A 2025 Food Tank Winter Book List selection
A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.
Almonds have become a poster crop for agriculture's environmental controversies. Notorious for consuming vast volumes of water and trucking honeybees across the continent, California's almond orchards appear extraordinarily needy. In Spain, however, almond trees have long epitomized the exact opposite: rain-fed resilience. Often planted at the margins of agricultural viability, almonds are championed for their ecological thrift rather than their thirst. How is it that a crop can be known in such radically different ways? The Almond Paradox explores a captivating contrast between divergent ways of knowing not only how much water or pollination almond trees need, but also which trees should be grown and where. Charting the buildup to a global almond boom, the book exposes how situated histories of capitalism, land, science, and the state profoundly shape the most fundamental ways of understanding agriculture. A recognition of knowledge as place based further reveals how seemingly placeless efficiency deepens ecological precarity.
Emily Reisman is Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York.
"Both smart and succinct, The Almond Paradox asks big questions and delivers even bigger insights into what we think we know about the plants that feed us."—Susanne Freidberg, author of Fresh: A Perishable History
"Emily Reisman has brilliantly refuted the widely held assumption that almond trees are inherently thirsty plants requiring intensive pollination, making the case that almonds can, in fact, be grown in environmentally responsive ways. Arguing that almond intensification is driven by political economy and the politics of knowledge rather than by biological imperatives, this thoroughly researched yet accessible book shows us how the values built into agronomic science shape not only the almond, but the entire infrastructure within which almonds grow.”—Saul Halfon, Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Society, Virginia Tech
"Explains the rise and risks of intensive almond production in California and Spain. This book makes theoretically sophisticated arguments about how different types of agricultural knowledge, innovations, and 'facts' are produced in different political-economic contexts—and by whom—with attention to how 'new facts' emerge, who benefits, who pays, and why it matters. Reisman takes a novel approach by reading one case study against another to examine the historical evolution of agricultural knowledge, technologies, geographies, and farming practices of almond production systems in both Spain and California. Her engaging prose, evidence-backed insights, and compelling narrative make this an excellent book for scholars, students, and advocates working in agricultural and food systems change, food justice, geography, environmental studies, food studies, and science and technology studies."—Christopher Bacon, Professor of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Santa Clara University
"This is a stunningly original book. On the sturdy foundation of critical agrarian studies of California, Reisman builds a penetrating analysis of the way agribusiness bends nature to its will, here in the case of almond growing. But by comparing that with almond cultivation in Spain, she shows that the radically altered nature of almond production is not the only DNA twisted by capitalist logic. A distorted knowledge of the complex of almonds, bees, water, chemicals, and more is produced along with the crop. Just as science helps capital, nature, and labor spew out more and more almonds, the almond business generates a science turned to its own needs—one so naturalized that it's as hard to crack as a Spanish almond."—Richard A. Walker, author of The Conquest of Bread: 150 Years of Agribusiness in California
"With sharp wit and insight, this beautifully written book uncovers the complex politics behind a deceptively simple question: What do crops need? Moving between California's high-tech, high-stakes almond industry and Spain's dryland groves, Reisman constructs a compelling comparative analysis to reveal how agronomic knowledge of plants's needs—far from neutral—is shaped by land regimes, economic imperatives, and historical legacies of extraction. An indispensable read for anyone interested in food, technology, and politics."—Kelly Bronson, author of The Immaculate Conception of Data: Agribusiness, Activists, and Their Shared Politics of the Future
186 pp.6 x 9Illus: 8 figures, 2 maps
9780520413832$34.95|£30.00Paper
Oct 2025