The pecan industry is experiencing an “off” year with pecan deliveries falling by 45% for the month of December and 44% year to date over last year. The latest pecan position report was recently released for the month of December and here is how the number shake out. 

 

Pecan deliveries from growers were at 73.4 million pounds for the month of December 2020, fast forward to December of 2021 and grower deliveries are reported at only 40.6 million pounds. This is a decrease of 45%, when looking at the cumulative deliveries from growers for the season we see that deliveries are still down by 44%. 

 

From September to December of 2020 pecan growers had delivered 163.9 million pounds to the supply chain, for the same time period of 2021 growers have only delivered 91.4 million pounds, a decrease of 72.5 million pounds, or 44%.

 

Georgia growers are suffering the largest production loss with older trees not producing a big crop this year and scab pressure eating away at the crop that was present made for a tough year in the southeast. With Georgia producing more of the nations crop than anywhere else, when Georgia growers suffer, the whole industry suffers. 

 

This news is not all bad though, for growers who did produce a crop, prices have been holding well above $2.00 in-shell for good quality. China exports have still lagged but with a shorter crop, buyers have been eager to purchase what pecans are available. Many buyers look to Georgia pecans as their go-to, but this year buyers had to compete for a smaller overall crop. Quality has been good this year overall, but the yields just weren’t there. 

 

 

Handler inventory has decrease as well. Grower deliveries are down by 72.5 million pounds for the season putting handler inventory down 50.9 million pounds for December. This data is of course subject to and very likely will change in the future as the APC updates reports.