Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Wednesday 25 april 2018
U.S. pecan growers seek to break out of the pie shell

By EMILY SCHMALL giving.
Associated Press While Chinese demand
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — pushed up prices it also
The humble pecan is being drove away American con-
rebranded as more than sumers. By January 2013,
just pie. prices had dropped 50
Pecan growers and suppli- percent from their peak in
ers are hoping to sell U.S. 2011, according to Zedan.
consumers on the virtues U.S. growers and processers
of North America’s only na- were finally able in 2016 to
tive nut as a hedge against pass a marketing order to
a potential trade war with better control pecan pro-
China, the pecan’s largest duction and prices.
export market. Authorized by the Agricul-
The pecan industry is also tural Marketing Agreement
trying to crack the fast- Act of 1937, federal mar-
growing snack-food indus- keting orders help produc-
try. ers and handlers standard-
The retail value for pack- ize packaging, impose
aged nuts, seeds and trail quality control and fund
mix in the U.S. alone was research, according to the
$5.7 billion in 2012, and is U.S. Department of Agri-
forecast to rise to $7.5 bil- culture, which oversees 28
lion by 2022, according to other fruit, vegetable and
market researcher Euro- A worker mows between rows of pecan trees at a 14,000-acre farm Tuesday, April 24, 2018, near specialty marketing orders,
monitor. Granbury, Texas. in addition to the pecan
The Fort Worth, Texas-based Associated Press order.
American Pecan Council, are also riding the wave of “American Pecans: The tariffs in retaliation for pro- Critics charge that the or-
formed in the wake of a the Trump Administration’s Original Supernut.” posed U.S. tariffs on $50 ders interfere with the price
new federal marketing or- policies to promote Ameri- Rodney Myers, who man- billion worth of Chinese signals of a free, unfettered
der that allows the industry can-made goods. ages operations at Antho- goods. Fresh and dried nuts private market.
to band together and as- Most American kids grow ny’s pecan farm, credits the — including the pecan — “What you’ve created
sess fees for research and up with peanut butter but pecan’s growing cachet could be slapped with a instead is a government-
promotion, is a half-century peanuts probably origi- in China and elsewhere in 15-percent tariff, accord- sanctioned cartel,” said
in the making, said Jim An- nated in South America. Asia with its association to ing to the list. To counter Daren Bakst, an agricul-
thony, 80, the owner of a Almonds are native to Asia rustic Americana — “the that risk, the pecan council tural policy researcher at
14,000-acre pecan farm and pistachios to the Mid- oilfield, cowboys, the Wild is using some of the $8 mil- the conservative Heritage
near Granbury, Texas. dle East. The pecan coun- West — they associate all lion in production-based Foundation.
Anthony said that regional cil is funding academic these things with the North assessments it’s collected Before the almond industry
rivalries and turf wars across research to show that their American nut,” he said. since the marketing order passed its own federal mar-
the 15-state pecan belt — nuts are just as nutritious. China earlier this month re- was passed to promote the keting order in 1950, fewer
stretching from the Caroli- The council on Wednes- leased a list of American versatility of the tree nut be- almonds than pecans were
nas to California — made day will debut a new logo: products that could face yond pecan pie at Thanks- sold, according to pecan
such a union impossible un- council chair Mike Adams,
til recently, when demand who cultivates 600 acres of
for pecans exploded in pecan trees near Caldwell,
Asian markets. Texas. Now, while almonds
Until 2007, most U.S. pe- appear in everything from
cans were consumed do- cereal to milk substitutes,
mestically, according to Adams calls the pecan
Daniel Zedan, president “the forgotten nut.”
of Nature’s Finest Foods, a “We’re so excited to have
marketing group. By 2009, an identity, to break out of
China was buying about a the pie shell,” said Molly Wil-
third of the U.S. crop. lis, a member of the council
The pecan is the only tree who owns an 80-acre pe-
nut indigenous to North can farm in Albany, Geor-
America, growers say. gia, a supplement to her
Sixteenth-century Spanish husband’s family’s peanut-
explore Cabeza de Vaca processing business.q
wrote about tasting the nut
during his encounters with
Native American tribes in
South Texas. The name is
French explorers’ phonetic
spelling of the native word
“pakan,” meaning hard-
shelled nut.
Facing growing competi-
tion from pecan producers Bud break on a pecan tree on a 14,000-acre pecan farm Tuesday, April 24, 2018, near Granbury,
in South Africa, Mexico and Texas.
Australia, U.S. producers Associated Press