Agriculture forecasters at Texas A&M AgriLife Extension are predicting a medium-size pecan crop for the state in 2014. Experts say this year’s production will be better than the last three, but still under capacity.
The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service estimates farmers will produce between 50 million and 55 million pounds of pecans in 2014.
"Crop production in Texas has been down for several years due to drought -- largely 2009, 2010 and 2011 -- and we’ve been under producing," said AgriLife Extension’s Monty Nesbit. "So this is a little bit of a return to our production capacity, but we’re not going to see the highest production of pecan crop this year.”
As far as how much those pecans will cost, Nesbitt said Texans will see similar prices to 2013. He said the increase production isn’t affecting the price as much because of a surge of oversea consumers.
"You know there’s a lot of interest in pecans in Europe and in Asian and so it does affect the domestic supply and the pricing structure domestically,” Nesbit said.
Nesbitt said while the pricing structure may feel high at the retail level, it’s a good price for growers because of the drop in pecan prices over several years.
