California Supplies Thanksgiving

California Feeds the Nation on Thanksgiving!

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

California ranks #8 in turkey production in the United States (2016), and we supply most of the western states from our poultry farms located in several areas in the state.

The famous Mrs. Cubbison’s Stuffing or “Dressing” originated from a ç, born in 1890 in the San Marcos area of San Diego County. In short, Cubbison graduated from California Polytechnical University in May 1920 with a degree in Home Economics having paid her way through school with the money she earned feeding the farm workers.

Cubbison created her popular stuffing in 1948 using broken pieces of the popular Melba toast and various seasonings. The factory in Commerce, California churns it out in mass quantities this time of year.

California farmers produce almonds, raisins, walnuts, prunes, figs, dates, apricots, pistachios, and pomegranates, right on up the food line.

These are all celebrated Thanksgiving foods.

Celery from the Oxnard and Ventura area completes the stuffing mix. Nutrient-dense carrots, lettuce and fresh spinach from Salinas now arrive, pre-washed and bagged, in your local produce department. Your Thanksgiving traditional green beans come from California growers.

An ample supply of freshly harvested oranges and kiwi fruit, table grapes, strawberries, and raspberries are shipped from many areas in the state. Seasonal features include sweet potatoes from the Merced, about an hour north of Fresno, plus all kinds and colors of potatoes and tomatoes, parsley, onions, and garlic—all crops are raised in California.

Nearly all the fruits, vegetables and nuts that are part of America’s Thanksgiving are sourced from California.

Don’t forget about the great varieties of wine grapes grown in the No. 1 agricultural state that are deftly crafted into delectable California wines.

Or the thirst-quenching Martinelli sparkling apple or grape cider from Watsonville California, near the Monterey Bay area. Local growers provide the tree-ripened fruit to the award-winning company that is still family-owned after almost 150 years and is managed by the founder’s grandson and great-grandson. Here’s something to discuss at your Thanksgiving meal: the company won its first Gold Medal at the 1890 California State Fair in Sacramento.

How about those heirloom and new apple varieties, plus those small round watermelons that we snack on or toss into a dessert fruit salad, topped with California pomegranate arils?

Of course, we raise poultry, and even California lamb, if you want to go that way. Here is a Did-you-know? challenge for your holiday meal: What are the most recent Presidental Thanksgiving Turkeys from California pardoned by United States presidents? (Answers are below.)

And by the way, you know that food-safety pop-up turkey timer that indicates when the turkey has reached the correct internal temperature? Public relations genius Leo Pearlstein and a turkey producer in Turlock, a small town north of Fresno in Stanislaus County, invented this Thanksgiving fixture.

Back in the 1960s, they were sitting in a room trying to solve the undercooked poultry challenge, when they looked up and noticed ceiling fire sprinklers. The sprinklers sprayed water when the room temperature became hot enough to melt a tiny piece of metal alloy in the mechanism. This innovative team of two applied the same concept to the pop-up timer!

With the exception of cranberries, our national day of giving thanks for a bountiful harvest is really a California Thanksgiving.

Here are some friendly topics for discussion at your Thanksgiving Table:

What is the name of the famous Thanksgiving stuffing that originated in California?
What beverage company that is still operating won its first Gold Medal at the 1890 California State Fair?
How was the pop-up timer invented and by whom?
How does high does California rank in U.S. turkey production?
What are the most recent Presidental Thanksgiving Turkeys from California pardoned by United States presidents?

In 2010, President Obama pardoned Apple, a 45-pound turkey from Modesto, California-based Foster Farms; and alternate bird Cider.

In 2015, President Obama pardoned Apple, a 45-pound turkey and an alternate 43-pound bird named Honest, again from Foster Farms.

The Presidential Turkey flock are Nicholas White turkeys, which originated in California’s Sonoma Valley in 1957. Today, the Nicholas White is the industry standard. (Foster Farms)

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:17:10-07:00November 20th, 2017|

Real California Dairy Stories Told

California Milk Advisory Board Rolls Out New Social Media Series

By Aiden Glaspey, Editorial Intern

The California Milk Advisory Board, based in Tracy, recently released a new social media series called Real California Dairy Stories. California Ag Today spoke to Jennifer Giambroni, the director of communications with the California Milk Advisory Board, about the project.

“It’s a series of short, analyzed videos with our dairy families because when we talk to consumers, it’s really sharing the story, not just about the food, but about the families. So it’s all about returning to real. Real foods from real families, kissed by the California sun.”

Giambroni said the dairy food story is easy to tell.

“Obviously everyone loves dairy products. They love dairy foods. But we really want to get to know the farmers behind the seal. Why do you care if you buy that Real California Milk product? It’s because you’re supporting actual dairy families.”

“So Real California Dairy Stories goes into the field with our California Dairy Families, and just tells little ‘moment in time’ stories. We just launched this on our social media platforms. They’re all on our YouTube channel at Real California Milk,” Giambroni said.

And another place to view those unique videos is at the RealCaliforniaMilk.com website.

California Ag Today2017-09-02T23:11:57-07:00September 1st, 2017|

Sorghum May Be Alternative to Corn

Researcher Looks to Sorghum to Replace Corn Silage in Dry Years

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

Water has been a big issue in California for the last couple of years, and many dairy producers are looking for an alternative to corn silage for when water is scarce. Sorghum silage may be a viable alternative to corn. California Ag Today met with Jennifer Heguy, a farm advisor with the UC Cooperative Extension in Merced County who is working on a project, funded by the University of California, to research sorghum.

Heguy’s project consists of looking at sorghum silage to see if it is a good replacement for dairies when California does not have enough water to grow corn. Heguy said this is, “not a good time to talk about sorghum right now because we’ve had a really wet winter and we had this devastating sugar cane aphid last year, which just decimated sorghum crops, but we are continuing to work on sorghum silage.”

With the recent emergence of the sugar cane aphid last year, the sorghum crop in California took a big hit, but the project continues. Some of these projects can take two to three years to determine if it is a good fit into the California feeding systems.

“So this year, we are going to be taking a deeper look at the sorghum quality in terms of nutrition, fermentation characteristics, how people are putting this silage up, and how they are actually feeding it out,” Heguy said.

Photo Courtesy of University of California

Patrick Cavanaugh2021-05-12T11:05:16-07:00June 15th, 2017|

Data Loggers Could Impact Cattle Comfort

Data Loggers Could be Hardship on Cattle Being Transported

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Transporting cattle, or any livestock for that matter, has special nuances so drivers can get to the destination quickly for the animals’ comfort. Occasionally a driver can self-adjust the drive time beyond the mandated limit.

But now a new regulation regarding electronic logging devices by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in Washington D.C., may be implemented December this year, forcing drivers to stop.

“It would essentially require commercial truck drivers to use a electronic device to comply with the hours of service schedule that they’re required to meet, which limits both on-duty time and driving time,” said Justin Oldfield, a California cattleman and vice president of governmental affairs with the California Cattlemen’s Association in Sacramento.

“We not only have the cattle’s welfare that we need to take into account for, but we’ve got to get to that destination and make sure those cattle are off-loaded properly and safely,” Oldfield said.

Oldfield said they’re looking at some alternatives that would help the California Cattlemen’s Association members. “One of the things that we are concerned about is our distance to a lot of buyers, which would be in the Midwest,” Oldfield explained. “So any additional cost that this regulation might cause would probably be felt more significantly farther from the Midwest, which would primarily represent California, other states in the West and the Southeast.”

The current regulation is maximum on-duty time of 14 hours, with maximum driving time being 11 hours, with a 10-hour break. If a driver hauling cattle was only 100 miles from the destination, he would want to keep going for the comfort of the cattle. But with the electronic logger in place, he’d be forced to take that 10-hour break.

“Some of the issues that we have, for instance, is technically you’re on-duty even if you’re waiting to load cattle. So there are situations to where maybe there’s eight trucks waiting to load cattle, and you could be waiting in line for 2, 3 hours. And that entire time is counting against your on-duty time,” Oldfield said.

“We’re looking at where we can try to ensure that those hours are not counted against your maximum on-duty time,” he said.

And another area that’s being looked at is an exclusion for drivers hauling live animals, in order to have time to get to destinations.

“Our membership is basically past policy that asks us to look at everything, including that. There’s of course the challenge politically of making these changes on the regulatory side. I can tell you that nothing is off the table at this point,” Oldfield said. “Again, the reform is not necessarily the electron log-in device. The reform itself is the hours of service.”

Patrick Cavanaugh2021-05-12T11:17:10-07:00April 11th, 2017|

Meat Consumption Expected to Rise

Lowell Catlett On Ag, Part Three

Meat Consumption Increases as Population Rises

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

Lowell Catlett, who is a Regents Professor emeritus in Agricultural Economics and Agricultural Business and Extension Economics and was the Dean of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at New Mexico State University until he retired in 2015, told California Ag Today that increased income for the lower to middle classes is leading to an increase in meat consumption.

“As their incomes rise and they want to change their diets,” Catlett explained, “the first change they want to make is meat-based proteins. When we [isolate] just the income effect of the world getting more money, we must increase global meat output in the next 20 years by 50 percent. As of 2014, the average adult American consumed approximately 198 pounds of meat annually. By 2024, that number is expected to rise to 207.5 pounds.”

A surge in meat consumption requires increased grazing acreage for those production animals. “If the world grows to 9 billion people,” Catlett said, “we must double meat-based proteins — whatever they may be. I maintain most will come from intensive animal operations that are well-managed, more efficient, have a small impact on the environment, and cater to the overall physical health of the animal.”

“We’ll be doing most of that global meat supply in the United States because we have the infrastructure to provide those intensive animal operations,” Catlett said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2021-05-12T11:17:10-07:00March 28th, 2017|

Doug Mederos to be Named Tulare’s 57th Farmer of the Year

Doug Mederos to be Tulare’s Farmer of the Year

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

On March 29, the Kiwanis Club of Tulare County will recognize Doug Mederos as the 57th Farmer of the Year. Mederos – a diversified farmer and owner of Doug Les Farms in Tulare County – grows almonds, pistachios, cotton, silage corn and black-eyed peas. Mederos farms 600 acres and manages another 300 acres for his brother.

Mederos told California Ag Today the award caught him by surprise. “It is pretty humbling,” he said, “especially when you see the list of growers they picked [in prior years], and you always wonder, ‘Do I fit in this list or not?’”

Mederos’ family has been farming for several generations. “My grandfather came over in 1920 and started a dairy, P & M Farms, with his brother. When my father got out of the military, he joined the partnership with my grandfather and my uncle and my uncle’s son, Larry Pires.

“Along the way, my two brothers and my cousin’s sister, Loretta, all worked at the farm. My cousin Larry and I eventually became partners in the Pires and Mederos Dairy operation after we graduated from college.

The partners decided to move the dairy out of California and chose South Dakota. Mederos explained, “I stayed here farming in California, and I’ve been pretty fortunate over the years. We’ve had good years and bad years, but the majority of them have been good. Hopefully continuing on so that at some point I get to retire.”

Mederos’ children may continue their family’s legacy of farming in the Central Valley. “Probably my son or somebody will take over,” Mederos said. “He’s going to go off to Fresno State and to major in Ag business, so hopefully in a few years, he’ll be back here. Who knows, maybe it will be my daughter who comes around and ends up running the farm. You never know.”

Patrick Cavanaugh2017-04-20T13:11:02-07:00March 27th, 2017|

GMOs Are Part of Nature’s Technology

Lowell Catlett On Ag, Part Two

GMOs Are an Ancient Technology

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

Lowell Catlett says GMOs have been around for thousands of years.

There is not a morsel of food that 7.2 billion people put it their mouth today that is not GMO. “That is called agriculture,” said Dr. Lowell Catlett, Ph.D. He is a futurist with a positive and upbeat predictions about agriculture.

Catlett gave California Ag Today the inside story on hybrids and GMOs. One question arose about whether hybrids are indeed considered genetically modified organisms. “Of course they are,” he said. “If you want to say it’s transngenetic, somebody moved a gene out of a fish into corn, that’s trans genetic. If you say GMO, that’s all of agriculture.”

What many people do not understand is that their non-GMO products, do come from GMO sources. “I get a kick out of people saying, ‘Well, this is non-GMO milk for ice cream.’ That Holstein has been genetically modified for 400 years. She is a genetically modified organism. There is no question about it,” Catlett said.

“We have the ability to move things around with genetics. The whole green revolution that gave people more food than at any time in history was all about accelerating genetically. Genetic modification in the old traditional ways is [what] we now call hybridization or crossing, ” Catlett said.

Corn is a GMO crop as well. “It was domesticated about 8,000 years ago by Neolithic women by crossing two grasses. Also, diabetic insulin is the result of GMO technology,” Catlett explained. “If you love yogurt, most yogurt in the United States is manufactured through a genetic modification called CRISPR, which is mother nature’s way of modifying genes.”

This process is caused by the bacteria in the yogurt. “It is the technology that bacteria use to protect themselves from invading other bacteria or pathogens. Right now, the 27 countries that are the EU, or soon to be the 26 EU countries that have banned GMOs, are now having to come back and say, ‘Wait a minute, CRISPR technology is Mother Nature’s technology.’ Mother Nature was a good genetic engineer long before we did it in laboratory” Catlett said.

“It is going to be an interesting time for GMOs in the next few years as the technologies merge to help us have better understandings and better control over things,” Catlett said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2021-05-12T11:17:10-07:00March 23rd, 2017|

A Great Time to Be in Agriculture

Lowell Catlett On Ag, Part One

Agriculture Is Primed to Provide Different Food to Masses

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

Lowell Catlett says California agriculture is in a good place.

Lowell Catlett, a former professor at New Mexico State University who continues to lecture with a style that keeps the audience engaged, shared with us what a great time it is to be in agriculture. “I think it is the best time because we have never had a period in history where we have had so many people, worldwide, rising out of abject poverty into middle class” he explained.

“They become consumers, and they want things, and they want a lot of things. They want the things that they see other people have. That means they want California pistachios, almonds and walnuts, and all the bounty that California produces, including its milk and eggs and cheeses, and everything else,” Catlett said.

“Once someone earns more money, one of the first things they change is their diets, and they like to get things that are unusual and unique. And California is the breadbasket of the world in terms of its ability to produce different things, and you’re seeing that translate into best time ever to be in agriculture,” he said.

Not only does current agriculture have the products, but there is plenty of money to buy those products. “There is so much money. The net worth of the United States right now over 123 million households is $94 trillion. The world’s output last year was $73 trillion, so we have $20 trillion more in household net worth than the whole world combined, The consumers want organic, or they want certified to the source. We have to certify those things to the source. They want all kinds of different food choices,” Catlett said.

“Before, people just wanted food, and they now want all these other foods. They may want gluten free, and they many not even have celiac disease. And it all helps the farmers to have markets we never had before, and that is fabulous,” Catlett said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2017-04-20T13:54:41-07:00March 22nd, 2017|

Caution Advised on USDA Proposal

California Dairies Cautious On USDA Proposal

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

California Ag Today met recently with Kevin Abernathy, the general manager for Milk Producers Council. Milk Producer’s Council is an advocacy organization trying to make sure the dairies in California are being treated correctly. The MPC has been working for a long time to ensure that the California dairies are well taken care of. Especially when it comes to the USDA proposal to add the California dairy industry into the Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO).

Kevin Abernathy, Manager of Milk Producers Council

“MPC has been an advocacy group on behalf of California dairy families since 1949. This FMMO process is something we have been akin to since the start of it,” Abernathy said. “It was the early leadership of MPC that started the process of adding twenty-some odd years ago. Then the work evolved into work done by Sye Vanderdusson, Jeffery Vandenheuvel and Rob Vandenheuvel, with their growth management plans, which lead to the Holstein plan, which got evolved into the Foundation For The Future plan, which ultimately ended up where we’re at today.”

It is said that CDFA still has the upper hand in the situation concerning quotas and pay. The MPC is taking a look into these concerns.

“If this was something that was announced by CDFA because we have the experience in working in the California system, it is easy for us to calculate and the compute the outcomes. … So that is the process that we are going through right now and understanding how this thing works,” Abernathy said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2021-05-12T11:17:10-07:00March 20th, 2017|

Avian Flu Risk is High

Protect Poultry from Avian Flu

University of California poultry experts are urging poultry owners to examine biosecurity for their flocks after avian influenza was confirmed in commercial chickens in Tennessee by the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service on March 5. To protect the birds’ health, UC scientists recommend taking measures to prevent poultry from coming into contact with wild birds.

“Based on the initial sequence of the virus, the source of the virus is thought to be waterfowl,” said Maurice Pitesky, UC Cooperative Extension poultry specialist in the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis. “This is consistent with the current understanding of how avian influenza spreads and evolves. Specifically, juveniles are infected at breeding locations and travel south in the fall carrying virus. As the waterfowl move southward, they are more likely to interact with other species, increasing the risk of interspecies transmission and formation of new varieties of avian influenza.”

The case in Lincoln County, Tenn., is the first report of highly pathogenic H7 avian influenza in commercial poultry in the United States this year. The flock of 73,500 affected chickens is located within the Mississippi Flyway, one of four North American flyways for migratory birds.

“Lincoln County is located in one of the medium-high risk areas that were identified by our risk map, said Beatriz Martínez López, director of the Center for Animal Disease Modeling and Surveillance in the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis.

The UC Agriculture and Natural Resources researcher, who studies risk factors for the spread of avian influenza, noted that California is within atthe Pacific Flyway.

“We need to increase awareness of poultry producers to maximize the biosecurity implemented in their operations, particularly in those located in high-risk areas, mainly farms that are in close proximity to wetlands or other wild bird feeding and resting areas,” Martínez López said.

Poultry owners can identify biosecurity strengths and weaknesses for their own farm or backyard flock by filling out a free survey designed by Martínez López and other poultry experts. People who raise chickens, quail, ducks, turkeys, geese or other birds anywhere in the United States are invited to use the resource. At the end of the survey, participants receive specific research-based recommendations of biosecurity measures they can apply on their own types of farms. The poultry biosecurity survey is available in English http://bit.ly/2kkMycf and Spanish http://bit.ly/2mjO13G. The survey takes 15 to 20 minutes to complete and will be open until June 1.

If you would like UC Cooperative Extension to notify you if there is an avian influenza outbreak in your area, sign up on the California Poultry Census page: http://ucanr.edu/sites/poultry/California_Poultry_Census.

Owners of backyard chickens who observe illness or increased mortality among their birds should call their veterinarian or the California Department of Food Agriculture sick bird hotline at (866) 922-BIRD (2473).

For more information about raising poultry, visit http://ucanr.edu/sites/poultry.

Patrick Cavanaugh2021-05-12T11:17:10-07:00March 15th, 2017|

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