Drive anywhere in Central California and you'll find fields of almonds. So many new trees have been planted in recent years that people have begun to wonder whether the growth of the almond industry is unsustainable. It seems like the price of the nut may have met a slippery slope.
It started out with almonds getting a lot of bad press over the last few years. The nut was called out for soaking up too much water, while at the same time farmers were making bank on the tree crop. Meanwhile, the commodity slowly lost value.
Vernon Crowder says the price of the nut per pound has dropped "about 20 percent, maybe just a little bit more, since late 2014." Crowder is part of a Food and Agribusiness Research Advisory Group with Rabobank in Fresno.
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