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by j_baker 4114 days ago
The Midwest would make a good alternative place to grow. It won't be as prone to droughts and will have a longer growing season due to climate change.

Either that or giving farmers a subsidy for growing crops that require less water. Our huge Almond industry is a giant water-guzzler.

2 comments

Almond Trees at maturity seem to be small enough to be movable to new locations (12-33 ft high, 12 in trunk)
You can move a tree. Moving a tree successfully is completely different. If you are in a race to grow a 20', you are generally better off starting with a seedling than a 10' tree because they handle the move so poorly.
You can't move almond trees to other areas. They wouldn't thrive there. You might as well suggest moving a Banana plantation from Honduras to Montana to save on shipping costs.
Much of the Midwest draws from the Ogallala Aquifer which is also under severe strain and has been overdrawn for nearly a century, many describe the water as 'fossil' water because the aquifer took many hundreds of thousands of years to grow to the size it has become and it's replenishment rate is significantly lower than our current demands.

The Colorado river is also running dry, sometimes it does not even make it to the ocean, which is a basic sign of environmental health -- when rivers run dry significant changes occur rapidly. The Rockies which feed this river has had lower annual snow pack than expected for many years running now.

New agricultural land in the US will be coming from the north as the climate continues to become dryer and warmer, already Canadian farmers have experienced a renewed vigor and development. Unfortunately there will likely be some land and water use competition between fracking as well as the Canadian Boreal forest, one of the largest and most pristine wildernesses in the north american continent.