They're draining an entire state dry.
California's Central Valley is one of the most productive agricultural regions on earth — and almond farming is sucking it dry. Almond orchards now cover over 1.6 million acres, and unlike vegetables or grains, you can't just stop watering them. They're trees. They drink year-round, drought or not.
"Almonds are a perennial crop. In a drought year, farmers can't just not water them — they'd lose the entire orchard. So groundwater gets pumped regardless."
— UC Davis Water Resource ResearchAquifers that took thousands of years to fill are being drawn down in decades. In some parts of the Central Valley, the land itself is sinking — a process called subsidence — because so much water has been pulled from underground. This is permanent. You can't refill an aquifer.
The almond industry is killing bees. Commercially.
Almonds require cross-pollination, which means every February, the almond industry trucks in roughly 2 million beehives from across the country — nearly 70% of all commercially managed honeybee colonies in the US. They're concentrated into a monoculture, exposed to pesticides, and worked to exhaustion in a matter of weeks.
Of all US commercial hives
Mobilized to California every February to pollinate almond orchards. This annual stress is a major driver of colony collapse disorder.
Annual colony losses
US beekeepers report losing 30–40% of their colonies each year. Almond season stress, pesticide exposure, and monoculture conditions are primary factors.
What almonds do for bees
Almond blossoms don't produce significant pollen or nectar for bees to eat. Bees work the orchards and come out with nothing — except exhaustion.
Taxpayers are subsidizing this.
Almond farming in California receives federal crop insurance subsidies, irrigation water at below-market rates, and benefits from agricultural tax structures that make it more financially attractive to grow water-intensive crops in a desert climate than the actual environmental cost would suggest.
Meanwhile, smaller California farmers who grow food crops — vegetables, fruit, grain — compete for the same depleted water supply. The almond industry's political lobbying has protected its access to subsidized water even during the worst droughts on record.
"The price of almonds does not reflect the true cost of the water used to grow them. If it did, almond milk would cost $15 a carton."
— Pacific Institute Water AnalysisAlmond "milk" is mostly water anyway.
Here's the kicker: a typical carton of commercial almond milk contains approximately 2% almonds. The rest is water, thickeners, sugar, and flavorings. You're spending 1.1 gallons of California groundwater per almond, turning it into a product that's 98% the tap water you could have just... used.
Actual almonds in almond milk
The rest is water, sunflower lecithin, locust bean gum, and whatever else keeps it from separating on the shelf.
Water to make one glass
A single glass of almond milk requires roughly 74 liters of water to produce. Oat milk: about 5 liters. Do the math.
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