The American Pecan Council reports data back to the industry each month with an eye on multiple key factors influencing supply and demand for pecans both here in the US and around the globe. 

 

Some of the data points collected are current shipments of pecans, commitments to ship pecans in the future, pecan deliveries by US growers and pecan imports from other countries. 

 

Mexican pecan imports jumped onto the industry’s radar when a brave whistleblower exposed how an APC board member was caught attempting to utilize US growers money to market pecans purchased from outside the country. Prior to the exposure, Mexican pecan imports were at all time highs and climbing daily. 

 

The nefarious actions caused growers to take notice, which set into motion plans to correct this problem in the industry. Since the exposure of the issue, pecan imports from foreign countries have continued to drop. 

 

Last season saw a reduction of 17% from 103,935,792 in 2018-19 to 86,051,592 in 2019-20, representing a total reduction of 17.8 million pounds. While the imports are still large when compared to the US pecan crop total, the numbers are dropping. 

 

 

This season is no different. So far this season foreign pecan purchases are down 48% as of the March pecan position report. So far this season US shellers have imported just over 38 million pounds as compared to last season US shellers had imported 72.8 million pounds by March representing a decrease of 48%. 

 

While imports are expected to continue, US growers have devised a plan to make help level the playing field by assessing pecan imports. The assessments will help increase advertising and research dollars and lessen the burden on American growers who are currently the only ones paying into the marketing and research coffers. 

 

The new monies will hopefully allow for an expanded marketing and research program and continue to increase the demand for pecans. 

 

*All quantities are converted to in-shell unless noted otherwise

*The APC updates data without notification, the data represented in this article was harvested on 3-June-2021.