Overview
The almond is actually an edible seed, not a nut, harvested from a flowering almond tree. These trees were originally cultivated in Southwestern Asia and the Mediterranean around 4000 BCE. They arrived in North America through Spanish settlers who brought them to California in the early 18th century. Today, the almond has become California’s top tree nut and production of the crop has grown rapidly due to the ideal temperate growing conditions. In 2002, 6,000 growers in California’s Central Valley produced one billion pounds of almonds, while in 2017, California grew a record crop estimate of 2.25 billion pounds.[1] As the California almond industry has expanded during in the 20th century, the state has risen to dominate international almond production.
Health Benefits and the Almond Boom
The boom in almond production over the past decade in California can be attributed to the rising popularity of “health trends” in which consumers have demanded increased production of healthy alternative proteins and snack options. Chung Yen Chen highlights in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture that almonds have numerous health benefits derived from the nut’s high content of healthy fats, fiber, protein, magnesium, and vitamin E.[2] These vitamins and nutrients are helpful in preventing heart disease, lowering both blood pressure and cholesterol, improving skin health, and helping with weight loss. Given both the nut’s health benefits and its rich flavour, almonds have emerged to fit many different culinary purposes as a key ingredient in consumer products. Some consumer products that have become very popular on U.S. shelves include almond butter, almond flour, almond milk, almond protein, and almond bread.
California Almond Production
According to the Almond Board of California, the state is responsible for 82% of international almond production.[3] The San Joaquin valley is the center of California’s almond crop – Kern county alone has 157,000 standing almond acres. This lucrative crop has quickly become the state’s top agricultural export on a value basis, averaging $5.14 billion in annual foreign sales. As demand increases both in the U.S. and abroad, prices continue to rise every year. The U.S. consumes 31% of the world’s almonds, the EU consumes 28%, and China consumes 12%. China is the newest and most-rapidly growing consumer on the market, with national imports of the crop growing from 50 million pounds in 2007 to nearly 250 million pounds in 2011.
Problems Associated with the Almond Boom
Honey Bees
Almond production is closely tied to healthy honey bee populations. However, pesticide poisoning, management practices such as the transportation of bee colonies to multiple farm locations, and exposure to new pests and pathogens have led to the significant fall in worker bee populations known as colony collapse disorder. As a result, the dependence of the almond industry on the 1.4 million bee colonies required for the pollination process, which will only expand as almond production further increases, means that the industry may face a significant future problem due to bee shortages.[4]
Land Use and Water Intensive Production Process
The recent growth in the demand for almonds has led to a 44 percent increase in land used to farm the nut over the past ten years. Furthermore, almonds are an extremely water intensive crop; it takes twelves years to grow an almond tree to its full nut producing capacity. As a result, an incredible 1.1 gallons of water is required to produce a single almond.[5] Given that almonds are farmed in the same section of southern California that has been hit the hardest by California’s worst drought on record, almonds have been accused as an unnecessary driver of California’s water emergency. As demand for the higher-valued almond crops has grown, farmers have replaced more water-efficient crops like lettuce and strawberries with the almond. [6] Almond trees also have no fallow period and, thus, have to remain watered even during the most intense years of drought. Overall, almonds take up approximately ten percent of California’s water annually.
Elite Control of Almond Industry
Due to this high water use, the industry has been critiqued as a “lucrative multibillion dollar industry in the middle of the state’s worst drought in recent history.”[7] The few elites in control of the almond industry benefit from California’s water usage at the expense of the majority. For example, billionaires Lynda and Stewart Resnick control the San Joaquin valley’s largest groundwater bank that irrigates their 125,000 acres of almonds and pistachio farms in the region.[8] Some critics of the almond industry have thus argued that California’s almond elites are essentially profiting by shipping out “virtual water” to places like China during a severe water crisis, as 68 percent of almonds produced in California end up overseas.[9]
Harm to Other State Industries
Finally, the almond industry’s use of water has directly harmed other state industries, especially California’s fisheries. Currently, thousands of endangered king salmon in northern California’s Klamath River are threatened by low water levels caused by the diversion of water from northern California to almond farms in the southern portion of the state.[10] Facing a multi-year drought, California’s rivers have become too shallow and warm for salmon at the same time that record production of almonds has been diverting more and more water from the Sacramento delta.
Are Almonds Really to Blame?
Others have argued that California’s almond farmers face too much of the blame for the state’s water crisis. The meat and dairy industry substantially surpasses the almond industry in water use, as the crop that requires the most water in California is alfalfa grown for dairy cow feed. Additionally, a kilogram of beef requires 15,000 liters of water to produce in comparison to the 8,000 liters of water used to produce a kilogram of almonds. This suggests that almonds may be a less water-intensive alternative source of protein.[11] Almond farmers have also made substantial investments in better technology to manage water use. Additionally, the high profits farmers earn from almond production enables them to continue growing less profitable crops, such as tomatoes, which are an important part of the food system.[12] Finally, a study published by Yale revealed that almonds have a remarkably small carbon footprint, as its co-products are used as sources of renewable energy.[13] This suggests that there are tradeoffs in almond production between its water intensive production and its relatively low CO2 footprint.
California Waterfix Lawsuit
In 2017, a coalition of environmental groups, local governments, and others in the Sacramento Delta area attempted to halt the construction of Gov. Jerry Brown’s Delta Tunnels Project that would divert water away from the Sacramento Delta in northern California. The controversial state project, which is known as the “California Waterfix,” is part of an effort to maintain high levels of fresh water delivery to almond farmers in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California cities.[14] A lawsuit was filed against the state by a diverse group of plaintiffs. This group = included an alliance of fisherman whose livelihoods depended on ensuring healthy water levels in the Delta, the Winnemem Wintu Native American tribe dependent on salmon for sustenance and continuance of the tribe’s cultural traditions, local cities afraid of losing their water, and environmental groups including Restore the Delta and the Sierra Club California who feared that the tunnels would bring environmental harm to the Delta’s fragile ecosystem by inevitably robbing the delta of more fresh water.[15] Gov. Brown’s tunnels have become an extremely divisive environmental issue in California, as it pits almond farmers against fishermen, Northern California against Southern California, and agribusiness against environmentalists. Brown has supported the tunnels due to the belief that California’s prosperous almond industry cannot afford to gamble on an unreliable water supply that does not meet its needs during times of drought. He thus believes that the tunnels would help to stabilize the state’s enormous agricultural economy. Although the California Waterfix Lawsuit is still being contested in court, construction of the Delta Tunnels Project could begin as soon as 2019.
Foot Notes
[1]Almond Board of California, “Industry Statistics and Maps,” 2018, accessed April 19, 2018, http://www.almonds.com/processors/resources/crop-forecast.
[2] Chung Yen Chen, Karen Lapsley, and Jeffery Blumberg, “A nutrition and health perspective on almonds,” Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture 86, no. 14 (2006): 2245-2250. https:doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.6b00857.
[3]Almond Board of California, “Almond Almanac 2015,” 2015, accessed April 19, 2015, http://www.almonds.com/sites/default/files/content/attachments/2015_almanac.pdf.
[4]Francis Ratnieks and Norman Carreck, “Clarity on Honey Bee Collapse?,” Science 327, no. 5962 (2010): 152-153. https:doi.org/10.1126/science.1185563.
[5]James Hamblin, “The Dark Side of Almond Use,” The Atlantic, August 28, 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/08/almonds-demon-nuts/379244/.
[6]Amy Westervelt, “Is it fair to blame almond farmers for California’s’ drought?,” The Guardian, April 13, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/apr/13/is-it-fair-to-blame-almond-farmers-for-californias-drought.
[7]Hamblin, “The Dark Side of Almond Use.”
[8]Westervelt, “Is it fair to blame almond farmers.”
[9]Dan Charles, “Beyond Almonds: A Rogue’s Gallery of Guzzlers in California’s Drought,” NPR, April 12, 2015, https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/04/12/398757250/beyond-almonds-a-rogues-gallery-of-guzzlers-in-californias-drought.
[10]Alastair Bland, “California Drought Has Wild Salmon Competing With Almonds For Water,” NPR, August 21, 2014, https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/08/21/342167846/california-drought-has-wild-salmon-competing-with-almonds-for-water.
[11]Avery Kamila, “Meat and dairy products stampede past almonds in water-use arena: to save on water, eat a veggie burger,” Portland Press Herald, September 23, 2015, https://www.pressherald.com/2015/09/23/vegetarian-kitchen-meat-and-dairy-products-stampede-past-almonds-in-water-use-arena/.
[12]Tremayne Wilkons, “The drought through the eyes of an almond farmer,” The Pioneer, July 8, 2015, https://thepioneeronline.com/27145/artsentertainment/the-drought-through-the-eyes-of-an-almond-farmer/.
[13]Alissa Kendall, “Life Cycle-based Assessment of Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Almond Production,” Journal of Industrial Ecology 19, no. 6 (2015): 931. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12332.
[14]Andrew Gumbel, “Nut empire battles conservationists over water tunnel for California orchards,” The Guardian, August 22, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/21/california-water-drought-almond-pistachio-tunnel.
[15]Dale Kasler, “Dozens are suing to block Delta tunnels. Will it Matter?,” The Fresno Bee, August 21, 2017, http://www.fresnobee.com/news/state
Bibliography
Almond Board of California. “Almond Almanac 2015.” Accessed April 19, 2015. http://www.almonds.com/sites/default/files/content/attachments/2015_almanac.pdf.
Almond Board of California. “Industry Statistics and Maps 2018.” Accessed April 19, 2018. http://www.almonds.com/processors/resources/crop-forecast.
Bland, Alastair. “California Drought Has Wild Salmon Competing With Almonds For Water.” NPR, August 21, 2014. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/08/21/342167846/california-drought-has-wild-salmon-competing-with-almonds-for-water.
Charles, Dan. “Beyond Almonds: A Rogue’s Gallery of Guzzlers in California’s Drought.” NPR, April 12, 2015. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/04/12/398757250/beyond-almonds-a-rogues-gallery-of-guzzlers-in-californias-drought.
Chung Yen Chen, Karen Lapsley, and Jeffery Blumberg, “A nutrition and health perspective on almonds,” Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture 86, no. 14 (2006): 2245-2250.
Gumbel, Andrew. “Nut empire battles conservationists over water tunnel for California orchards.” The Guardian, August 22, 1015. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/21/california-water-drought-almond-pistachio-tunnel.
Hamblin, James. “The Dark Side of Almond Use.” The Atlantic, August 28, 2014. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/08/almonds-demon-nuts/379244/.
Kamila, Avery. “Meat and dairy products stampede past almonds in water-use arena: to save on water, eat a veggie burger.” Portland Press Herald, September 23, 2015. https://www.pressherald.com/2015/09/23/vegetarian-kitchen-meat-and-dairy-products-stampede-past-almonds-in-water-use-arena/.
Kasler, Dale. “Dozens are suing to block Delta tunnels. Will it Matter?” The Fresno Bee, August 21, 2017. http://www.fresnobee.com/news/state/california/article168497632.html.
Kendall, Alissa.“Life Cycle-based Assessment of Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Almond Production.” Journal of Ecology 19, no. 6 (2015): 931-1102. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12332.
Ratnieks, Francis and Norman Carreck. “Clarity on Honey Bee Collapse?” Science 27, no. 5982 (2010): 152-153. https:doi.org/10.1126/science.1185563.
Westervelt, Amy. “Is it fair to blame almond farmers for California’s drought?” The Guardian, April 13, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/apr/13/is-it-fair-to-blame-almond-farmers-for-californias-drought.
Wilkoms, Tremayne. “The drought through the eyes of an almond farmer.” The Pioneer, July 8, 2015. https://thepioneeronline.com/27145/artsentertainment/the-drought-through-the-eyes-of-an-almond-farmer/.
Yen Chen, Chung, Karen Lapsley, and Jeffrey Blumberg. “A nutrition and health perspective on almonds.” Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture 86, no. 14 (2006): 2245-2250. https:doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.6b00857.