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Nuts aren't a crop that you plant every year, like grain. Nut trees take years to grow and reach productive maturity. Most California nut farmers have built t
by secabeen 12y ago
Nuts aren't a crop that you plant every year, like grain. Nut trees take years to grow and reach productive maturity. Most California nut farmers have built their orchards over decades, and expect decades of future production from them. If they don't water the trees, they could die, and lose the entire farm. If you have 30 years of future production (10s of millions of dollars in revenue) at risk, you'd take any measure necessary to protect that investment, regardless of the impact.
- thrownaway2424 12y agoI don't know if your statement about the decades of orchard development are true. There was a huge rush to convert acres to almonds in the last few years. 1/3rd of the acres in almonds were less than ten years old in 2013, and much of the new acres are in useless desert places of Kern, Fresno, San Joaquin counties and so forth. The long-standing orchards in places where you should actually grow nut tress -- Glenn, Tehama, Butte, Sutter, Colusa counties -- are the ones that are very old and they aren't in danger because water falls in those places. From the damn sky.