The South African Pecan Market has taken a hit over the past month with huge price swings causing buyers and sellers to use caution or in some case to pull out all together until the market settled.

As the 2018 South African pecan harvest is nearing completion, this year has been quite different in regard to the in-shell pecan prices market. In a “normal” marketing year, pecan prices in South Africa may only fluctuate a small amount moving only a few Rand, with a lot of this movement due to the fluctuation between the US Dollar and the South African Rand. However, this year has been significantly different, about 3 weeks ago, pecan growers, pecan buyers and accumulators all watched in awe as the In-shell pecan prices began a rapid decline. Many were wondering, what happened; once Chinese buyers pulled out of the market the pecan prices began to tumble rapidly and for a while many industry participants were wondering where the bottom is. It would seem that prices have begun to settle, and buyers and sellers alike hope the bottom has been reached. The pecan market in South Africa is highly dependent upon Chinese pecan buyers and sells almost 90% of its pecan crop production into China. This dependency may have been the reason for the volatility in the pecan prices this year. However, US consumption may have helped stabilize the prices in South Africa; with demand in the US continuing to rise several pecan shellers in the US have been purchasing the lower priced South African pecans helping to stabilize the pecan price market in South Africa. While no one knows what the prices will do tomorrow, most buyers and sellers hope that the pecan prices will level out and continue to stabilize in the country. With high volatility in the pecan price market, this makes it harder to sell to customers as well as it makes it more difficult for buyers to feel comfortable purchasing.