Almond Prices Hit Decade Highs as Yields Slide and Acres Shrink

California almond prices have reached their highest levels in about a decade, with field returns running $2.90 to $3.90 per pound depending on variety and size, up from about $2.60 last year. Mike Hemmen, CEO of Deerpoint Group, an agricultural technology and chemical manufacturing firm, confirmed the range. Nonpareils, the industry's benchmark variety, have hit $3.90 per pound, and overall averages hover near $3.55.

The economics have flipped sharply. Terrain Ag, a market intelligence firm, puts the current grower breakeven at $1.73 to $2.25 per pound. In 2022, an excessive carryover supply pushed prices well below production costs, with some varieties falling to a little more than $1 per pound after a peak near $4 in 2014, according to USDA statistics.

"These prices are better to see than what we were seeing a couple of years ago, with the caution that input costs have risen dramatically," said Fresno County Farm Bureau CEO Ryan Jacobsen, who grows almonds and raisin grapes. "This $3 almond is not what we saw with a $3 almond prior to COVID. But they're generally a bright spot for almond growers who've been hammered for the last five years."

Why are prices climbing?

The rally rests on a smaller-than-expected 2026 crop. An Agnomy analysis found some regional yields down as much as 20%, with smaller kernel sizes overall. USDA's original May forecast called for a 2.7 billion-pound crop, slightly below 2025, but harvest reports now raise questions about whether California will reach that figure. Terrain Ag cites adverse weather, water restrictions, economic strain on growers and shrinking acreage.

Carry-in inventory amplifies the tightness. The industry entered the 2026-27 crop year with 471 million pounds on hand — a dramatic improvement from the heavy oversupply of five years ago. Global shipments, particularly to India and Western Europe, have stayed strong and cleared inventories.

"While almond prices have not returned to levels that characterized the profitability of the 2010s, the industry is in a far stronger position today than it was just a few years ago," Terrain specialty crop analyst Matt Woolf wrote in an October quarterly outlook.

What happens to bearing acreage?

The long-term supply picture is shifting. Bearing acreage is declining for the first time since 1995, and how far it recedes depends on the industry's adaptation to pumping limits under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.

"What is clear, however, is that California almond production is approaching a more defined ceiling than it's ever faced because acres are not likely going back up," Woolf wrote.

Higher prices, plus anticipation of a rough El Niño-driven winter, are pushing some growers back into postharvest orchard maintenance skimped on during the downturn, Deerpoint Grower Relations Director Jeff Carr told Agri-Pulse. "I think some are saying, 'Let's get back to it,'" Carr said.

Will abandoned orchards come back?

It remains unclear whether better prices will draw growers who walked away from orchards back into active farming, or push them to sell. Land IQ, which conducts satellite imaging of California crop acreage, estimated 30,000 acres of abandoned almond orchards from Arvin to Chico last year. That distressed acreage, alongside abandoned vineyards, led the Legislature to pass a 2025 bill giving county agricultural commissioners more authority to levy civil penalties on grossly unmanaged farms.

The abandoned orchards also played a role in the Almond Board of California's decision last December to stop funding USDA NASS midsummer crop estimates, ending an arrangement dating to the 1960s. Growers complained NASS's July 2025 prediction of a 3-billion-pound crop used acreage assumptions that ignored potential yield loss from troubled orchards. The objective measurement report sent shock waves through an industry whose prices had just started rebounding after the pandemic.

Jacobsen said water availability will decide whether individual orchards get revived. "When prices were down … the realities were that a lot of folks had to cut where they could cut — less pruning, less crop protection measures taken, really trying to save every penny possible," he said. "With better prices, there could be more investment into the upcoming year's crop. The abandoned side was definitely exacerbating the lower prices. This potentially offers an alternative or an incentive to clean up the ground."

Whether the rebound pulls idle acres back into production — or simply funds better care on the acres still farmed — will shape the size of the 2027 crop and the durability of these decade-high prices.