On March 13, 2024 the California Walnut Commission Board of Directors reached a final decision to not pursue a walnut tree pull program.

While global demand for walnuts has been relatively flat over the last 5 years, global production increased significantly. Complicating matters, the California walnut industry had to navigate the COVID pandemic, supply chain and logistics interruptions, global economic downturn/high inflation, tariffs and trade barriers, high value for the US dollar, two regional “wars” and in 2022 a major crop disaster (heat wave). These and more, created significant shifts in consumer buying patterns and wide-reaching marketplace disruptions, causing sluggish walnut sales, larger inventories, and caused grower returns to fall below the cost of production.

It was against this backdrop that there was interest to seek financial assistance from the USDA to help growers remove walnut acreage from production, thereby reducing the overproduction challenges California walnuts are facing as an industry. In an effort to ensure the many aspects of a tree pull program were considered and discussed, the California Walnut Commission Board of Directors and staff reviewed this topic over the span of several meetings and many months of data and information gathering.

There are compelling reasons both for and against a tree pull program. Examples of the success or non-success of the Cling Peach and Prune (Plum) tree pull program from 2002 and 2006 respectively, were discussed. Industry members (growers and handlers) all expressed concern that a walnut tree pull program would send the wrong message to the global markets about the long-term viability of the California walnut industry and incent other producers to not reduce their acreage. While California growers have and will experience financial challenges due to low prices and lack of access to capital, many growers see this as a natural cycle in agriculture businesses, where growers overplant a crop and then there are mid-course corrections to “right size the industry”. 

Importantly, it has been noted that any tree pull program by itself would not solve the current in-balance between production and consumer demand. Such a program would not become effective until after the 2024 crop is harvested and would impact the 2025 harvest at the earliest. The 2023 California Walnut Industry strategic plan outlines six core strategic priorities that the industry needs to address. Work is fully underway to implement corrective actions in these areas, but this is a long-term pathway with the focus on ensuring premium quality walnuts to customers and consumers. The second imperative is to activate more sales to consumers via enhanced programs with retailers, foodservice (restaurant operators) and food manufacturers (ingredients), trading partners (global). For example, we recently applied for a new USDA export market development program, the Regional Agricultural Promotions Program (RAPP). This would provide significant funding to develop eight new markets for California walnuts with a special focus on the Southeast Pacific & North Africa, and expand demand in existing programs in India, Turkey, UK, the Middle East, Japan and Korea.

The excellent quality of the 2023 record crop, and strong sales for the first six months of the crop year, demonstrates that our industry has the capacity and commitment to satisfy the international and domestic trading partners and consumers. There is widely held acknowledgement that there is a lot of work to be done to increase demand. We have a plan that is focused on macro and micro topics to increase the velocity of sales in order to achieve the right value. The California walnut industry as a whole must address key issues to move forward, and the CWB and CWC Boards of Directors are leading the discussions to identify and implement a host of corrective actions that drive overdue and much needed changes.

In the end the CWC Board of Directors did not move forward with a tree pull program, believing that, although there are some merits to such a program, it would not provide overarching industry wide benefits to balance global supply and demand and improve California grower returns. 

This page will be updated as new information becomes available.