Earth Protect Blog

By Terence Chea

The Associated Press

FIREBAUGH, CALIF. » As temperatures recently reached triple digits, farmer Joe Del Bosque inspected the almonds in his parched orchard in California’s agriculture-rich San Joaquin Valley, where a deepening drought threatens one of the state’s most profitable crops.

Del Bosque doesn’t have enough water to properly irrigate his almond orchards, so he’s practicing “deficit irrigation” — providing less water than the trees need. He left a third of his farmland unplanted to save water for the nuts. And he may pull out 100 of his 600 acres of almond trees after the late summer harvest — years earlier than planned.

“We may have to sacrifice one of them at the end of the year if we feel that we don’t have enough water next year,” said Del Bosque, who also grows melons, cherries and asparagus. “That means that our huge investment that we put in these trees is gone.”

A historic drought across the U.S. West is taking a heavy toll on California’s $6 billion almond industry, which produces roughly 80% of the world’s almonds. More growers are expected to abandon their orchards as water becomes scarce and expensive.

It’s a sharp reversal for the almond’s relentless expansion in California’s agricultural Central Valley, where a dry Mediterranean- like climate and reliable irrigation system made it the perfect location to grow the increasingly popular nut.

Almond orchards are thirsty permanent crops that need water year-round, clashing with a worsening drought and intensifying heat waves tied to climate change. Scientists say climate change has made the American West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will keep making weather more extreme.

California almond production grew from 370 million pounds in 1995 to a record 3.1 billion pounds in 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. During that period, land planted with almond trees grew from 756 square miles to 2,500 square miles.

In May, the USDA projected that California’s almond crop would hit a record 3.2 billion pounds this year, but in July, it scaled back that estimate to 2.8 billion pounds, citing low water availability and record heat.

“A lot of growers are having to go through a stressful time to make the water they have last to keep their trees alive,” said Richard Waycott, president and CEO of the Almond Board of California, which represents more than 7,600 growers and processors.

Almonds are California’s top agricultural export. The industry ships about 70% of its almonds overseas, fueled by strong demand in India, East Asia and Europe, according to the board.

As almond prices rose during a previous drought that California declared from 2012 to 2016, farmers and investors planted hundreds of square miles of new orchards in areas that lack reliable water supplies.

“All of this increase in almonds and this increase in water demand, it’s been done at a time when there’s virtually no increase in water supply,” said David Goldhamer, a water management specialist at the University of California-Davis. “The water embodied in the production of those almonds is being exported out of this country.”

The almond boom has run into the second major drought that California has declared in a decade. The U.S. Drought Monitor reported that 88% of the state was in “extreme drought” as of last week, with the Central Valley facing the worst conditions.

The drought has drained reservoirs that supply water to Central Valley farms. In early August, Shasta Lake, the state’s largest, was only 30% full, while Lake Oroville, the second largest, was only 24% full, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

State and federal officials have reduced water for agriculture, forcing many farmers to leave fields fallow or switch to higher-value crops that use less water.