With the passage of the new Marketing Order in the Pecan Industry we have truly made a huge step forward for our industry. I mean lets face it, pecans are great, but they are not an item you will find in the shopping basket of a family barely getting bye. Pecans are a luxury item purchased by the middle and upper classes, and as such must be marketed accordingly. Unlike water and bread, or rice, Pecans must rely heavily on a good marketing strategy, along with research and development of new products in order to keep growing in popularity with consumers. The growers of the USA as we all know have recently voted to pool resources in the form of assessments, knowledge sharing and general collaboration among the various producing states. The biggest form of contribution any single grower will give is his or her assessment fee with every pound of pecans that he or she sells. This has been going on in Georgia for many more years than I have been around and has been a great catalyst for the promotion of Georgia Pecans. Now that we are all contributing the USA can utilize more pooled funds along with programs from our government to increase marketing efforts exponentially, but what about the other countries that are benefiting from our marketing but are not paying an assessment fee to contribute to the marketing. We of course market USA Pecans around the world but we all know first hand that the prices of pecans around the world no matter where they are produced have risen right along with the prices of the USA produced pecans.

What are your thoughts on the subject, do you think producers in other countries should contribute in the form of an assessment fee, or in any capacity? Let us know by commenting below.