MODESTO – California’s total almond acreage dropped again in 2024, marking three consecutive years that acreage has decreased, something that hasn’t occurred since1995, according to a new report from Land IQ to the Almond Board of California.

But fear not, consumer, it’s not going to affect your ability to buy your favorite healthy snack.

Total acreage dropped by about 40,000 acres in the last  crop year, from  nearly 1.6 million acres to just over 1.5 million in 2024. Bearing acres — defined as orchards producing almonds and planted in 2021 or earlier — increased by just 9,000 acres, the smallest amount in more than two decades. The total bearing acres during the 2024 growing season was 1.383 million acres, compared with 1.374 million acres at this time the previous year. 

But the amount of non-bearing acreage — new orchards planted after 2021 — sank about 47,000 acres, from 189,000 acres in 2023 to 142,000 in 2024, according to the Land IQ 2024 Standing Acreage Final Estimate.

The decreased acreage, when considering other factors, isn’t necessarily a bad thing, according to one local grower.

“It’s not going to be that you can’t find almonds. There are plenty,” said Christine Gemperle, a local almond farmer and a member of the ABC. “For quite some time there have been too many.”

Gemperle believes that almonds were overprinted, beginning a decade ago when prices were sky-high and everybody wanted to get in on the almond “gold rush.” But not long after that, in September of 2019, a trade-war erupted with China, which increased its tariff on U.S. almond kernels and in-shell to 60 percent, up from 10 percent in April 2018. That had a dramatic impact on U.S. exports to China, which eventually opened a free-trade agreement with Australia, further cutting into demand.

Following that political upheaval, the COVID-19 pandemic created supply-chain issues.

“So little got out of the ports that we ended up with this incredible backlog,” said Gemperle. “Then in 2020, we had this perfect almond bloom that led to massive, massive crops. And we couldn’t get it out. And that backlog carried over to the next year.”

Supply and demand vectors are creeping back to where they should be, partly because of the reduced acreage.

“Three straight years of decreased acreage and sizable orchard removals reflect a trend toward lower overall California almond acreage,” said Clarice Turner, ABC president and CEO. “At the same time, we continue to see strong shipments. In the past crop year, for the first time ever, we shipped more than 200 million pounds in 11 consecutive months. Plus for the year, we shipped 300 million pounds more than we produced. We know global demand for California almonds continues to grow and that almonds will continue to have a very significant role in California and global agriculture and food industries for the foreseeable future.”

There were significant orchard removals again in 2024 totaling almost 67,000 acres. Those add to the 83,000 acres removed in 2023 and 60,400 acres removed in 2022, according to the accompanying Land IQ 2023 Removal Update. Those removals and the decreasing amount of non-bearing acres (new plantings), contribute to the probability of fewer acres over the next few years, Turner said.

In addition, slightly more than 30,000 acres are classified as either stressed or abandoned. They were included in the standing acreage total because the orchards “may have the ability to recover,” Land IQ said.

The estimates come from multiple lines of evidence, including agronomic and remote sensing knowledge, robust on-the-ground verification, customized image analysis, artificial intelligence and more.

Land IQ claims the 2024 standing acreage estimate is 98.8 percent accurate.

The report also said the slight change in the amount of bearing acreage from the April initial estimate, which was labeled as exactly that the initial accounting, was the result of Land IQ crews in the orchards identifying additional bearing acres, and because removals were overestimated in April by about 4,000 acres. 

Land IQ’s acreage estimates are commissioned by ABC to provide statistical transparency and a robust picture of California almonds to industry stakeholders around the world. In 2018, ABC first commissioned Land IQ, a Sacramento-based agricultural and environmental scientific research and consulting firm, to develop a comprehensive, living map of California almonds. The map is the result of more than a decade of research.