Central Valley Almond Farmer Rips Out Trees To Save Water, Business
MODESTO (KPIX 5) -- While most of us are scrambling to save water, California almond growers are taking heat for planting more and more trees amid a historic drought.
But there's one grower who's actually ripping part of his orchard out. He says it's the only way to keep his business from drying up.
"If we had enough water we wouldn't be tearing this orchard out," said Jake Wenger, a fourth generation walnut and almond farmer in Modesto.
Ten percent of his trees are coming out to save water for the younger ones.
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"A normal allotment of water from the irrigation district is 42 inches per acre," Wenger said. "We're looking at 16 this year."
And that's not enough to produce a crop.
As long as it took to grow Wegner's trees -- some of them 30 years -- when it's time for them to come out, it happens quickly.
Farming this land since 1910, the Wenger family's well-aware that growers, particularly almond growers, have become prime target during the drought.
Almonds make a lot of money. In ten years, the crop's value has quadrupled to $5 billion while almond production has nearly doubled.
Worldwide demand has skyrocketed, led by shipments to China.
So not only are long-time growers switching from crops to trees, investment groups have also moved in, looking for a piece of the profit.
But almonds take a lot of water. To grow one almond requires more than a gallon of water.
"There are trees going in to areas that probably should not have trees in them," Wenger said. "Guys that are big investment groups are going and buying big acreage of almonds, land [and] sinking wells into the ground when they don't have an alternate source of water."
And because there's more money in almonds than corn and cotton, farmers are planting more and more trees to get the biggest return on what water they do have.
But Wenger says there's a lot riding on what grows here. It's what makes California one of the largest agriculture economies in the world.
"The globe depends on what we do here," Wenger said.