Thieves plague California nut farmers

by Joe DiStefano, Posted Nov 20th 2006 @ 5:04PM

A spike in prices for walnuts and almonds has created a nut poaching problem for California farmers. Thieves have become so bold that in addition to stealing harvests from farms they are snatching truckloads of nuts from warehouses. The state produces 80 percent of the world's almonds and 99 percent of walnuts grown domestically.

One Fresno farmer reports that he's caught whole families plundering hundreds of pounds of walnuts from his orchard. But the real money lies in almonds. Last month a staggering 44,000 pounds of processed almonds worth $135,000 were recovered by a Fresno County task force. Thus far this year, the state's farmers have lost at least $1.5 million due to stolen almonds.

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Filed Under: Ingredients
Tags: almonds, California, Fresno, Fresno County, FresnoCounty, nuts, seeds, walnuts, west coast