In 2004, I made contact with county officials in several counties in Guizhou Province helping some customers hunt down information about the local tung oil markets. I gathered some interseting information in the process, and want to make that available to the non-Chinese speaking public.
I will provide a translation of the short information sheet given me by the Guizhou Province, Jinping County Agriculture Bureau titled, "Purchase and Marketing Quotes for Tung Nuts and Tung Oil."
Purchase and Marketing Quotes for Tung Nuts and Tung OilDue to an increasing demand for tung oil the past several years, non-local business people and local small scale oil crushing mills rushed to purchase tung nuts causing the tung oil price level to rise from CNY 4 per kilogram to CNY 5 or 5.5 per kilogram (local price). At present, the Jinping tung nut buying price has slipped down, the first five days [of the season] with a buying price of CNY 0.95 per kilogram sliding down to today's price of CNY 0.85 per kilogram. According to market pricing and the downward slide in the raw material [quality], we think the finished goods will continue fall. Previously, one hundred jin [50kg] of dried tung nuts could be crushed into 33 to 34 jin [16-17kg] of oil. At present the tung nuts are completely moist (with only the tung nuts' outer layer being dry), which when crushed makes one hundred jin of tung nuts produce from 22 to 24 jin [11-12kg] of oil.
As I said last time, sometimes the farmers do not want to go through the trouble of drying, bagging, and hauling to sell if the price is too low. We start to understand that more when the price can fluctuate so much, one year selling at CNY 5-5.5 and then dropping dramatically to under CNY 1 per kilo.
As with just about all agriculture products, tung oil too is highly dependent on the quality of the crop of any given year. Bad crops bring in low prices when it comes time to sell. In this case, the producers will be able to crush less oil, and to them, the price of the nut is completely dependent on the amount of oil they can get out of it.
This report from 2004 is presented here only to give clear evidence of the volatile local markets and how changing prices affect the average farmer.
I have these trees that produce so many of these nuts, do you know anywhere that I could send them to sell them. It seems a waste to keep throwing them out.
Thank you for any information.
Posted by: Susan Doss | 27 Mar 2007 at 09:02
Well, to first give you a bit of a "homebrew" solution to these extra tung nuts you have on hand, you could use them for some home use. You would need to sun-dry them, get the nuts out, and crush them to get the oil. Then, though, you would have your own source of excellent wood varnish/laquer.
For some reason, though, I have a feeling you might be wanting an easy way to not waste the nuts and turn a little profit off them. I could be wrong. The short answer is that you likely do not have enough to really interest buyers. It would depend on a few other factors.
Where do you live? Approximately! Southern United States? I just find it quite funny that you actually have one of these trees. I live in prime tung oil territory, so it is nothing surprising around here. Just wondering.
Posted by: Cooper Strange | 27 Mar 2007 at 16:48
I live in Southeastern corner of this great nation and am thinking...Well then, Maybe I should grow my nuts...and see if I could sell the trees. They really are beautiful, I have people stop all the time to inquire about my odd trees and where they might be able to get one. No, I've never seen another one, anywhere, except looking them up on the internet. Whatcha think? Anyone interested in a tree????
Susan
Posted by: Susan Doss | 27 Mar 2007 at 21:20
I guessed right. I remember reading somewhere that during the World World II era, the government planted tung trees in the Southeastern United States to have an assured local source in war time. Tung oil has a high flash point (will not burn easily), and is used as a coating for metals to keep them from corroding. See where this is going? The military has lots of metal stuff! And tung oil was (and still is) considered of military value.
That is hardly the most frequent use, though. I very much agree with you that the trees are absolutely beautiful when in bloom! I love travelling around these areas of Southwest China, all the wonderful greens, but when the tung trees are in bloom, the mountains have additional "jewelry" to keep my travels interesting.
You could probably find out how to grow them fairly easily. And I think a little "homebrew" tung oil would be quite coveted by your local carpenters (it is way too expensive in stores).
Posted by: Cooper Strange | 27 Mar 2007 at 21:52