With all of the demand for good, safe, economic almonds, California faces a problem if pollination becomes more difficult. Demand is increasing but production is being limited by pollination problems. The environment is being changed by increase in land use for houses and cities and less land for natural woods. This changes the bee population also. The Almond Board of California has set up the Bee Task Force to deal with problems with pollination. The Bee Task Force is a subcommittee of the Production Research Committee. Its job is to help make sure that there are enough bees to take care of the pollination process. They are searching for new technologies to help the bee problem.
The demand for almonds has increased because of new studies and new marketing strategies. Almonds are a good source of nutrition and are heart healthy. Eating them helps in lowering cholesterol and provide antioxidants. Tufts University did research on almonds and found they provide as much of the antioxidant called flavonoids as green tea and broccoli. Almonds also help to maintain proper body weight. The use of almonds in restaurants dishes has increased over 16% in the last year.
Almonds are an important crop in California. By the end of the decade the crop should be about 1.5 billion pounds and support thousands of jobs for Californians. California produces almost 100 percent of the domestic almonds. There are six thousand growers in the Central Valley and 580,000 acres of almond trees. Two thirds of California almonds go to other countries like Spain, Germany, Italy, France, and Japan. That’s over 610 million pounds of almonds. The need to have good relations with other trade markets is important. Also having almonds that are safe is important. The industry is working on pasteurization of almonds. [2]
Back to The Problem
Almonds
The almond crop was worth $1,626,000,000 dollars last year. California’s largest crop. Finding ways to pollinate the growing almond trees is very important problem. [2]
