Why are almond farmers the ones in the crosshairs here?
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof blames almond farmers for the water crisis in the Southwest. Is this fair?
Nutrition Diva is hosted by Monica Reinagel. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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I’m Monica Reinagel. Welcome to the Nutrition Diva podcast, where we take a closer look at nutrition trends and headlines, explain what the latest research means for you, and answer your dietary questions.
Last week, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote an op-ed on the growing water crisis in the Southwest. The situation there is certainly dire–and the adjustments that are now required will be painful. They might have been a little less painful if we, as a society, had been willing to acknowledge the problem and take action a little sooner. The current catastrophe has been a slow-motion trainwreck that’s been unfolding in plain sight for years.. But that’s generally how we roll when faced with pending environmental disaster.
However, Kristoff unfairly singled out almonds (and by extension, almond farmers) as the villain in this story.
“The [American] West was built on cheap water,” he writes, “that is now running out from underpricing and overuse just as climate change is amplifying droughts.”
But according to Kristoff, the problem is not the irrigated golf courses, lawns, and vast suburban developments that blanket the desert. The problem is farming. Specifically, almond farming.
“California produces a bounty of almonds,” he writes, “which gulp about 3.2 gallons of water for each almond…This water is so cheap that there is little attempt to conserve or develop technical innovations to use less water.”
I have to doubt whether Kristof spoke with any almond farmers before penning his column.
No one is more invested in a sustainable solution than almond growers themselves. If they can’t (or can’t afford to) irrigate their almond groves, they go out of business. Consequently, they are working hard on programs to reduce water use. And they have made quite a bit of progress.
Over the past 20 years, California almond growers have cut the amount of water they use by a third, largely by investing in more efficient irrigation systems. They’ve pledged to cut water use by another 20% by the year 2025.
Kristof also suggests that the solution to the water problem is to stop growing almonds, and that the way to get them to stop growing almonds is to charge them more for water.
“Farmers would not irrigate almond orchards if they had to buy 3.2 gallons of water at market rates to produce each almond.”
For someone whose journalistic brand is largely built around compassion for the little guy, Kristoff doesn’t seem to have spared a thought for the 7,000 or so almond farmers–90% of which are family-run farms–that he’s blithely throwing under the bus. Almond farmers and their families would not be the only ones to suffer, either. Almonds use a lot of water, but they also pump an enormous amount of money into the local and regional economy.
Water aside, the growing conditions in California are ideal for almonds. Almonds are also a very high-value crop—farmers can earn far more per acre growing almonds than any other crop. Converting almond groves to lettuce or strawberry farms would use less water but would also take billions of dollars of revenue out of the system.
Besides, according to data published by the Pacific Institute, more of California's precious water supply is used to grow alfalfa to feed cattle than to grow almonds. A quart of cow’s milk requires significantly more water to produce than a quart of almond milk. So why are almond farmers the ones in the crosshairs here?
To the extent that it has been singled out, the almond industry is, in a way, a victim of its own success. Worldwide demand for almonds has skyrocketed in the last two decades, in part due to sustained campaigns by industry groups to promote the health benefits of almonds.
Commodity groups that support almond growers have spent millions of dollars funding research into almonds’ effects on cholesterol, appetite, blood sugar, body weight, and more ... all in an effort to convince consumers that almonds are a super healthy food.
And it worked! Although our consumption of other nuts has stayed relatively steady, our intake of almonds has quadrupled over the last half-century. As the demand for almonds has grown, hundreds of thousands of acres of California farmland have been converted over to almond farming. But it’s worth pointing out that all nuts are water-intensive crops. If we were growing walnuts or pistachios instead of almonds we’d still be using about the same amount of water.
The bottom line
The reason that almonds use such a large share of California’s water supply is that they make up such a large share of California’s agricultural economy. But they also generate more revenue and nutrition per gallon of water than most other crops. So, with all due respect to Kristof, I don’t think putting almond farmers out of business is the solution to the water crisis in the American West.
This is Monica Reinagel, the Nutrition Diva. If you have a nutrition question you'd like me to answer, you can email me at nutrition@quickanddirtytips.com. You can also leave me a message at 443-961-6206.
If your question is more on the subject of habits and behavior change, please check out my other podcast, the Change Academy, where we talk about how to convert our good intentions into sustainable healthy habits. You’ll find it wherever you listen.