If you ask pecan growers about the current market conditions you will get a variety of responses, most of which seem to be unfavorable. With pecan prices on the farm at 10 year lows, you would expect this type of response. With the Chinese pecan buyers sitting out of the market in the early part of the season, pecan growers have had to resort to selling their pecans to whoever they can find to buy them. Pecan shellers are the only active buyers in the market up until recently and pecan prices have been very low. “We can barely get an offer from the shellers lately, what we do get is [low].” says on Texas pecan grower. “We’ve had to beg for offers.” He is referring to the lack of buyers in the market and their lack of interest. What is even more surprising is the fact that roughly half of the Georgia crop was lost to Hurricane Michael at the beginning of harvest season. What makes this even more significant is the fact that Georgia is the largest producer in the United States. It has been estimated that more than 50 million pounds of pecans were lost from the hurricane in Georgia. Texas has had their own problems with excessive flooding taking even more product off the pecan market. This leaves us to question, why the depressed prices when so much of the supply has been removed from the market due to natural disasters. The answer can be found by looking at the import data. While pecan demand is on the rise, so are the pecan imports from Mexico. Pecan imports from Mexico are currently at 6 year highs with the exception of 2016 and we are currently only 3 million pounds behind the 2016 figures. This year is on pace to be the largest pecan import year ever from Mexico. While the American Pecan farmers pay the bills to increase demand, pecan shellers turn to Mexico purchase the majority of the pecans to fill orders.