6 ms·

Since this is HN let's be factually correct. Almond production is irrelevant in water usage. The bulk of it is going to animal agriculture.

• 3eb7988a1663 4mo ago
  I am finding that 42% of California water is agriculture and 8% of that is for almonds. 3% of state water usage on a luxury nut might not be moving the needle that much, but it does feel wasteful for a state that is perpetually hovering on drought conditions.
  • sitkack 4mo ago
    Much of that water comes out of a collapsing acquifer.
  • fakedang 4mo ago
    It's even more wasteful when you realize that the USG is trying to force governments around the world to buy Californian almonds, even in places where almonds are traditionally grown and harvested. And then there's the matter of Saudis coaxing farmers to grow alfalfa which is then exported to Saudi Arabia to feed cows there (!).
    • triceratops 4mo ago
      > even in places where almonds are traditionally grown and harvested. California grows 80% of the world's almonds. Every other place that grows almonds is practically a rounding error in the number of almonds out there.
      • fakedang 4mo ago
        Precisely my point. The US grows an unsustainable amount and then pushes it to places it was grown in traditionally like the Mediterranean, Western Asia and the Middle East.
        • triceratops 4mo ago
          How do you decide what's "unsustainable"? And what does "pushing almonds" look like exactly? Almonds are fucking delicious and nutritious. They sell themselves.
          • fakedang 4mo ago
            The USA produces the lion's share thanks to USG subsidies, then the USG comes over to the old world countries and the commerce reps start faulting the countries for a.) blocking American agricultural imports or b.) subsidizing their own local agriculture. Since the American almonds are also produced at a much larger scale, they can also underprice the locally produced almonds ridiculously, which further disincentivizes local farmers from growing almonds and forces them to grow something else.
  • hvb2 4mo ago
    It's an export product, they produce about 80% of the world almonds. You grow what fits your climate, almonds grow very well in California. If you want an egregious example, alfalfa in Arizona, especially when you know it's irrigated by flooding the field https://apnews.com/article/saudi-arabia-drought-arizona-alfalfa-water-agriculture-0d13957edaf882690e15c0bd9ccfa59f https://apnews.com/article/saudi-arabia-drought-arizona-alfa...