Farmers Go In Big For Almonds As Water Dries Up (Modesto: 2013, buy)

[Ultrarunner]

Actually... bees is one bright spot for one of the farms... always kept hives and it is becoming more lucrative...

Have many beekeepers in the family... my Grandfather and his Father always kept bees too... all do it now mostly for hobby and trade honey... no one has more than 12 to 20 hives.

It was always funny as kids to hear them talking to their bees and praising them for being such good workers!

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by Ultrarunner

Actually... bees is one bright spot for one of the farms... always kept hives and it is becoming more lucrative...

Have many beekeepers in the family... my Grandfather and his Father always kept bees too... all do it now mostly for hobby and trade honey... no one has more than 12 to 20 hives.

It was always funny as kids to hear them talking to their bees and praising them for being such good workers!

You're lucky to be on the right side of the bee equation!


Here's an excerpt from a Mother Jones article titled: "California Goes Nuts!" Seems it's partly the recent demand for non-dairy milks, like almond milk, that's behind the "almond rush" in CA agriculture.

Almond products—snack mixes, butters, milk—are flying off supermarket shelves. The value of the California almond market hit $4.8 billion in 2012—that's triple the level of a decade earlier. Only dairy is worth more to the state than almonds and grapes. In fact, almonds, along with California-grown pistachios and walnuts, are becoming so lucrative that big investment funds, eager to get in on the boom, are snapping up land and dropping in trees.

There's just one problem: Almond orchards require about a third more water per acre than grape vineyards. In fact, they're one of California's thirstiest crops. It takes a gallon of water to produce a single almond—more than three times the amount required for a grape and two and a half times as much for a strawberry. There's more water embedded in just four almonds than there is in a full head of lettuce. But unlike row crops, which farmers can choose not to plant during dry spells, almond trees must be watered no matter what.

In the midst of the worst drought in California's history, you might expect almonds' extreme thirst to be a deal breaker. But it's not. In fact, the drought has had hardly any impact at all on the almond boom. The state's farmers bought at least 8.33 million young almond trees between July 2013 and July 2014, a 25 percent increase from the previous year. About a quarter of the saplings went to replace old orchards, but most of the rest were new plantings, some 48,000 acres' worth, an area equal to three Manhattans.

[SportyandMisty]

I think the time has come for a serious engineering evaluation of water pipelines from places where there is far too much to places that need it.

When the spring thaw gets underway, we will once again see massive flooding in many places in the US. All we really need is to pump excess water from the humid midwest to the arid west.

The time has come for a water pipeline.

[shooting4life]

Originally Posted by SportyandMisty

I think the time has come for a serious engineering evaluation of water pipelines from places where there is far too much to places that need it.

When the spring thaw gets underway, we will once again see massive flooding in many places in the US. All we really need is to pump excess water from the humid midwest to the arid west.

The time has come for a water pipeline.

Obama vetoed the last pipeline. Maybe the next pres will be different.

[Curmudgeon]

I'm very much in favor of almonds. Where else will you get marzipan?

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by SportyandMisty

I think the time has come for a serious engineering evaluation of water pipelines from places where there is far too much to places that need it.

When the spring thaw gets underway, we will once again see massive flooding in many places in the US. All we really need is to pump excess water from the humid midwest to the arid west.

The time has come for a water pipeline.

No! No more water for California. No!

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

I'm very much in favor of almonds. Where else will you get marzipan?

More Almonds! Less Humans!

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

Originally Posted by SportyandMisty

I think the time has come for a serious engineering evaluation of water pipelines from places where there is far too much to places that need it.

When the spring thaw gets underway, we will once again see massive flooding in many places in the US. All we really need is to pump excess water from the humid midwest to the arid west.

The time has come for a water pipeline.

I don't see the logic in mandating piping of water from one state to another, because some big business found a profitable crop that needs water in a drought zone.

I mean, it was really lucrative to blast away hillsides with water to get gold, too...

And then people in San Francisco started wondering - what the heck is happening to the Bay?

Sometimes we need to just say - No.

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

Wonder how many gallons of water it takes to grow one rice kernel in Yolo County? Most of which gets shipped to Japan.

[BeauCharles]

Originally Posted by chuckmann

Are you your cousin's keeper?

Seriously. Regardless, I like almonds. When I grew up in Oakdale (NE of Modesto) in the late 60s and early 70s we had ten mature trees on our acre of land (old converted orchard broken into parcels). Its not like growing them is something new.