Almonds are California's largest nut crop, it is a $2 billon industry. California's Central Valley is a bread basket of the United States. It is flanked by the Sierra Nevada mountain range to the east and the Coastal Ranges to the west. When water was plentiful farmers flooded the fields with water, today they use microsprinklers or drip irrigation in the orchards. 

Farming gets most of it's water from the Sierra Nevada mountain's winter snow packs. Because of drought and climate change, there is little snow and farmers have become dependent on well water. Overpumping in the Central Valley has caused areas of the valley to sinking 1.27cm a month and erodes the buffer against future droughts. The land subsidence is cracking irrigation canals, buckling roads. This trend can create a another dust bowl era but in California creating a great environmental disaster.