Californian Dilemma: Almonds or People?

Let's see: almonds are healthy. And you can sell them legally. So, the debate is...? JL

Emiko Terazono reports in the Financial Times:

California needs to reconsider whether it is the best place for almonds to be grown in the face of the state’s water crisis, said the head of one of the world’s largest agricultural businesses.

“It’s almonds versus people."

California needs to reconsider whether it is the best place for almonds to be grown in the face of the state’s water crisis, said the head of one of the world’s largest agricultural businesses.

“It’s almonds versus people,” said David MacLennan, the chief executive of Cargill, when asked at the FT Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne whether almonds would still be produced in California by 2020.
Cargill does not have an almond business. However, Mr MacLennan said while he thought almonds would still be produced in the state in five years' time, California needed to have a debate about its agricultural industry, which is the main consumer of water.“[California] needs to have that public debate about where almonds are best grown,” he said.

Mr MacLennan’s comments came as he spoke about the need for the commodities industry’s need for a greater focus on sustainability.

The prolonged drought in California and the threat of global water crises were some of the signposts that sustainability needed to become the “new normal” for commodities businesses.
While concerns about where and how crops and metals, minerals and energy are sourced, traded and processed were not new, they were “becoming louder, more persistent and more intense,” said Mr MacLennan.

His comments echo that of his predecessor Greg Page, who called for greater transparency at the FT Commodities Summit in 2013. At the time, Mr Page warned that trading houses needed to embrace ethical and transparent business practices or risk being vilified by the public and regulators as the banking sector had been.

Growing worries about the impact of raw-material production and trade on the environment and the wellbeing of smallholder farmers have meant greater demands for higher transparency from traders and traceability of commodities in the supply chain.
It has also led to a proliferation of new sourcing standards and certification schemes and lists of “bad actors” created by NGOs and governments. As a result, a growing number of companies have needed to reassure consumers that their supply chains are free of conflict minerals, tropical deforestation or abusive labour practices.
Sustainability cannot become little more than a box-ticking exercise, said Mr MacLennan. “We can’t afford it to be a trend or a fad. The impact is too significant and the stakes are too high,” he said.