Stewart Resnick

01

Co-owner with wife Lynda Resnick of The Wonderful Company, the largest private agricultural land owner in California by acreage; Resnick controls approximately 180,000 acres of California farmland — primarily in the San Joaquin Valley — producing pistachios (35%+ of US domestic production), almonds, clementines, and pomegranates, making him one of the most powerful private actors in US agricultural production. The Wonderful Company is privately held with no institutional investors.

02

Stewart Resnick effectively controls the Kern Water Bank — a massive underground water storage facility in Kern County, California that can hold approximately 1 million acre-feet (enough water to serve Los Angeles for two years) — through a 1995 privatization agreement negotiated during California's water market deregulation. During California's 2012–2017 extreme drought, Resnick's operations drew down stored water from the Kern Water Bank while other California users faced severe curtailments; water policy researchers documented that the 1995 agreement gave Resnick preferential access to water infrastructure built with public funds, at the expense of other agricultural users.

03

A 2019 investigation by journalist Mark Arax published in The Atlantic documented how Resnick's political donations to California politicians across party lines, direct lobbying relationships with state water officials, and long-standing influence over the Kern County Water Agency had shaped California water infrastructure decisions — including water allocation policies from the State Water Project — in ways that protected his agricultural empire's water access while other California water users faced mandatory cuts. The reporting described Resnick's structural influence over California's water governance as making him the single most powerful private actor in one of the most consequential resource allocation decisions in the American West.