In Hanford, Jeff Nichols of Nichols Farms is looking at a pistachio year shaped by an old quirk of the trees: they alternate between heavier and lighter crops. A March heat wave compounded that pattern, leaving the 2026 harvest forecast at less than half the record 2025 crop, according to Ag Alert’s harvest report.
A short crop can make every dollar of orchard and harvest expense weigh more heavily against each pound sold. Nichols said higher grower prices may not make up for the reduced volume.
Trade risk reaches the orchard gate
The Gulf conflict and frequent changes in U.S. tariff policy are adding another layer to food-production costs and the availability of resources, The Grocer reported after visiting California. That account is broader than pistachios: Craig McNamara, owner of Sierra Orchards, described the resulting instability for California agriculture.
“It’s affecting us every single day.”
Craig McNamara, owner of Sierra Orchards
McNamara’s remarks are not a pistachio-specific estimate of tariff exposure. They do put a name to the planning problem: when trade rules keep shifting, a grower or handler has less confidence that today’s assumptions about costs and market access will hold through the season. The Grocer’s California dispatch describes the uncertainty; it does not quantify its effect on pistachio sales.
A fuel bill with fewer pounds behind it
Diesel makes the cost side unusually concrete. California’s average price topped $8 a gallon on October 1, compared with $5.16 a year earlier, according to Ag Alert’s price report. For pistachio businesses, fuel touches field operations and the truck fleets that move crop; it is a cost pressure distinct from the trade-policy question of where product can be sold.
The difficult arithmetic is that these pressures do not arrive one at a time. A smaller harvest changes the amount of crop available to absorb expenses, while fuel and trade conditions can move on schedules that have little to do with the trees.
For California pistachio operations, the practical distinction is between costs already committed and sales assumptions still exposed to policy changes. The upcoming USDA Foreign Agricultural Service tree-nut trade report, listed for October 29, is a specific checkpoint for updated production and market information.