Almonds, walnuts, and pistachios are generating substantial revenue in the Golden State, but the groundwater supply is paying the price.
California has entered the age of King Nut: The state produces more than 80 per cent of the world’s almonds, and roughly 30 per cent and 40 per cent of the world’s pistachios and walnuts, respectively. Most of the production takes place in the Central Valley, a swath of farmland in California’s midsection. A single almond requires 3.8 litres of water to grow—bad news amid California’s worst drought in half a millennium. However, with ever-rising demand in a nut-crazed world, farmers continue to expand their orchards, pumping water out of the ground to compensate for the dried-up surface water. The numbers tell the story:
Since 2011, central California has lost “more water than all 38 million Californians use for domestic and municipal supplies annually—over half of which is due to groundwater pumping in the Central Valley.”
Groundwater is the product of centuries: rain percolating through the pores of soil and rock over time, eventually seeping into aquifers. In wet seasons, water generally begins its slow trickle-down journey to replenish the aquifers (the small upward spikes in the third chart above).
But as Jay Famiglietti, the NASA water scientist who gathered the groundwater data, has stated, “The downs are way bigger than the ups, which means that groundwater levels are on a one-way journey to the very bottom of the Central Valley.”
Recently, we have been successful in selling poorly performing Chilean cattle farm lands in the South, suitable for nut growing, to American growers for the reasons mentioned above.
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