Profitable Pecans - Arkansas Farm Bureau

increased demand from China and the traditional holiday market is resulting in a profitable environment for us pecan growers for the time being life is good for most pecan growers in Arkansas and the United States that's especially true for Robert Carruthers who owns a 165 acre orchard near Blackwell in the Arkansas River Valley of Conway County after getting around a dollar 25 a pound when he harvested his first crop in 2002 Carruthers expects to receive more than $3 a pound this year that's due to a slightly smaller u.s. crop and heavy demand from a new market China in 2007 they had a crop failure in Asian walnuts pretty well worldwide the Chinese had never hardly ever used any pecans I got those imported pecans and I really liked them in 20 in 2009 they went to buy 30% of our total production United States last year they bought 40 percent of our production and they would have bought more if we if we would have had them Carruthers says while Arkansas pecan production averages 385 pounds per acre he will produce around 1,250 pounds per acre the difference is due in large part to his ability to irrigate his trees he planted his first 13 acres in 1995 and was able to survive the first seven years until the trees came into production by growing soybeans and wheat as well the pecans have been so profitable he exited the row crop business and is now growing them exclusively tough part about pecans is startup you had to put in irrigation in trees and you don't if you don't have options like I did with a row crop to cashflow you're going 7 to 10 years spending money with no income and that's pretty tough of course actually were 10 years old everybody start telling me how lucky I was Carothers has been pleased with the productivity of his orchard as well as the price he's getting for his pecans and believes there's potential for growth of the industry in Arkansas the pecan industry is is I think getting revitalized in Arkansas of course one of the big things is the price and it's also you know long-term demand is good with China in these other countries so in the health benefit of it is a plus so we got I think a lot of pluses I'm really really beyond my expectations of what I thought it would do is produce as far as production and dollars in the net I've been tickled Arkansas is expected to produce between two and two and a half million pounds of pecans this year about ten percent or two hundred fifty thousand pounds of that will come from Carruthers operation

Channel: Arkansas Farm Bureau

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Length: 3min 0sec (180 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 04 2011