Sandalwood marketer and processor Wescorp has developed a sizeable market for sandalwood seeds - processing into a high-grade natural oil with properties desired by the cosmetic industry.

In an effort to provide an income for sandalwood tree farmers while plantations mature, Wescorp has spent the past seven years developing a market for the seeds.

The result is that Wescorp will launch the seed oil from WA sandalwood trees in California next month, through its agent in North America.

Wescorp assistant manager Fleur Coakley said the sandalwood oil-processing venture represented a shift from a cottage industry (where small amounts of seed collected manually) to a full-scale commercial enterprise.

She said Wescorp was looking to purchase about 50 tonnes of the seeds this year, increasing further in coming years.

It is now offering $3000 a tonne for clean de-husked 2014-15 harvest sandalwood seed, delivered to Canning Vale in Perth's southern suburbs.

Although this is considerably less than the amounts paid previously during the expansion stage of the industry, Ms Coakley said these lucrative prices were no longer available given sandalwood was now widely planted throughout WA (estimated to be up to 20,000ha) and the strong demand for seed for new plantations no longer existed.

"It's important that farmers leave sandalwood trees in the ground for more than 30 years, which is obviously a long time to wait for a return," she said. "To rush in and harvest earlier is not for the benefit of the farmer or the sandalwood industry as the hardwood would be of a lesser quality."

Leading the research and development effort for Wescorp since 2007 is pharmacist and chemist Dr Danny Hettiarachchi, who completed his PhD on this topic with Curtin University and developed an innovative green extraction method that maintains the composition and characteristics of the natural sandalwood seed kernel, while removing the undesired proteins and waxes to produce the highest quality clean sandalwood seed oil.

Dr Hettiarachchi said the natural blend of oleic and ximenynic acids provided a unique combination that was safe to apply directly onto skin, making it a desirable constituent in cosmetics (ximenynic acid is well known for its pharmacological properties).

Wescorp sandalwood manager Nathan O'Neill said while confident of the market opportunities, a challenge for farmers this year would be harvesting big volumes of seed themselves.

"At the moment, harvesting seed is very labour intensive. The existing machinery is quite inefficient," he said.

"There are a lot of vacuum-type machines getting around to suck up the seeds - or there are literally people out there picking them up manually.

"So that is not a viable way to do things and you can't build a commercial industry on such a labour-intensive process."

To address this challenge, Wescorp is in the process of purchasing specialised harvesting equipment, which it aims to have ready for the 2016 season.

It would then harvest the seeds, provided the trees were accessible and clear, and pay the farmers on the volume collected.

"We are in the process of developing the infrastructure and starting something more commercial," she said. "By next season, we should be in a position to harvest the seed with appropriate machinery, which is near completion."

Mr O'Neill said Wescorp did not plan to diverge too far from its core business of processing and marketing, with the eventual aim to work with WA academic, musician and activist Dr Richard Walley to create a sub-business that would provide an income stream for indigenous communities.

Gabbin farmer Bob Huxley, who has planted more than 200ha of sandalwood, welcomed the initiative and applauded Wescorp's foresight in researching and finding markets to create a viable full-scale industry from the seed.

"This will make a difference to farmers and provide a small extra cash flow for those who may otherwise leave a good proportion of their seeds on the ground," he said.

"I'm particularly excited about the prospect of efficient and cost-effective method of harvesting.

"The move towards 'bulk handling' of the seed harvesting and processing is a further example of Wescorp helping to grow the sandalwood industry and help to make farm businesses more financially resilient and climate-change ready."