Pistachios, Iranian market update

 Iran’s pistachio exports have declined sharply between January and April. While drought and excessive heat impacted last year’s production, prospects are also far from encouraging this year. Curiously, there is also a noted run on pistachio kernels.

Buyers play it safe

The trouble is that the severe summer drought damaged pistachio trees, impacted quality, and caused many pistachios to grow empty. This, in turn, prompted an uptick in demand for kernels, which exporters were eager to comply with. Although the prices for pistachio kernels ranged 1.6% higher than last year, they accounted for 22% of Iran’s total pistachio exports between January and April this year, as opposed to 15.5% in the same period last year.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that Iran’s pistachio kernel exports declined by 40% in terms of volume. While the country shipped 9,970 mt of pistachio kernels worth USD 101 million overseas in January-April 2021, this figure only ranged at 6,000 mt worth USD 67 million in January-April 2022. The decline is much more drastic regarding Iran’s total pistachio exports, which only reached 27,126 mt worth USD 197 million in the first four months this year compared with 64,238 mt worth USD 438 million in the same period last year. (Mundus-Agri) 

Depreciation fails to produce the desired effect

Although optimistic voices state that Iran’s production will prove resilient to climate change and range at around 200,000 mt per year, others are far less optimistic. Traders, for instance, report that the sudden frost in early spring has caused severe damage and that production is set to decline again this year. As prices have already surged in recent weeks due to low inventories, there is little hope that the supply situation will improve in the near future. These low inventories have even compensated for the depreciation of the Iranian rial in recent weeks. (Mundus-Agri)