All the experts consulted agree: the almond bubble has burst. In just three years, the prices of what is one of the fashionable nuts have plummeted by half. The almond reached historical prices in 2015 and in the markets of our country the prices exceeded 8 euros per kilo for varieties such as the Marcona or the Llargeta. Today, they barely reach 4 euros.
The high prices reached three years ago were mainly the result of two factors: the increase in consumption due to the healthy qualities attributed to almonds and a significant reduction in the harvest of the main world producer, the United States, due to the drought problems registered in California, a state in which many trees were also replanted due to their productive exhaustion.
The high prices acted in Spain as an important “pull effect”. Many farmers, especially young people who were joining the agricultural activity, opted for this crop, especially in inland areas where there are hardly any other attractive alternatives. “In the north of provinces such as Granada and Almería, the boom was such that the cereal has practically disappeared,” says Paqui Iglesias, provincial secretary of UPA Almería. The fever for this crop caused two-year waiting lists in the nurseries to get seedlings, says the person in charge of the agrarian organization. From 2015 to 2018, the surface has increased by more than 83,000 hectares.
Although there is a general agreement that the golden years are over, the differences are notable when it comes to establishing the causes. Roger Palau, sector manager for Nuts at Cooperativas Agroalimentarias de España, assures that “the bubble, caused by the increase in demand in countries that were previously unaware of this product, was a disaster for the producer because it caused consumption to plummet “. Paqui Iglesias, however, attributes this to competition from third countries, mainly “because a lot of almonds come in from the United States, which are of worse quality, and are packaged as if they were Spanish.”
Juan Pastor, head of Unión de Uniones, attributes it, however, to the speculative movements of commercial operators and charges especially against the Lonja de Reus, which marks the minimum. “The prices are controlled by two or three operators for their own benefit. They blame the arrival of the containers for the new season when everyone knows that almonds are bought three months in advance. It is the pretext that is repeated year after year,” he says.
Whether for one reason or another, the reality is that the price has not stopped falling since 2015 until reaching the breakeven point. “In dry land, below 4 euros are direct losses,” says Pastor. A different situation occurs in the case of irrigation, in which production can quadruple to 1,800 or 2,000 kilos. “They can defend themselves thanks to the volume,” says Paqui Iglesias.
Roger Palau believes that prices “are now at the bottom of the threshold and should be between 4.5 and 5.5 euros.” To the adjusted prices, Jorge Pastor adds another variable. “The almond tree does not respond to fixed patterns, it is not like other crops in which you can do the average for two or three years. Here the production can vary from one year to the next from 70,000 to 140,000 kilos due to frost. If you get a bad year, what do you live on?” he asks himself.
What will happen to those farmers who saw the eldorado almond? The leader of UPA Almería is clear in stating that they will have “a complicated situation. People made some calculations with prices that were not real, thinking that they would always be at 8 euros.”
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