California farmers are enjoying a pistachio boom, and much of it is headed to China

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LOST HILLS, Calif. (AP) – In a sprawling factory in the heart of a California farm, millions of shells run down a metal chute and onto a conveyor belt where they are inspected, roasted, packaged and shipped to stores around the world.

Pistachios are growing fast in California, where farmers have dedicated a lot of land to the plant, which is known to be hardy and drought tolerant in a climate that often fluctuates dramatically. The crop generated nearly $3 billion in revenue last year in California and over the past decade the United States has overtaken Iran as the world’s leading producer of peanuts.

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“There’s been an explosion in the last 10 or 15 years of planting, and those trees are coming online,” said Zachary Fraser, president and CEO of American Pistachio Growers, which represents more than 800 growers in the southwestern US. we are starting to see the fruits of people’s vision from 40 years ago.”

California grows more than a third of the nation’s vegetables and three-quarters of its fruits and nuts, according to state agriculture statistics. Pistachios have grown over the past decade to become the state’s sixth-largest agricultural commodity by value, ahead of perennial crops such as strawberries and tomatoes, the data show.

Most of the plants are headed to China, where they are a popular food during the Lunar New Year. But industry experts say Americans are also eating more pistachios, which were rare in grocery stores a generation ago and today are a nearly ubiquitous snack. They are sold with or without shells and flavors vary from salt and pepper to roasted honey.

The Wonderful Co., a $6 billion agricultural company known for products like Halo mandarins and FIJI Water, is the biggest name in pistachios. The company has grown pistachios since the 1980s, but expanded in 2015 after developing a rootstock that produced 40% of the nuts in the same soil and water, said Rob Yraceburu, president of Wonderful Orchards.

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Now, Wonderful grows between 15% and 20% of the US pistachio crop, he said. Its pistachio orchards criss-cross a stretch of dusty farmland northwest of Los Angeles that’s also dotted with pomegranates and dairies. The trees are shaken each fall and the nuts are hauled to a large processing area to be prepared for sale.

“There is a growing demand for pistachios,” Yraceburu said. “The world wants more.”

Pistachio farmers learn from the struggles of almond farming

Pistachios are better suited to California’s dry climate than their major nut crop, almonds, which produced nearly $4 billion in the state last year, industry experts say.

Pistachio orchards can be maintained with little water during drought, unlike almonds and other more sensitive crops. The trees also rely on the wind instead of bees for pollination and can produce nuts for decades, Yraceburu said.

Many California growers who grow both nuts are applying the lessons they learned from almonds to pistachio growing. Production of almonds, much larger than pistachios, has also increased in California, but prices have fallen amid a glut of pandemic supplies as farmers grapple with drought and rising input costs, leading some to replant aging fruit trees when it’s time to harvest them. outside.

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Pistachio farmers say they hope to avoid the same fate and are fighting to keep demand for the nuts ahead of supply. For example, American Pistachio Growers recently entered into an endorsement deal with a top cricketer in India in hopes of helping promote pistachios there, Fraser said.

The rise of pistachios is part of a shift by California farmers to perennial crops that offer higher returns than products like cotton, according to a 2023 report by the Public Policy Institute of California.

Long-lived plants, which can be replanted every year, simply cannot be replaced during dry years, which can be a challenge during a major drought, said Brad Franklin, a researcher at the Water Policy Center.

But pistachios have advantages that other perennials do not have. They can survive for a long time without water and grow in salty soil. That could make them attractive to California farmers who face limits on how much groundwater they can pump under state law aimed at conserving the precious resource, he said.

When farmers decide what to plant, “I think the biggest thing is the market and where the market is,” Franklin said. “And the water is below that.”

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Farmers face water challenges, but pistachio acreage has grown

Farmers across California are bracing for the impact of a 2014 state law aimed at ensuring sustainable use of groundwater after years of pumping depleted basins and eroded water quality in some rural areas. About a fifth of California’s pistachio crops are grown in areas that rely solely on groundwater for irrigation, Yraceburu said, adding that he expects some of these fields to go out of production.

But in the next few years, pistachio acreage is expected to continue to grow in the state as trees planted in recent years begin to produce. That’s in contrast to almond and walnut acreage, which rise or fall as orchards are removed, said David Magana, senior analyst at Rabobank in Fresno, California.

Pistachios require about 3 acre-feet (3,700 cubic meters) of water per acre (0.4 hectares) compared to about 4 acres (4,934 cubic meters) of almonds and produce more per acre than almonds while charging a high price, he said.

“You see the total value the pistachio industry provides to California agriculture is close to that of almonds with very little acreage,” Magana said. “I’ve never seen pistachio orchards taken out.”

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