The great almond debate: A subtle double movement in California water

Abstract

In 2014 journalists accused almonds of “sucking California dry” for using roughly one gallon (3.79 L) of water per nut during the state’s record drought. Eye catching statistics set off a cascade of articles elaborating the almond problem interspersed with retorts defending almond production from becoming the scapegoat of Californian’s accumulated water griefs. How and why did almonds become a water problem? This article charts the rise and fall of the almond debate through a media analysis of 87 journalistic articles spanning two years. While stunning statistics triggered alarm and policy changes buoyed interest in almond production, I argue almonds captured the attention of news writers and readers because they embodied a pervasive concern over the appropriate role of profit in water use. Almond anxieties centered on four disquieting market dynamics: the speed and scale of landscape transformation wrought by a new food fashion, the indifference of global trade to local troubles, the concentration of power in the food system, and a trend towards high-value permanent crops. Almonds remained in the public eye despite recharacterizations of their efficiency because they are a boom crop; exemplary of how neoliberal logics fail to address water as a public good. This paper rearticulates Polanyi’s theory of the ‘double movement’ as an ideologically diverse and relational process. A Polanyian analysis of the almond debate demonstrates the utility of this approach for synthesizing, validating and furthering meaningful dialogue on water politics.