Almonds: Reimagining a California Keystone Crop

Why Almonds?

California's favorable growing climate and increasing market demand for almonds have elevated the state to a competitive position in the global market. Almonds now cover 1.25 million acres in California, more land area than any other crop in the state!

How can we make a shift in this industry to improve soil health, increase water use efficiency, and sustain local farming communities?

A transformed almond industry has the power to:

Improve the nutrient quality of the crop
Sequester more carbon
Improve water efficiency
Sustain yields in an increasingly uncertain climate
Improve farmer livelihoods

We believe that farmers, scientists, and brands working together are uniquely positioned to transform the almond industry. Together we create powerful market signals, educate customers, and identify scientifically-significant healthy soil practices.

The Almond Project

Our Partnership with Simple Mills, Daily Harvest and Cappello’s + Pacific Ag Management Inc. and Treehouse California Almonds

Simple Mills, Daily Harvest, and Cappello’s are committed to supporting scientific research, deepening partnership with their supplier farmers, and advancing regenerative agriculture for three key outcomes: improving soil health, increasing biodiversity and empowering farming communities. To meet this goal, they have partnered with WBLT, Pacific Ag Management Inc., and Treehouse Almonds to trial soil health practices on two 80 acre almond blocks; one that is currently conventional, and one that is newly organic. The project began in Fall 2021 and will run for five years.

Simple Mills is funding the research on the conventional block and Daily Harvest is funding research on the organic block. The two eighty-acre blocks (organic and conventional) will trial a reduction in inputs (especially synthetic nitrogen and herbicides), planting cover crops, increasing compost application, and integrating animals in the orchards to graze the cover crop and fertilize the soil. The study will measure ecosystem services on the farm, including water infiltration, carbon storage, and biodiversity.

Our Partners:

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Our partnership with Ben and Jerry’s + The Gonzales-Siemens Family Farm

As a company, Ben and Jerry’s has climate targets and is investing in projects like ours in order to better understand how they can help farmers in their value chain reduce the environmental impacts of ingredients used in the company’s products. Starting in 2020, Ben and Jerry’s partnered with us to invest in a five-year scientific trial on 13 acres of almonds in Wasco, CA. In addition to the trial, they are also purchasing the almonds grown from this project for use in their non-dairy ice cream.