California farmers expect rebound in almond industry
… While some [almond] growers and producers are optimistic the industry is turning around, others continue struggling. … In the last few years, state groundwater legislation known as SGMA began limiting landowners’ groundwater use, resulting in tough decisions about how much land growers can irrigate and which crops they can afford to keep alive. As a result, land prices have been shifting based on access to other water sources like irrigation canals. A recent report by land pricing company Acres, which crunches numbers based on publicly available data from land sales, shows that land values for almond orchards have been declining for years, regardless of water access.