California acquire a idea - boggling amount of the nation ’s produce : 99 pct of artichokes , 97 percent of kiwis , 97 percentage of plum , 95 pct of celery , andon and on . That ’s why the disk - breaking drought ( yes , it ’s finally raining — no , itwon’t helpmuch ! ) can affect your grocery bill , even if you live nowhere near California . But with almonds — the state ’s most remunerative agrarian exportation — the effect could spring for years .
Sure , almond milk latte and almond butter could get more painful on your wellness - conscious wallet , but California ’s athirst almond trees also reveal a big conflict over water in an progressively thirsty state . California now grow 80 percent of the world ’s almonds . The almond trade has become so lucrative that we ’re grow them in the desert — and that , unsurprisingly , has come back to haunt us .
The fact is that Amygdalus communis are specially ill - outfit to make it through drought . granger are already making the difficult decisiveness to let fields lie fallow this year to maintain water . With crop like tomato and cotton , they could commence planting again next time of year , but Prunus amygdalus trees take years to mature before they bear nuts . bulldoze an almond Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree would be devastating for a sodbuster for eld . And it’salready happeningas the drought chokes up the area ’s water system provision .
Greener days for Amygdalus communis trees in 2007 . AP Photo / Ben Margo
The forces that led to California ’s almond deal are much big than poor preparation from any individual farmer , and Joaquin Palomino’srecent piece in theEast Bay Expressdoes an splendid job of chronicle them . In one particular box of the Central Valley , called the Westlands , irrigation has transformed desert into bounteous farmland . Improved irrigation techniqueshave also been touted for increasing almond yields — all to go along with the existence ’s rising almond demand . On the brass of it , this seems like a miraculous triumph of engineering . But it has n’t changed the fact it ’s in the midriff of desert .
“ It ’s really an area that should have never been farmed , ” Richard Walker , a retired UC Berkeley geography professor , distinguish the Express . And especially not farmed with sweet almond . Even with the more efficient irrigation technique , almond tree diagram still use about doubly as much water as cotton and tomato .
An almond storehouse in California . AP Photo / Roger J. Wyan
As withering as the current drought is in the short - term , it leads us to a crossroad . Fannie Farmer tending to mature almond trees have little incentive to switch to another craw — unless they are squeeze to by tree - killing drouth . The time to come of farming in Westlands also depends on the controversialBay Delta Conservation Plan , which would upgrade the system bringing water from the Sacramento - San Joaquin Delta for irrigation . The 34,000 - page plan is currently up for public comment .
One approximation is that to stop irrigating the landed estate and retire the Westlands from agriculture . ( The dominance of almond farming in California require other meaning , including , oddly enough , honey bee from South Dakotato pollinate the trees . ) technical inventions have allow us farm land that ca n’t of course digest those crop . We can continue to prop up them up , or we can let it go . That ’s going to be a hard pill to swallow for Farmer — but it ’s a decision that might be made for them , if the drought continues . [ East Bay Express ]
Top double : Dead Amygdalus communis craw in the Westlands from 2009 . AP Photo / Russel A. Daniels
California
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