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Comment by antirez | Hacker News Reader

Bees are not essential to the almond industry in general, but to the US almond industry in particular because US is focusing on almond varieties that are not the best nor auto-compatible (so they need bees to pollinate), but have the economic advantage of having a very good ratio between the weight of shell over the seed inside. This is good to get the maximum earning, but is bad both for human health because the thin shell allows for the almonds to be more easily contaminated, and for bees because of what the article says.

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If the US almond industry is 80% of world almond industry and bees are essential to them then bees are essential to the almond industry.

Talking quantity yes, that's the case, taking quality or genetic diversity of almonds, or even almonds in the tradition of locals, nope. It depends.

in other words, CA could not have chosen a worst crop to grow (I heard that it also requires a lot of water to grow, something that CA is short on)

Oh I forgot to mention water! Actually almonds can grow almost without any water at all, this is how we do it in Sicily, but certain varieties will yield 2x product if you use water. Hence in CA usually water is used, but with systems to use as little as possible.

It makes me irrationally angry how often things could be done sustainably but of course aren’t because there’s no strong enough incentive to care about negative externalities.

California growing 80% of the worlds almond a isn’t sustainable. It used California water and it’s the depleting the nutrients in the soil.

And they transport almond milk in cartons all over that is worse. The packaging and the space it takes for transport and the protocol for liquid transporting and the carbon foot print of pasteurization and so much more are entirely unnecessary because almond milk is so easy to make from a powder/almond meal.

But consumers are used to pouring it from a carton. Consumer education is so essential.

Not necessarily. Almonds can grow without water but those varieties have deeper roots to tap into the ground water.

They were all uprooted and replaced by cultivars that are dwarf and early yielding. Two reasons: the root stock takes care of resistance to certain soil disease and secondly harvest.

Almonds are harvested by mechanical ‘shakers’. Giant ‘arms’ that shake the tree and then vaccum the fallen nuts.

So what we need is uniform height dwarf trees that are disease resistant and are spaced optimally for equipment and machinery for spraying, banding, harvesting etc.

You have to think of these commercial orchards as open air factory assembly lines. This isn’t nature. This is factories without safety and environmental rules to follow. Because there is no OSHA for bees.

Actually California is no longer in drought and has plenty of water (for now)

No. That is not true. California water situation is very complex and convoluted. There are a bunch of zones that have water rights grandfathered to them but have the legislation permitting them to lease it.

It’s really a mess. Google ‘Resnicks’ and water in California.

Ok: here is one..there are so many other articles https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/08/lynda-stewar...

Its something I have posted here on HN before.. it’s really complicated. Short answer: we are not out of water scarcity.

Drought.gov, ran by FEMA/NDRP indicates no drought[0], as well as well as the NDMC/USDA ran Drought Monitor[1].

If everyone is insistent that the drought is still continuing, can someone please point me to some (current) data that indicates it?

[0] : https://www.drought.gov/drought/states/california

[1] : https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonito...

Aquifer depletion is a big problem too. We pull underground water faster than it is replenished. This can permanently shrink the capacity of aquifers and/or make them unreachable.

And salt water intrusion in Monterrey county..Salinas river and Salinas valley is known as the salad bowl. It’s a ticking bomb for salt water intrusion. Already areas around San Juan Bautista have no water..no matter how deep they drill..

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