Weekly Almond Market Update: 9/7/23 to 9/13/23

📈 August's Crop Receipts

What do they mean for the final 2023 crop size?

Almond Board of California released the first, August 2023 position report for the 2023/2024 marketing year. And today I'm going to highlight what early crop receipts mean and their impact on final crop size. 

🌳 August Crop Receipts 

5 out of 30 varieties were reported bringing August's 2023 Total ABC form 1 Crop Receipts to 70,130,877 lbs, down -73.46% over last year. August 2022 reported 19 out of 29 varieties.

👇 You'll see a Bountiful Market screenshot showing Crop Receipts by Marketing Classification, percent change is based on the previous year's total receipts.

Using August's position report to assess the final crop size

Every year it seems the almond market is different and yet also the same... What do I mean by this?

I've been in the almond industry since 2016 and early in the receiving year, usually during the first 3 months of crop receipts, I'm asked the same question: What do you think the final crop size will be?

And yes, I'm fully aware of the speculation and divide in the industry around the USDA Objective's 2.6B lbs estimate, and to be fair receiving 2.73% of a total 2.6B lb crop in August is definitely not "normal" when comparing against the last few years...

So, I thought it would be useful to share some insights with you into the receiving patterns of almond receipts specifically:

• Percent of crop received by month 2010-2023
• with final yields 
• final production 

Check out the table below 👇 to see each respective year's percent of crop receipts by month.

📊 So then what do early crop receipts mean?

They're indicative of harvest timing, this is especially true for the first 3 months of crop receipts. Which Growing Degree Days is a great indicator of as well!

And for this year GDD has been behind all season. And harvest start dates have been delayed, even further. What started as a 1-2 week delay in harvest has been further pushed to a 3+ weeks late harvest.

⛅ Why? Well because of the Weather (late season rain events, Hurricane Hillary hitting at the start of harvest, an already slower developing crop per mild Growing Degree Days this year, and let us not forget how long bloom was in delaying nut-set).

Sharing the last 30 days of Precipitation for California with you in the screenshot above 👆.  

🤓 A question I have, that I'd love you to help me answer... When did harvest start in 2011 and 2010?

All this to say, the delays in harvest this year have heavily impacted August crop receipts. It's still too early to tell what the final 2023 crop will be. And no, I'm not implying that this year's crop will be big or small. I'm saying that the market doesn't have enough data yet to determine the final crop size.