Turkey’s Pistachio Exports Record an Increase of 33% Despite “Off Year”

Pistachio Kernel

Germany

Published Dec 3, 2021

Even though the export volume of Turkish pistachio has surged by 33% throughout MY 2020/21, it is declared that MY 2021/22 is declared as the “off-year” for pistachio production. In MY 2021/22, Turkey exported large volumes of cashews to Italy, Germany, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco driven by the low-valued Turkish lira which made the pistachios competitively priced in the international market. Furthermore, producers and traders were releasing their last year's stock to bag better prices and profits. Despite a shortage, the flow of releasing pistachios from the stock is so slow in anticipation that prices might go up in the coming months.

Turkey’s pistachio production volumes are cyclical with alternative “on years” (high volume) and “off years” (low volume). The yields and pistachio harvest varies dramatically from year to year and the current Marketing Year (MY) 2021/22 has been declared an off-year with the production of 87,000 MT pistachio. There were about 54 million bearing trees and about 22 million non-bearing trees in Turkey at the beginning of MY 2021/22 which is 4.7% and 8.2% more than the previous year respectively. Even though the year is declared as an off-year with lower production volumes, pistachio production is still higher than many of the earlier off-years. In the past few years, Turkish pistachios have gained a lot of popularity in the global market encouraging farmers to replace lentils and barley (even wheat in some cases) plantings with pistachio trees.

Source: FAO and USDA.

Pistachio production in Turkey requires little to no irritation and the growing regions rely on spring rains for the source of water. In 2021, a drought-like situation in the Southeast part of Turkey during the spring and summer caused pistachio yields to be low this year. The volume and size of pistachio fruits have fallen with very few right-sized pistachio nuts for the markets. Due to lack of rain and water, few branches of the trees have died from the lack of water. Further, a disease called phytoplasma also impacted the pistachio trees during the drought season which negatively impacted the quality of the yield even more. Farmers are anticipating that the upcoming MY 2022/23 will also be affected by 2021’s drought and the loss of branches

Despite some setbacks, Turkey managed to monetize the relatively better off year by setting a record in export volumes. The traders took advantage of the low-valued Turkish lira which made Turkish pistachios relatively cheap in international markets. Pistachio exports from Turkey in the January-October period of this year exceeded the export figure of the entire last year by 33%. Pistachios worth USD 118.9 million were exported in 2020, while in the first 10 months of this year USD 158.2 million worth of pistachios were sold to markets abroad. Around 15,126 tons of pistachios were exported to 103 countries, including Canada, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Morocco, Japan, India, Malaysia, Maldives, Cuba, and Russia.

In general, Turkey exports a small share of its pistachio production and consumes most of its domestic pistachio production. In addition, the traders store some volume to plan for an upcoming off-year if it is an on-year. Pistachio stocks in warehouses likely carried from the last MY because of the excellent harvest. Due to high stock volume, the retail price of the pistachios has not increased much compared to the previous year. All these factors should help make up for the low production this year. However, the farmers and traders continue to complain about the increasing cost of production of pistachios. There are a lot of pistachio producers/traders who are holding back stock and selling as slow as possible in anticipation that the prices might go up in the coming months.