What to do with all those almonds!

Thanks Kimmy,

This is very helpful. I'll do as you suggest. The same farmer charged me €400 to plough my land (about 5 acres) - it took him 2 days. I did not think this was too bad but wasn't sure.

Thanks

Update - had the almonds harvested by machine and taken to the bodega ( I went as well so everything open and transparent). Got a fair price I believe and the arrangement satisfactory. Will probably look after the trees better next year and hope to get a bigger crop.

Useful thread, thank you.  Can anyone tell me what a fair price for selling almonds to the bodega is at the moment please?  And maybe how many kilos (Max/ min) you might expect from a mature, healthy tree?

Hi Gabriel,

All I can tell you is from my experience.

If you have to pay anyone to plough your land and harvest your almonds then you are very unlikely to make a profit or even break even !!

As I found out the bodega will only pay you for the unshelled weight of the almonds. I received €4.20 /kg for mine (they are graded by the bodega).

I calculate that I got around 2kg / tree (unshelled weight) but the trees were neglected for a year or so, if yours are healthy I guess the yield will go up.

Hope this is of use.

Bill

Thanks Bill.  My land has just been lying unattended for the past three of four years as I'm still in the UK.  I was told by the guy I bought the land from that local farmer will plough the land in return for taking the almonds.  But when I last went over about two years ago, it hadn't been ploughed.  This doesn't particularly bother me at the moment as I'm aware that the type of farming used in these orchards actually destroys the soil by ploughing it up, exposing it to sun and rain and thereby eroding it and killing off the life in the soil that makes it fertile.  On parts of my land there's nothing but rocks as a result of this yearly soil exposure.

At the same time, I've had so many bad experiences of Spain now that I've honestly started to go off the idea of moving there.  Lawyers, estate agents, water companies, banks all with pretty horrendous 'fees' - the place is full of thieves!  I've never seen such a grab for money in all of the countries I've visited or lived in.  I'm hoping that my initial excitement about living there returns when I go back over for a visit and that maybe one day I'll be happily carting my almonds to the bodega too!

Hello all,

We have 130 almond trees that had a crop collected by our local farmer. I understand the crop was not a good as it should have been due to the weather this year. He has however just given me a bill for 500 euro for pruning, fertilisers collection, ploughing.... he says he got 0.8 euro per kilo..... I don't know if this correct. Can anyone tell me how much a kilo bodegas paying ....?? Does anyone know roughly what 130 trees would produce....

Hi Mark,

I kept hold of the almonds this year for several reasons;

This year’s harvest was poor

The bodega penalized you for taking in less than 400kg

The price per kg was, at best 1€ / kg

With regard to how many kg of almonds you can expect from 130 trees this will vary considerably but should be between 1 kg and 4 kg / tree in my experience 

Hope this helps

😂

why did you buy land with almond trees?

Good 😌 question. Often asked myself that!!!

Seriously, many people buying in Spain buy the ‘house’ and that often comes with land and trees