Low carbon footprint.
Finding ways to reduce our environmental footprint while adding value is at the heart of almond farming, ensuring farmers can grow a better future for their families, communities and the planet.
Almond trees capture and store a significant amount of carbon over their 25-year life cycle, and using the hulls, shells, and trees themselves are key ways farmers are reducing the carbon footprint of almond production1. Considering the inherent properties of trees and traditional uses of almond coproducts, current almond farming practices are offsetting about 50% of their carbon emissions.2 With further production improvements and policy changes, the California almond community could eventually be carbon neutral, or even carbon negative.
According to Dr. Alissa Kendall, researcher at University of California, Davis, “California almonds have a lower carbon footprint than many other nutrient-dense foods.”
In fact, A University of Oxford study found that nuts, including almonds, are responsible for far fewer greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of food compared to other agriculture such as beef, dairy and poultry1.