California's Almond Industry Drives Sustainability in Agriculture

 

In addition to providing wholesome nutrition and supporting good health, California’s community of more than 6,500 almond growers are committed to using sustainable farming practices that respect the environment and protect their local communities.

For decades, the Almond Board of California has invested millions of dollars in critical research leading to important advancements that continue supporting almond growers as good stewards of the land.

AIM is the latest step in a series of sustainability initiatives that aim to accelerate investment in sustainability, almond tree and farming research, and to step-up efforts to develop new partnerships and collaborations, which will drive four major initiatives to move the entire industry forward.

The California Almond Sustainability Program (CASP) shows that:

· More than 70% of almond orchards report using water-saving micro-irrigation systems.

· More than 80% of growers report using demand-based irrigation in their orchards, which means they monitor weather, soil moisture and the trees themselves to determine exactly when and how much to irrigate, rather than watering on a pre-determined schedule.

· More than 60% of almond growers use soil maps to understand the soil characteristics in their orchards. This helps them design and maintain the best possible irrigation systems for their land.”

FoodIngredientsFirst spoke with Stacey Humble, Vice President of Global Marketing, Almond Board of California: “Efficient water use and irrigation management are vital to almond growers. Innovative farming and production developments over the past two decades have helped almond growers reduce the amount of water they use per pound of almonds grown by 33%.”

The Almond Board of California is investing more than $2 million a year in independent third party research of production and environmental issues to continually evolve best practices. One of the principal innovations is groundwater recharge: “Groundwater recharge returns water to underground aquifers (collectively California’s largest water storage system) through managed flooding with excess seasonal storm waters. Basically, once water from wetter days is returned to the aquifer, it serves the greater community, not just any one almond grower, farmer, industry or individual. Through partnerships with Sustainable Conservation and the University of California, Davis, the Almond Board will take the first steps within the wider agriculture community to increase groundwater recharge on almond farm land," adds Humble.

It is too early to tell if precipitation from El Niño will help alleviate (or provide relief from) California’s ongoing and devastating drought, but this ground breaking program takes action to capitalise on that and potentially replace some of California’s depleted water resources.

The Initiatives

1. Water Management and Efficiency: work in this area will involve building on the 33 percent reduction in water used per pound of almonds achieved by the industry over the last 20 years through a range of activities. The program will also focus on accelerating almond farmer transition to more efficient irrigation scheduling and management practices to get the most crop per drop of water.

2. Sustainable Water Resources: this work stream will explore how to best leverage a unique strength of the California almond industry, its acreage, to accelerate natural flood-year groundwater recharge of aquifers. California’s aquifers are collectively the state’s largest water storage system and water recharged through this program would benefit all Californians, not just farmers. A second part of this initiative will look for opportunities to recycle water, as a way of increasing overall water availability for farmers and all Californians.

3.  Air Quality: with the ultimate aim of identifying alternatives that will result in cleaner air for all those who live in California’s Central Valley, this initiative will delve into the ways almond production impacts air quality, as well as evaluate options to decrease emissions.

4. 22nd Century Agronomics: the almond community recognizes the need to better understand and then adopt the technologies that will lead California farming into the 22nd century. This exciting initiative will see a comprehensive exploration of almond farming techniques, bringing an exploratory mindset to consider all options as to what innovations and technical “leap frogs” are needed to sustainably farm in the future.

A crucial desired outcome of the AIM campaign is that many of these projects will benefit all of the region’s farmers, and all local residents, not just almond growers. Indeed, learnings taken from AIM could benefit farmers all over the world.

Source: http://www.foodingredientsfirst.com/news/Californias-Almond-Industry-Drives-Sustainability-in-Agriculture.html?frompage=index&tracking=Headlines