The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is Another Major Disruption to Treenut Growers

The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is Another Major Disruption to Treenut Growers

Patrick Cavanaugh
Patrick Cavanaugh
COVID-19 is certainly disruptive and farmers are seeing yet another very disruptive situation that is coming toward them. It’s SGMA the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.

Holly King is a Kern County Almond Producer and Chair of the Almond Board of California. “This is one of those disruptions and I think we are starting to figure out what are the questions we should be asking,” said King. “Obvious ones to me are what's going to happen in our growing regions of California? What kind of crops are going to decline, what kind of crops are going to increase? So we are figuring out what the impact is going to be.

“We are going to have less water. So how is the state going to use the water and how is that going to impact almonds? Because I think that's at the end of the day we at the Almond Board have to plan for this. We need to know what our needs are and we need to figure out what kind of a crop we're going to have--- what kind of challenges we're going to face, so we can plan for it,” she said.

King said SGMA is one of many changes she has seen as an almond grower.

“Many changes have occurred just in the time I've been in the almond industry, so it looks to me like we got to start from where we are today and figure out what those changes look like in 25 years in the future,” she said.

“I've been in the industry for 25 years. What's it going to look like in 25 more years? It's not going to look like what it is today,” noted King.

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