Almonds: larger acreage

More than 66,000 hectares of almond orchards

Despite the record crop of 163,148 mt in 2024, demand for Australian almonds was so high that there were hardly any stocks left at the end of the 2024/2025 season. Around 47% of the crop was accounted for by the Nonpareil almond variety, followed by Carmel (26%) and Monterey (12%).

From 2014 to 2018, almond farmers had steadily expanded their acreage by planting new trees, but in the following years up to and including 2023, fewer and fewer trees were planted. In 2024, a slight increase was observed again, with 2,634 ha newly planted. A total of 66,096 ha is currently used for almond cultivation in Australia, 43% of which is devoted to the Nonpareil variety. Around 60,586 ha of the plantations are currently bearing nuts, with the remaining trees also expected to bear fruit in the coming years.

Australian Almonds had estimated this year's crop at 155,531 mt before the start of the season, and the final estimates are expected to be announced shortly, with experts predicting a reduction. It is therefore possible that this forecast could be around 10-20% above the actual result, which would result in a production of around 130,000-140,000 mt of shelled almonds. The Foreign Agricultural Service of the US Department of Agriculture had already issued a forecast of 145,000 mt of almonds in July. The reason for this is above-average temperatures during the growing season, with heat stress reducing kernel weight. Both figures would still be a good result in relative terms, with the 10-year average (2015-2024) standing at 108,238 mt.

US estimates slowed exports

The Australian almond sector started the 2025/2026 season with strong exports. In July, however, shipments stagnated somewhat and sellers withdrew from the market, which Australian Almonds attributes in its latest report to optimistic crop forecasts from California and the associated decline in prices. These were initially at 1.361 million mt (3 billion lbs). With the start of the harvest and the initially rather sobering yield results, however, market experts' expectations are now more conservative, with many considering a similar result to last year more likely (1.231 million mt or 2.713 billion lbs). Since August, the weather has brought comparatively cool temperatures, rain and thunderstorms to California's growing regions, delaying harvesting in some areas.

However, due to US punitive tariffs, the focus of important buyer countries such as China and India continues to shift to Australia. In July 2025, a total of 17,582 mt of Australian almonds, both shelled and unshelled, were shipped overseas, just under 2% behind exports in July 2024 (17,909 mt). Domestic shipments, however, fell by 4.1% year-on-year to 2,217 mt. China remains the main buyer with 9,620 mt (+10.9% year-on-year). Shipments to countries such as Turkey, Spain and Germany also declined compared to the same month last year, while countries such as India and Vietnam were able to significantly increase their imports.

In total, 70,453 mt (+2.5%) of Australian almonds with and without shells were shipped domestically and to overseas markets in the first five months of the new season, of which 9,703 mt (-4.8%) went to the domestic market, while overseas shipments amounted to 60,750 mt (+3.7%). While China's shipments were also down slightly for the season as a whole (-3.2% to 31,499 mt), exports to India rose significantly by 46.3% to 11,451 mt. This also applies to Turkey (+27.8% to 5,119 mt) and Vietnam (+61.6% to 3,708 mt). However, shipments to EU countries such as Spain (-64.5% to 865 mt) and Germany (-15.6% to 1,504 mt) continued to decline.

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