A Changed Pecan Industry Following Ivan

Hurricane Ivan will not wipe out the Alabama pecan industry, but it will come perilously close in some parts of the state, particularly south Mobile and Baldwin counties. Despite this setback, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System crop expert believes the industry will recover.

In normal years, Alabama would turn out between a 12- and 15-million-pound crop, according to Dr. Bill Goff, an Extension pecan expert and Auburn University professor of horticulture.

This year, however, the number quite possibly could be as low as 2 or 3 million pounds. The high prices resulting from this crop reduction will be a boom for those growers lucky enough to avoid hurricane damage, a bust for those whose orchards line on or near Ivan’s path.

While Ivan is not likely to wipe out Gulf Coast pecan production entirely, Goff believes the storm will have a major effect on where the crop will be grown in the future.

“It will be a devastating blow (to Gulf Coast pecan production) without a shadow of a doubt,” Goff says. “And since the most powerful winds will be to the east, it likely will wipe out much of the crop and many trees in south Baldwin county.”

Many orchards further north directly in line of the hurricane’s path also will be decimated by the storm. Moreover, orchards in other parts of the state aren’t unlikely to fare much better since the effects of the hurricane --- torrential rainfall and heavy winds --- are likely to be felt throughout most of the state and could cause serious crop loss.

Ironically, the best kept trees are likely to be the most susceptible.

“What growers have observed and what we have seen firsthand for years is that orchards with the best maintained trees are the most vulnerable to a storm’s effect,” Goff says.

The reason is because better maintained trees tend to have more foliage, less insect damage and heavier nut load than trees that are less maintained, such as landscape trees.

While the picture currently looks bleak, Goff believes the industry ultimately will recover, though the end result will likely be a radically changed pecan industry with a center of gravity located much farther north and east.

“When I first came to Auburn more than 20 years ago, growers used to say you could expect a devastating storm every 10 years,” Goff recalls. “But in a 10-year period from 1979 until 1989, we’ve had four such devastating hurricanes.”

This has resulted in a steady loss of acreage along Alabama’s hurricane-prone Gulf Coast --- a factor driven as much by economic change as weather. Urbanization, in fact, has had as big an effect as weather in reducing pecan numbers within the region.

“The Gulf Coast was once almost an entirely agriculture-driven economy, and it was possible for growers to make payments on land based on the income they got from raising pecans,” Goff says.

Urbanization changed all of that.

“Urbanization has outpaced agriculture,” Goff says. “There are even instances this year where growers have sold pecan orchards for about $50,000 an acre.”

“It’s just not economically feasible any longer to grow pecans on land that costs that much.”

Even so, more is known about pecan production than ever before. Moreover, the development of new varieties has made it possible to grow pecans commercially in regions of the state where it once wasn’t possible, even in the cooler Tennessee Valley. Other reasons for a pecan recovery include a strong price outlook with decreasing acreage. Another key factor: increasing demand among consumers for healthy products such as pecans.

For these reasons, Goff believes there is a future for younger generations of growers who want to profit from the vast improvements in pecan production and varieties that have occurred in recent years.

He also believes the focus of pecan production could shift markedly in coming years to the Wiregrass, where peanut growers are searching for alternatives and a processing and marketing infrastructure is located in nearby Albany, Ga.

[Source: Dr. William Goff, Alabama Cooperative Extension System Pecan Specialist and Auburn University Professor of Horticulture, (334) 844-5480.]

Posted by Jim Langcuster at September 15, 2004 02:20 PM | TrackBack