Here are the morning’s top stories on Tuesday, July 9, 2024…
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- In the last decade, almonds have turned up everywhere. Even at the Super Bowl, where a commercial showed actor Jeremy Renner supercharged by almond milk. Even so, California almond producers have been struggling. Growers have in some ways been the victims of their own success – although the outlook might be improving.
- A new report from the state’s insurance commissioner takes a long view on the dangers of high temperatures, reporting that nearly 140,000 Californians visited the hospital because of extreme heat in the last decade.
- 13 hikers who were unaccounted for in the Tahoe National Forest where the Royal Fire continues to burn have been found. They were reported missing after forest officials noticed vehicles were still parked at the trailhead Sunday night after the fire began.
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Number Of Factors Lead To Struggling Almond Market
An annual spring forecast published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows almond production in California this year could reach 3 billion pounds. That would make for a crop that’s 21% larger than last year’s, and it would approach the all-time high of roughly 3.1 billion pounds produced in 2020.
The problem for growers, however, is that the market is already awash with almonds. A high annual supply for many years coupled with COVID-era international shipping snags have led to the stockpiling of hundreds of millions of pounds above what is typically carried over from year to year.
As a result, market prices have been in decline since their peak in 2014. In 2022, the average price a pound of almonds could fetch was the lowest it’s been in more than twenty years, meaning many growers can’t even recover their operating costs. But things may be turning around. This spring, almond acreage dropped for the first time in decades. Overseas shipments are rebounding. And for some almond varieties, inventory is almost gone.
Hundreds Of Deaths, Thousands Of Injuries, Billions Of Dollars: The Cost Of Extreme Heat In California
A blistering California heat wave over the past week and through the Fourth of July holiday could be topped off by the hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth. That kind of extreme heat has led to more deaths than wildfires and cost billions of dollars over a decade, according to the state insurance department.