SHAFTER, Calif. (KERO) — California produces 80 percent of the world's almonds but this year production decreased across the state. One grower says not only did the drought and supply chain issues factor in but also inflation.
Bret Sill, a local almond farmer in Shafter is just one of the almond growers that says this year wasn’t the same.
“It's been a tough year. On top of that we’ve had bad market conditions because of oversupply,” said Sill. “We’ve probably planted a lot of almonds over the last few years and went from a 2 billion pound crop to over a 3.2 billion pound crop.”
Richard Waycott, president, and CEO of the California Almond Board says the decrease took place across the state.
“We have a very long history of increasing acreage in our crop going back decades. And for the first time ever as reported by Land IQ last month, we saw a slight decrease in total acreage, by 25,000 acres.”
Waycott adds this industry is harder than some may realize and this year didn’t help.
“This is an incredibly high-risk business, where as we’ve discussed in the last few minutes, so many things are beyond your control.”
Despite the challenges of 2022 sill says they are looking forward to the new year – and creating unique ideas for people to buy almonds.
“Really just the health aspect and what almonds bring to the table is really encouraging so that’s what we are looking forward to," says Sill. "Like what can we do, through a partnership with our almond supplier, we are coming up with almond butter and we are excited to see what that does.”
Almond bloom starts around mid-February and Sill says that’s when they will begin to see how the crop will turn out next season.
