California’s Insane Nut Boom, In 3 Simple Charts

Almonds, walnuts, and pistachios are making bank in the Golden State—but the groundwater supply is paying the price.

<a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-142886560/stock-photo-almonds-walnuts-and-hazelnuts-in-wooden-bowls-on-wooden-background.html?src=X97wO8FlgsCO9q7GM0CTEA-1-1" target="_blank">mamma_mia</a>/Shutterstock

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California has entered the age of King Nut: The state produces more than 80 percent of the world’s almonds, and roughly 30 and 40 percent 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 a gallon of water to grow—bad news in the midst of California’s worst drought in half a millennium. But with ever-rising demand in a nut-crazed world, farmers continue to expand orchards, pumping water out of the ground to make up for the dried-up surface water. These charts tell the story:

 

Charts by Lei Wang and Julia Lurie

As my colleague Tom Philpott recently reported, 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 stuff of centuries: rain percolating for ages through pores of soil and rock, coming to rest in 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.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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