Comment by rrrrrrrrrrrryan

People grow almonds in the desert specifically because they have access to artificially cheap water. In the U.S. lots of land comes with water rights: e.g. if a river or creek passes through your land you can use x% of the water to irregate your crops. Some of these water rights date back to the 1800s and they're locked in.

The water rights can be clawed back a couple ways: if they're unused for X years, or in times of drought.

There's an exception for droughts though: farmers with trees (that would die if unwatered) still get priority, while people that grow crops that replenish each season (like wheat) don't.

So this leads to perverse incentives where these farmers need to find a way to use ALL of their water, every year, or they'll lose access to their absurd water rights from the 1800s, and they need to use it on trees so it doesn't get clawed back during a multi year drought.

So, they end up planting the most water-hungry trees they can grow on their land (almonds), then they get to sell them to the world at artificially low prices because the water that was used to grow them is almost free.