Pistachio Wars

Journalist Yasha Levine follows a lead on a water sale between a farmer and a small desert town and discovers a hidden side to California’s healthy snack industry.

At the centre of the story are the Resnicks, billionaires with the flashiest mansion in Beverly Hills and a monopoly on the pistachio trade. They’ve taken control of California’s water: draining rivers, building plantations in the middle of a desert, leaving a trail of environmental collapse. Towns ravaged by drought, farms built on oil fields, mass extinction, a water heist straight from the plot of Chinatown, and… war with Iran?