Pistachio production and exports were halved in the last Iranian year (March 2022-23) due to a wide range of reasons, including drought and extreme weather, according to Arsalan Qasemi, the head of the Agriculture Commission of Iran Chamber of Cooperatives.
“We lost more than 90% of the output in Kerman Province [the main pistachio producing region in Iran],” he was quoted as saying by IRIB News.
Besides problems in the production sector, the export front also faces obstacles, the most important of which is the mandate for traders to sell their export earnings to the Central Bank of Iran at prices lower than the market rate, he added.
Blasting CBI for its wrong move, he said the mandate is the most important obstacle faced by exporters.
Qasemi noted that “weak economic diplomacy” is another problem when it comes to exports.
“We need strong diplomacy and presence in different markets, which is non-existent at the moment. Iran’s rivals in pistachio production, namely the United States and Turkey, pursue this policy properly, but Iran lags in this regard,” he added.
According to the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration, 56,298 tons of pistachio worth $405.04 million were exported from Iran in the fiscal 2022-23 (ended March 20), registering a 58.4% and 55.7% fall in terms of weight and value respectively compared with the year before.
Russia with 7,329 tons of imports was the top export destination for Iranian pistachio during the period. India with 7,139 tons came next, followed by Iraq, the UAE, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Germany, Turkey and Tajikistan, respectively.
Iran’s overall pistachio exports have been on the decline since the fiscal 2007-08 when exports reached 265,000 tons.
According to an Agriculture Ministry official, Daryoush Salempour, exports stood at $915 million in the fiscal 2021-22.
The tonnage of exports reportedly stood at 135,000 tons that year.
“Pistachio orchards account for 20% of all of Iran’s orchards and are mainly located in the provinces of Kerman, Khorasan Razavi, South Khorasan, Yazd, Fars, Semnan, Markazi, Qom, Qazvin, Sistan-Baluchestan, Tehran and Isfahan,” he said.
Salempour noted that drought, frost, depletion of groundwater and water salinity are posing serious threat to Iran’s pistachio orchards.
In Kerman, many local farmers say their orchards have dried up due to the acute water crisis and many others have left the province to rebuild orchards in other places across the country like Saveh and Qazvin.
Farhad Agah, a member of board at Iran Pistachio Association, said apart from drought, high temperatures as well as early frosts in the spring damage pistachio orchards and harvest in Kerman.
“Drought is causing damage to local pistachio orchards. Once the best pistachio in the world was known to come from Iran and our exports brought in revenues as much as $1.5 billion [annually],” he added.
Mohammad Reza Bakhtiari, the former head of Kerman Regional Water Authority, affiliated with the Ministry of Energy, noted that groundwater withdrawal in Kerman is almost three times the global redline and nearly six times as much as the ideal average.
“At present, even providing the residents of Kerman with potable water is posing a challenge,” he said.
He noted that illegal and unrestrained digging and withdrawals from wells in the province have increased over the past few decades.
These have led to the depletion of groundwater resources, degradation of water quality and an increase in water salinity.
According to Bakhtiari, every year, pistachio trees on 12,000 to 15,000 hectares of orchards die in Kerman due to water shortage.
Pistachio was once touted as Iran’s most important non-oil export commodity.
Iran exports the lion’s share of its pistachio yields.
The global pistachio market size was estimated at $4,165.86 million in 2022, $4,298.15 million in 2023, and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 3.37% to reach $5,431.84 million by 2030, according to Research And Markets.
As Iranian production – the US industry’s chief competitor – continues to wane because of water availability and other issues, this can bode well for a US industry with obvious growth trends.
The world production of pistachios in 2022 exceeded 1.5 billion pounds, with over half of that coming from the United States. Iran, Turkey, Syria and the EU made up the balance of that production, Farm Progress reported.
In 2012, the US had 57% of the global export share of pistachios. Iran had 42% of the world market share.
Last year. the US market share grew to 67% while Iran lost its market share, now down to 24%. Turkey’s market share has grown to 7%.
