California Almonds in India
The case study for messed up global supply chain system
One thing of the things I love about India are the food options available. Trade routes, varied climatic zones and ancient agricultural practices made growing almost any type of food possible in the Indian subcontinent. The rich and varied cuisine across the subcontinent is a living, breathing memory of an old, beautiful land and its people.
Recently though, I came across a food packet that my brother ordered. It’s a packet of almonds all the way from the west coast and that got me thinking.
While I envy the ride they have taken crossing two oceans and many borders but I keep thinking how these dried fruits got here in the first place.Almonds need a lot of water and California is going through one of the worst droughts in recent times. Not to mention the logistics cost and human resources needed for this long journey.
Looking back into history, California started growing almonds 100 years ago. It’s Mediterranean climate and large tracts of available land made it possible to grow almonds in large scale. Currently 80 percent of the world’s almonds come from the state. The industry is making close to 5 billion dollars and is employing around 100k people. There’s a catch though. Dried fruits like Almonds and walnuts should be grown in regions with adequate water resources. A farmer needs about 1.1 gallons of water to grow a single thimble sized almond. That’s 1900 gallons per pound and drought hit California grew 2.8 billion tons of almonds in 2020–21.
Around 1.3- 1.6 million acres were used to crop almond groves as of 2020–21. That was at a time of increased water restrictions for the people living in the Golden state.
It is unsustainable but profitable for now. So, The California almonds are making their way into every part of the world including China and India.
According to UNFAO report,
“..While world imports of almonds (shelled plus in-shell) expanded at a significant 42% over the six-year period from 2014 to 2019. .Almond imports to China and India (measured in shelled tonnes) expanded by 106.7% and 69.6%. The Asia-Pacific market now accounts for 27% of California almond shipments.”
Here’s another interesting thing, Almonds are native to the Levant. The Chinese and Indians were eating almonds with Ancient Egyptians and Babylonians from ancient times. So it’s by no means an exotic recent import from the new world. In fact, the imports are killing the local almond production. Farmers in Kashmir are cutting down their almond groves to grow apples and other produce due to influx of cheaper imports. So, the regions with more rainfall and favorable conditions for the crop are decreasing their production while the water deficient west coast increased their yield.
So here we are, eating food from a drought hit region across the world while the local production with enough resources is halted because they can’t compete with the prices.
This, in fact, is symptomatic of a larger issue at hand. Whether it’s electronic goods from far east, cheap human resources from India or almonds from California. It has to do with the the way global supply chains are organized to serve the world markets.
Cheap and readily available resources are the backbone of the modern economy much like the colonial system that preceded it. The idea of exploiting human and natural resources for maximum profit with minimal consequences is an old industrial standard.
That being said, To create an economic system which puts trade first and people next is not something we agreed on. Yet here we are buying coca cola made from the groundwater under us like in Mexico. In fact, a Mexican city actually drinks more coca cola than water according to this news article
“Buffeted by the dual crises of the diabetes epidemic and the chronic water shortage, residents of San Cristóbal have identified what they believe is the singular culprit: the hulking Coca-Cola factory on the edge of town. The plant has permits to extract more than 300,000 gallons of water a day as part of a decades-old deal with the federal government that critics say is overly favorable to the plant’s owners.”
Mexico is facing its worst water crisis in 30 years as of 2022 and it’s President asked the soft drinks companies to stop their production. It is not working.
The world’s powerful have created a system where people who live in the land no longer own the resources. Everything that is strictly not a human life is put up for sale in most liberalized economies. The poor were bearing the brunt of it but the middle class across the world are starting to feel the pinch.
The supply chain disruption at pandemic time should have been a perfect opportunity to examine the system in place. It could’ve helped us reflect on the basics a country needs and can’t trade away. The world economy’s addictive dependence on cheap oil and human resources could have been overhauled. The environmental costs could have been at least acknowledged if not addressed.
Instead, We are being told to consume as much as possible again. Workers are being marched back to their offices to increase economic activity. The rich organized the world with total disregard for anything but profit. Come to think of it, the global supply chains are not a mess. The global economy never factored in the human and ecological costs in the first place.
So I guess we can all go thirsty and starve in it’s service.
