South Africa

Tiny South African town in the middle of the desert experiencing a billion-rand boom

Shaun Jacobs • 31 May 2026

The small town of Prieska in the Northern Cape Karoo is undergoing a boom akin to a gold rush, only that it has been years in the making.

Prieska is located on the southern bank of the Orange River south of Kimberley and has become increasingly prominent thanks to the production of pistachios.

The town, originally called Preischap, was always a farming town, with hundreds of individuals migrating to it every year after rains when the flat pans were full.

There was also some mining involved through the Koegas mine, which extracted and processed blue asbestos. Typically used in gas masks as a filter, the dangers of asbestos led to the mine shutdown in the 20th century.

However, the town mostly grew as a result of its being on one of the few natural shallow fording places of the Orange River.

This feature, called a drift, resulted in the town becoming a vibrant trading hub with farms springing up along the river banks. Trekboers moving into the Upper Karoo first occupied the area in the late 1800s.

As the community grew, the town slowly gained municipality status after a Dutch Reformed Church congregation was officially formed in 1878.

Gaining municipality status in 1892, Prieksa would become a key military site in the Anglo-Boer War as a result of its location at a river crossing.

Occupied by the British, the town soon became synonymous with its infamous fortification atop the Prieska Koppie, which still overlooks the town.

Throughout the 20th century, Prieska went through various booms and busts associated with South Africa’s mining industry.

Anglovaal operated a giant copper and zinc mine in nearby Copperton, which injected a huge amount of wealth into the local economy between 1971 and 1991.

When the mine shut down, the area was largely left to farmers who used the Orange River to irrigate their fields and water livestock.

The town of Prieska exists purely because of its geographical bounty. A strange aspect of its location is increasingly being exploited to kickstart another boom for the settlement.

Rise of the pistachios

The town of Prieska is perfect for growing pistachios, with its geography mimicking that of existing production hubs in the Middle East and California.

Karoo Pistachios CEO David Müller told Classic Business that the harsh, desert-like geography of the Karoo provides a unique competitive advantage for his company.

Pistachio trees require an extreme environment to thrive, with intense heat and winter cold being key prerequisites for good yields.

Apart from the intense heat and cold, pistachio trees also require a significant amount of water without any humidity or high rainfall.

“It has these opposing requirements, and it is one of the trees that has probably the most severe climatic requirements in terms of where it will grow,” Müller said.

Prieska’s location along the Orange River and its Karoo climate make it perfect for pistachio growing, resulting in sustainably high yields.

This makes it seem obvious to grow pistachios in Prieska. However, the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) tried and failed due to the temperamental nature of pistachio trees.

The IDC invested heavily in a pistachio-growing project in Prieska in the 1990s, but wrote off its investment in 2011 after it failed to generate sufficient returns.

A group of farmers, including Müller, kept the project alive and established the Desert Emerald pistachio brand.

The main challenge with growing pistachio trees is their highly complex pollination process, which is different to many plants grown at a commercial scale.

Pistachio trees are dioecious, meaning that male and female flowers grow on separate trees, with females relying entirely on the males for pollination.

This means that both male and female trees must bloom at the same time, requiring intense focus on cultivation, planting rows, layouts, and wind direction.

Only after the pollination process can pistachios be harvested and then sold.

Muller explained that it took his family three to four years of trial and error to understand the pollination puzzle and make the operation bankable.

The business of pistachios

While pistachio trees are capital-intensive upfront, they can produce nuts for over 50 years, giving significant long-term upside.

“In terms of the capital investment, we are looking at an investment of around R300,000 to R800,000 per hectare to bring the trees to maturity,” Müller said.

“But then, it is a typical J curve. You plough the money in for the first five years, and then in year five or six, you start generating an income. In year eight, you are likely to see positive cash flow.”

After this point, Müller estimated that the profit margin can be up to 70% depending on the quality of the pistachio produced. At this point, the capital value of the land is around R1.4 million.

“We are producing a quality pistachio nut in the top 10% in terms of quality. But our production cost is sitting at half of what the United States is,” Müller said.

The relatively low production cost of farming pistachios at Prieska means that it is a more sustainable operation than it would be in other parts of the world.

“As soon as the price drops below a certain level, the United States get out. Like they can’t farm profitably, but we’re still making money comfortably,” Müller explained.

“So, we know that we can comfortably make this 10, 20, 30-year rise in investment because we know we have a floor price.”

Müller estimates that the broader opportunity in Prieska for pistachio farming is around R2 billion to R4 billion.

This is because, unlike historic production hubs in California or the Middle East, Prieska is relatively immune to environmental or geopolitical shocks.

Pistachio prices are soaring currently due to disrupted supply amid conflict in the Middle East, pushing the market to find new sources, such as Prieska.

Global consumption of pistachios is rising by around 3% to 6% annually. To keep up with this, the world needs to plant over 20,000 hectares of pistachios every year.

This supply-demand imbalance has seen prices surge to new highs in 2026. This has been exacerbated by pollination struggles in the United States.

The United States is predicting a 33% drop in yield in 2026. This drop is larger than the entire output of Iran, placing global supply under severe pressure.