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Almond Facts
MAY | JUNE 2015
As
Blue Diamond Growers
are well aware, California is in the fourth year of a historic drought. In April,
after a year of pleas for voluntary water cuts from the state’s urban and suburban users, California
Governor Jerry Brown issued a first-of-its-kind mandatory water restriction ordering state agencies
to cut usage by 25 percent over 2013 levels. Agricultural water use was spared additional cuts; the only
requirements of agriculture are increased reporting of drought management plans to the state.
As California Farm Bureau
Federation (CFBF) President Paul
Wenger wrote in AgAlert, “The
drought just became real for millions
of our fellow Californians … We’ll
need to make sure urban and
suburban Californians understand
how the water system works: that
farmers are always the first to be cut
back – always – and that those cuts
go deeper and deeper until the water
planners can no longer ignore the
need to cut urban uses, too. That day
has come.”
As Wenger alluded to, urban and
suburban water users have taken issue
with the supposed lack of mandatory
restrictions on agriculture. But as
growers can attest, agriculture has
long been on the front lines of this
drought. Almond growers and the
rest of the state’s agriculture industry
have been in the trenches for four long
years, fighting to make the most of
the available water to protect our food
supply for generations to come.
California agriculture is a big deal.
According to the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, California produces
nearly a third of the country’s food
supply, including one-third of the
nation’s vegetables and two-thirds of
its nuts and fruits. And water is the
key to keeping that production afloat.
“Water is the lifeblood of our work,
which provides not only jobs but the
food security our state and nation
rely on,” Wenger said to the CFBF
members.
Growers Sacrifice
to Stay Alive
Agriculture has taken blow after blow
as the drought wears on. In 2015,
nearly 30 percent of California’s
irrigated farmland will receive
absolutely no surface water this
year, compounding on two years of
zero percent water allocation from
the State Water Project and the
announcement of the federal Central
Valley Project’s initial 2015 water
supply allocation of zero percent
for most agricultural customers. To
date, the drought has cost agriculture
17,000 jobs and $1.5 billion, resulting
in $7.5 billion in economic damage to
the state.
Almond growers, like all farmers,
have been making cuts through
sacrifice for the past four years due to
the drought. “In addition to having
to lay off workers, almond growers
have been removing orchards ahead
of schedule in an effort to conserve
water,” said Mel Machado,
Blue
Diamond
’s Director of Member
Relations. “We’re talking about low-
yielding orchards that would make
economic sense to keep in place at
the current pricing, but are being
removed to consolidate water onto
younger plantings.”
Additionally, through decades of
innovation, California almond
growers have reduced the amount of
water it takes to produce a pound of
almonds by 33 percent. More broadly,
California farmers have invested more
than $3 billion to develop smarter
irrigation systems and reduce water
use by 14 percent in the process.
In the same time frame, yields per
acre have increased nearly fourfold,
meaning today’s crops are using water
with greater efficiency than ever
before. “Growers do all they can to
be good stewards of natural resources
like water because it’s smart business
and smart farming,” Machado said.
Finding a Viable
Solution for All
The water shortage in California
is the result of two things: four
consecutive years of drought and
Governor Declares
Mandatory Water Cuts
Agricultural Water Use Under Scrutiny
