The State of the Industry session, slated for Tuesday, Dec. 6, at 4:00 p.m., serves as the official opening of the 44th annual Almond Conference. California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross will share her observations concerning the progress of both the agricultural community and the almond industry. Joel Kimmelshue, owner and principal soil and agricultural scientist of Land IQ, will present the results of spatial imaging work that is proving vital to sustainability analyses. Wrapping up this session, Almond Board of California (ABC) chairman Mike Mason and CEO Richard Waycott will discuss
their reflections on the industry, ABC’s accomplishments over the past year, and what lies in store for 2017.
Land IQ, a Sacramento-based agricultural and environmental consulting firm, began working with ABC in 2014 to develop an orchard-by-orchard spatial mapping product. When the work currently underway is finished, ABC will possess spatially determined almond acreage data and mapping for four points in time: 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016. This cumulative data will be descriptive of how and where the almond industry’s acreage has grown over the past six years.
“Ground Truthing”
Publicly available spatial imagery that has been validated with extensive on-the-ground verification, or “ground truthing,” has produced a mapping product that is, in the case of 2014 almond acreage, 96.8% accurate. The result is a comprehensive spatial database of almond acreage throughout the entire state of California that serves as a baseline from which the data can be analyzed from different perspectives.
Understanding the impacts of almonds and associated spatial distribution, crop change over time, and acreage location is fundamental to accurate analyses and conclusions for the future of the almond industry.
This data will be complementary to the acreage surveys conducted by the National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS), which ABC will continue to consider the official acreage report for the industry and will continue to inform subjective and objective crop reports from NASS.
Countering Misperceptions
To date, findings from the Land IQ spatial mapping project have allowed the almond industry to clear up misperceptions and better tell the almond industry’s story. For example, data from the mapping project allow us to accurately say that almond acreage growth over the last 10 to 15 years has replaced both perennial and annual crops. Of the almond acreage planted during this time, 96% lies within the Central Valley’s historic irrigated area, most often replacing other irrigated crops. Contrary to recent speculation, only 42,000 acres of growth over the last 10 to 15 years has occurred within previously nonirrigated grasslands.
Also through the mapping project, analysis of almond acreage indicates that nearly 675,000 acres are moderately good or better in their ability to recharge groundwater based on soil surface and subsurface factors.
Moving forward, the mapping will continue to investigate various proximity analyses as they relate to areas of concern and opportunity for the California Almond industry.
Mark your calendars and attend the State of the Industry presentation at The Almond Conference 2016, Tuesday, Dec. 6, at 4:00 p.m., in Sacramento to learn more about this exciting research.
