PRESIDENT’S CORNER
It’s hard to believe that summer is here when we can still see mountaintops covered with snow throughout the greater Central Valley. While the topic of drought seems to have dominated state and national headlines over the past several summers, this year it’s more likely that reports of full Shasta and Oroville reservoirs, and of course the re-emergence of Tulare Lake, will take center stage. Although the ag industry will continue to face the challenges associated with California’s water allocation and delivery system, as the record-level Sierra snowpack continues to melt, lack of water should not overshadow our growers’ hard work each day as they deliver their almond crops. As we shared in our recent market update, the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) subjective almond forecast released in mid-May estimated a 2.5 billion pound crop for 2023. Still a significant number of almonds, this crop size would help reduce carryout this year and potentially stabilize market pricing a bit. Overall good news for the industry. I was certainly impressed attending my first INC World Nut and Dried Fruit Congress in London in May. Blue Diamond helped sponsor the global tradeshow — the largest international gathering of fruit and nut food professionals, suppliers, traders and buyers. This year’s event drew 1,300 participants from more than 60 countries and offered countless opportunities for our Blue Diamond representatives to network and market our growers’ almonds. We recently completed a tour of the Central Valley, meeting with members of the Grower Liaison Committees. Those who participated heard Mel Machado give a somewhat sobering update about this year’s crop development, continued increases to your input costs and the world almond market. I realize growers are fully aware of the challenges you’ve already faced this year with extraordinary bloom weather and its potential impact on your crops. As we communicated in those meetings, I want to assure you that your co-op will continue to honor our grower progress payment schedule and do all we can to support you throughout the year. One of the innovative ways we’re backing our growers is by providing financial incentives around sustainability. I think it’s incredible that, in 2022, our Orchard Stewardship Incentive Program (OSIP) paid over $1.74 million directly to growers for practices most were already doing in their orchards. I’m incredibly proud of our co-op’s continued commitment to sustainability and to doing what we can to be responsible stewards of the lands we farm and the processes we use throughout our supply chain. Our OSIP now covers 40% of all Blue Diamond member acres, representing more almond acres in a sustainability program than any other company in the world...and we plan to increase this over the coming years.
Kai Bockmann President & CEO
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ALMOND FACTS
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