Almonds are Efficient

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

As almond production in the state has expanded, so have some of the misconceptions about the crop. David Doll is a former farm advisor in Merced County and writes a popular blog at www.TheAlmondDoctor.com.

Doll… “I'm really interested in working in almonds because one, it's a good crop, regardless of what people hear on the media about water this, water that, and bees and problems with bees, it's a good crop. It uses far less water than the world average. It's about 0.85 liters per kilocalorie, or a calorie with a big C that we see on the back of the wrapper. And that's about 15% less than the world average of water use per calorie of food.”

Doll added that not only is it an efficient and responsible user of water, but also efficient when it comes to being able to utilize the nutrients that are produced.

Doll… “The seed store, 90% of it enters into the food stream or more, and there's very few crops that can claim that. So it's a very efficient crop in terms of water usage and consumption of that product by humans, from being produced.”

Doll sees still plenty of opportunity ahead for almonds, especially with the rise in popularity of plant-based foods. He now manages a large farming operation of primarily almonds in Portugal.