<p></p><p>Riverland farmer Simon Vause had only been dabbling in almonds when the drought hit South Australia a decade ago, but he took a leap of faith, pushed his naval orange trees over and replaced them with the popular nut. <br></p> <p>His upheaval is paying off as almond growers in southeastern Australia experience near-perfect growing and trade conditions — they have full water allocations, the dollar is low, the dominant Californian industry is battling drought and prices are higher than ever.“Having naval oranges at the start of the drought, we had low commodity prices, low water allocations and the high dollar, it was a nightmare,” Mr Vause said.“But we’re right in the middle of a perfect storm now with lack of almond supply in the US, the low Australian dollar — it doesn’t get any better than that.”Almond prices have more than doubled to $10 a kilogram since 2011, and Mr Vause is expecting the grower price to rise above $11 in the coming months.The former Telstra executive, who bought a Riverland “fruit salad” block of citrus and stone fruit trees 20 years ago with his wife, said almonds were a reliable crop because there was no waste when his crop went to grower cooperative Almondco. He grows about 11ha of almond trees. <br></p> <p>“All of our product is sold and it’s in high demand,” he said.“A lot of grape growers find their product gets dumped on the ground and the same with citrus, and we don’t have fruit fly with almonds, we pick every last one up. What you see is the best ones in the supermarket and the rest get processed for meal or almond milk.”Mr Vause has also been supplying to breakfast cereal company Kellogg’s through Almondco.More than 85 per cent of the nation’s almond growers supply to the Riverland-based co-operative. Growth in the industry in recent years has seen Australia become the world’s second largest producer, with a record crop earlier this year of 80,000 tonnes. The US industry produces more than 80 per cent of the world’s market.Almondco chief executive Tim Jackson said next year’s crop was likely to be valued above $1 billion for the first time, forecasting a bumper crop. “Prices are ridiculously good, they’re at an all-time high,” Mr Jackson said. “The drought in California combined with other factors such as the dollar has seen international demand outstrip supply.”<br></p><p></p>