Lawmaker Says Nuts to Almond as a California Symbol

A state lawmaker is dropping his proposal to make the almond the state’s official nut because there’s too much nutty competition.

“You know what they say, there are a lot of nuts in California,” Karen Reinecke, president of the California Pistachio Commission, said with a chuckle.

Assemblyman George House’s almond bill was scheduled for its first hearing Monday before an Assembly committee.

A spokesman for the Hughson Republican said Friday the lawmaker is dropping the bill because the walnut and pistachio industries don’t like it.

“We really didn’t know that when we introduced the bill,” spokesman David Pegos said.

Almonds are California’s largest food-export product. California produces 80% of the world’s almonds and ships the nuts to more than 90 foreign countries, said Susan Brauner of Blue Diamond Growers, a Sacramento-based cooperative that is the world’s largest tree-nut processing and marketing company.

Almonds are served not only on many airlines with the drinks, but also fly on Air Force One and most of the Space Shuttle flights, she said.

The California almond crop is valued around $1 billion a year and is the state’s sixth most valuable crop, according to the state Food and Agriculture Department.

Walnuts, with a yearly value of $335 million, are No. 15. Pistachios don’t make the top 20 at $122 million, but California is the second leading producer in the world, after Iran, Reinecke said.

She said none of the three leading nuts is indigenous to California and the state really shouldn’t have an official nut.

“To start getting into a situation where you’re choosing the state nut, then are you going to choose the state type of lettuce and the state tree fruit and everything else? Really, what’s the point?” she said.

“It helps to promote all nuts together rather than making one over another,” she added.

The almond would have joined the state’s list of 26 official state symbols, including flora, fauna, rocks and a few people.

Over the years, the Legislature has authorized these symbols or insignia. Some are very well known, such as the California poppy or the California redwood.

Others are a bit obscure. The California Consolidated Drum Band was designated as the official state fife and drum corps in 1997. Lawmakers in 1991 named the chipped stone bear discovered in a San Diego County archeological dig in 1985 as the state prehistoric artifact.

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On the Net: House’s bill, AB2636, at: https://www.assembly.ca.gov