Billionaire Stewart Resnick Expands Almond Acreage as Cities Forced to Slash Water Use

[annm4peace]

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/04/21/18771371.php


A coalition of environmentalists on April 20 blasted Beverly Hills billionaire Stewart Resnick and other corporate agribusiness interests for continuing to plant thousands of acres of new almond trees during the drought while Governor Jerry Brown is mandating that urban families slash water usage by 25 percent.

“While farmers make their own decisions on what to plant, the public is paying the price for poor decisions made by greedy mega-growers, who plant permanent crops where there is no water,” Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta, told reporters in a news conference about the “tunnels only” version of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) that Governor Jerry Brown is now pushing. “That is not sustainable and the tunnels would subsidize unsustainable agriculture.”

Barrigan-Parrilla said Resnick, the owner of Paramount Farms in Kern County, uses as much water for his almonds as the amount of water 38 million Californians are now required to conserve. At this year’s annual pistachio conference hosted by Paramount Farms, Resnick revealed his current efforts to expand pistachio, almond, and walnut acreage during a record drought.

[Andy823]

1. That's insane

Why would anyone with a conscience continue to plant "more" acreage in walnut trees in such a drought? There should a a mandatory rule that NO MORE acreage can be planted until the drought is over. Hell I would think that this would be a no brainer for the state to demand such a thing. I also think that there should be a ban on filling swimming pools, watering golf courses, or any other "waste" of water.

Trees take a lot of water, planting more of them is just plain wrong!

[MisterP]

2. if you can afford more than thrice the water that all LA uses, you can damn well afford to plaster

the hills with signs about "man! made! drought!" and "killing! American! jobs!"

[handmade34]

3. and... interesting

tied to great move to dishonor Obama Whitehouse treaty with Iran?

older article but very interesting...

"...Pistachios are very important to the Resnicks, bringing in at least 20% of their agricultural revenue. Economic sanctions (against Iran) are what have allowed the Resnicks to create their pistachio empire, which would suffer a severe blow if relations with Iran were ever normalized.

Iran’s pistachios are considered to be superior to America’s, so much so that Israelis still buy Iranian pistachios shipped in through Turkey. Surely the Resnicks would never be able to compete with Iran on the pistachio free market. And so the Resnicks did what any smart and ruthless American would do: they made common cause with oil companies, Islamophobes, neocons and Likudniks, and began funneling money to think tanks and political advocacy groups that take a hardline approach with Iran.

Economic sanctions, sabotage, vilification—all these things worked in the Resnicks’ interest. Bombing some of Iran’s pistachio fields wouldn’t be so bad, either…"


http://mondoweiss.net/2013/07/oligarch-valley-how-beverly-hills-billionaire-farmers-lynda-and-stewart-resnick-profit-from-the-iran-sanctions-they-lobbied-for