Can tomatoes help fix California’s water crisis? Recently, intense droughts have depleted the state’s reservoirs, and traditional water-saving methods—such as collecting rain and snowmelt—haven’t replenished supplies. But now two companies have joined forces to “grow” water from tomato waste. Australia’s Botanical Water Technologies is teaming up with California’s Ingomar Packing Company, a processor that transforms raw tomatoes into a variety of products, such as ketchup and tomato paste. During the extraction process, tomatoes lose about 95 percent of their water, which is then usually discarded. But Botanical’s technique can convert it into drinkable water through a purification process. Officials hope to deliver clean drinking water to 100 million people by 2025, with the long-term goal of exporting the technology to other places where water is scarce. “As farmers, we very much understand the importance of water conservation,” says Greg Pruett, Ingomar sales and energy manager. This “allows us to start moving the needle in the right direction in terms of making our product and process more sustainable.”
