Australian almond industry to benefit from price recovery and water availability

Drought in the world’s largest almond growing region overseas teamed with “ideal” pollination here bodes well for Aussie growers.

This year’s “ideal” pollination bodes well for next year’s almond crop. Picture: Glenn Milne

Strong market conditions, full water storages and successful pollination point to a “promising” 2022 almond season, industry leaders say.

Almond Board of Australia chief executive Ross Skinner said this year’s almond price recovery had been “timely” for Australian producers as they brought in a record 120,000 tonne crop, and industry players expected the higher prices to remain stable through to December.

Prices, which sit between $7.25 and $7.75 per kilogram, have increased $0.50 since July, driven largely by the drought in California, the world’s largest almond growing region.

Mr Skinner said the Californian almond crop, which was now being harvested, was estimated to be down 10 per cent, with stress on trees and the removal of orchards as a result of the drought “likely to impact future crops as well”.

Select Harvests general manager Paul Thompson said he expected almond prices to remain stable, with the potential to strengthen after December if the Californian drought didn’t break.

As the pollination season draws to a close, Mr Skinner said the overlap of varietal flowering across Australia’s almond production regions had been “ideal (for) cross pollination of almond trees to produce nut fruitlets”.

And good winter and early spring rainfall across the Murray Darling Basin was a good sign for the season ahead, “with no shortage of water for the horticultural crops in the Southern Basin”, he said.

But one constraint continuing to affect the industry was shipping, Mr Skinner said.

“The freighting of export shipments remains challenging due to the logistics around shipping container shortages and disrupted shipping schedules,” he said.

Despite the constraints, shipments this year were “well ahead of the 2020 figures and similar to the record monthly exports in 2019”, he said.

“Large demand gains were achieved in the US, Indian, Chinese, European, Middle Eastern and African markets driven by strong snacking demand and use as an ingredient by manufacturers as consumers sought healthier diets.”