Planting almond trees now doesn&#x27;t necessarily require confidence that the state is going to bail them out.  Because almonds are a high-value crop, even significant increases in the price of water will not make them uneconomic to grow.<p>I think we agree that farmers should be paying more for water in any case.  Alas, the Rube Goldberg-esque legal structure that&#x27;s grown up around water rights since the 1800s makes this much harder to implement than it should be -- and <i>that</i> is the <i>real</i> problem.