Why California nut growers’ UC Davis gift is controversial
Stewart and Lynda Resnick donated $50 million to fund a new center for sustainable agriculture practices at UC Davis, but environmentalists reacted with suspicion to the school’s mid-October announcement of their gift. … $10 million of the Resnicks’ gift is earmarked for research grants that are focused on identifying value-added properties in pistachio, almond and pomegranate byproducts. These crops are all part of the billionaire couple’s portfolio. … As California faces a continuing record drought, the Resnicks’ companies are the state’s biggest single water users — an estimated 150 billion gallons a year for their crops, Forbes Magazine estimated in 2021. The annual amount of water they use to grow more than 120,000 thousand acres of their produce in the southern San Joaquin Valley …