The February Position Report was released on Thursday, March 9th. The report was strong and continued to maintain the positive momentum the industry has seen over the last couple of months.
Year to date 2022 crop receipts now total 2,522,920,079 pounds, which is 12.76% below the 2,892,025,206 pounds received last February. As we continue to analyze the delivery data it now looks like the total crop size will land somewhere around 2.55 billion pounds. The 2022 trend line remains very similar to 2019.
Total shipments for the month were 245.74 million pounds. This is an increase of 23.4% when compared to last year's 199.16 million pounds. This is also a new record for the month of February, the previous record was set back in 2021. Export shipments were 188.28 million pounds, which is up 29.2% from last year. Domestic shipments were 57.46 million pounds. This is up 7.6% versus last season's 53.38 million pounds. We now have two record shipping months in a row and are 5.51% ahead of this time last year on total shipments.
New sales for the month were 190.3 million pounds compared to 215.0 million pounds sold at this time last year. Based on a 2.55 billion pound crop, the year to date sold position is 69.0%. This time last year the industry was 68.5% sold.
The cold wet winter brought the Central Valley plenty of snowpack, rain, and chilling hours. Everything was lining up for a great production year, but sadly the weather never turned off. Over the last few weeks, we have seen rain, wind, hail, snow, flooding, and cold temperatures in almond orchards up and down the state. All these factors have left us with very low bee flight hours. The impact on the 2023 crop is unknown at this point and has brought a lot of uncertainty to the industry. The crazy weather events and the strong January position report increased market prices $0.15 to $0.25 over the last month, but it has also caused most buyers and handlers to take a step back while everyone assesses the situation. It's looking like sales will just trickle along for the next few weeks until we can see what the nut set looks like.
