Two countries are responsible for the global production of nuts, the United States, which accounts for 49 percent of the world's production, and Mexico, which accounts of the rest. In Mexico, Chihuahua is the biggest producer of nuts, as it has nearly 70,000 hectares devoted to this product which requires ten years to be produced and a thousand litres of water to grow a tree.
Having recently celebrated the walnut producer's day, the chairman of the State Committee of the nut product system of Chihuahua, Raymundo Soto, said Chihuahua was the biggest producer state of walnut in the country, which undoubtedly requires a great effort because "producers must have acquired their plantations through inheritance or they must have had the capacity and patience to plant these crops and wait nine or ten years to get production."
He also stated that there were 130,000 hectares of walnuts in the country as a whole, that the state had 70,000 hectares devoted to this production, and that 48,000 hectares were already producing nuts while the trees in the remaining hectares were still growing.
He also said walnuts were only harvested once a year between September and December, and that they began to open in early August. This is a crop that requires a lot of water, he said, "a walnut tree can survive with three or five litres of water per day when it is planted, but it requires a thousand litres of water a day when in production. Thus, it's really important that producers don't indiscriminately exploit the basins of the state, as this would affect other crops."
The climate in Chihuahua, he added, is semi-arid, so it is not easy to plant walnut trees because we must take into consideration that we need water for the next 80 years. We'll have problems if we plant walnut trees and have no water because walnuts are a long term crop."
In addition, we also risk having pests. "If we ignore the law of coordination we could carry pests from one place to another and have quality problems. Right now we are producing nuts of export quality."
"This is a production that generates eleven million dollars for the country and creates many jobs and supports the communities," he added.
Source: laparadadigital.com