Celebrating California Agriculture . . . on World Vegan Day!

Celebrate World Vegan Day!

Peterangelo Vallis, executive director of the Fresno-based San Joaquin Valley Wine Growers Association, has an insightful viewpoint on California agriculture. That’s why California Ag Today considers him to be our Ambassador of Agriculture, and we’re glad he’s on our team.

In Celebration of World Vegan Day, Peterangelo Vallis addressed the need for California farmers to think about and engage with all the people who eat fruits and vegetables, including vegans*, environmentalists and fringe groups:

Well, vegans and environmentalists eat more fruits and vegetables than anybody. Guess what we make?

Look, I love a juicy steak, the same as most people. But frankly, most of my plate is vegetables. If somebody is buying something, they’re buying vegetables, and they want fresh vegetables. Vegans can get those in California, because they’re close enough to us. Let’s face it, these are highly perishable items and they’re going out there. Yet, we tend to vilify the same people that are paying our bills by buying our stuff.

Criticizing vegans is crazy. You don’t see Louis Vuitton making fun of middle-aged women. It’s just not what happens because they want you to buy more bags.

Everybody eats fruits and vegetables. If they don’t, they should, and vegans are just an extra boon to California Agriculture. Look, people eat fruits, vegetables, milk, cheese, meat, everything. Without people eating, we don’t have jobs. The more population growth, the more people who need to eat. These are our customers.

We do a terrific job of turning [vegans] off to us. Look, we should be their favorite people and favorite sub-set of the population. We help keep them alive and healthy, and with shiny hair and good skin, because they’re eating all of our ridiculously safe and clean foods that you really can’t get anywhere else in the hemisphere.

*According to the Loma Linda University School of Public Health, Department of Nutrition’s, “The Vegetarian Food Pyramid,” Vegetarian is a broad term meaning a diet that excludes meat, fish and poultry. Vegans are vegetarians who do not consume any dairy products, eggs or animal flesh.

California Ag Today2016-11-01T14:00:37-07:00November 1st, 2016|

John Hartnett on Ag Tech

John Hartnett on Forbes AgTech and Urban Appreciation for Agriculture

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Editor

Forbes AgTech Summit

John Hartnett, founder and CEO of Los Gatos-based SVG Partners LLC, a Silicon Valley area investment and advisory firm, has played a pivotal role in the organization of the Forbes AgTech Summit in Salinas every summer. Hartnett said before partnering with Forbes, “we ran the first one here in Salinas and another one in Monterey. Two hundred people attended the Monterey Innovation Summit.”

John Hartnett, founder and CEO of Los-Gatos-based SVG Partners LLC, and pivotal organizer of the annual Forbes AgTech Summit in Salinas.

“Then we partnered with Forbes and it brought us to a whole new level. Partnering with Forbes for the past two of four major AgTech Summits,”has been great,” Hartnett said. “Last year we had 400 people. This year, we had 700 people. Increased attendance has put Salinas on the map of being the center of AgTech.

“I bring leaders from technology and agriculture together,” Hartnell said. “It is a great event for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to be onstage and get recognition in front of investors, customers and key business people they will work with.”

“Having Forbes and the Ag industry from across the country here in the heart of Salinas is phenomenal. We’ve executed this overall plan well. We are delighted with the outcomes.”

The next Forbes AgTech Summit will convene again in Salinas on June 28-29, 2017.

Urban Appreciation

Beyond AgTech, Harnett said helping urban American populations understand the rural Ag community is one of the agricultural industry’s biggest challenges. “The first thing you need to do is bring people around the table. I’m a consumer of food. I am the end user of what’s going on, but many people just don’t understand the supply chain.”

“They understand some of the water challenges at a high level because these issues are in everybody’s face today. This is part of the education process and it starts by bringing people and key groups together.”

“What we’re doing, in small part, is focusing on technological leaders and companies from Palo Alto and San Francisco that are coming, probably for the first time, to Salinas. They are absolutely impressed and blown away by what is actually here. And, instead of driving past farms, they are going into the farms.”

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:45-07:00October 27th, 2016|

Happy Pumpkin Day!

Celebrate Pumpkin Artistry!

By Laurie Greene, Editor

Russ Leno, master sculptor of sand, snow, ice, wood, watermelon, and his favorite—pumpkins, appreciates the the challenge of creating carvings from hundred-pound fleshy orange masses. “This giant cultivar of a squash plant is a good material to carve in, Leno explained. “It gives you fast results, in under a five-hour time period. I like to entertain in front of crowds, and it just gives you something that people can see.”

New species, “Pumpkin Fish.”

“Everybody likes pumpkin carving. Everybody likes a jack-o-lantern. It’s just something that everybody enjoys, from the ages of 2 to 92, or even older. It’s still one of the last things I think we do. If you don’t do any art at all, you might still carve a pumpkin at this time of year. I just like the medium, and I just like doing it. It’s just fun. It’s a lot of fun.”

A recent performer at the Big Fresno Fair, Leno’s inspiration comes from within, as well as from looking at different artist sculptures, paintings, or drawings, or different elements in nature. “I might take a culmination of two or three different things and put my own spin on them. I might like something I see, but discover a better way to put a spin on it for a pumpkin. A lot of times, a pumpkin is only going to give you what it is going to give you because it’s only so thick and it’s hollow on the inside. You’ve got to be careful.”

Pumpkin Carvings by Russ Leno

“Everybody seems to think that they just pulled it out of a hat, and that’s just not true. After doing this for a number of years, I realized all the great sculptors from way back when didn’t just get a hammer and chisel and start pounding rock. They did a lot of planning and drawings up front.”

Leno initiates his ginger-hued creations from drawings and photos of posed people and things. “As you learn more about sculpting, to do something good, it is a planned event.”

He acknowledged you can carve certain things in certain pumpkins that you just can’t in other ones. “I might start out saying I’m going to carve this, but find the pumpkin is not thick enough or deep enough. The sculpture becomes something totally other than what I started out with, but that’s okay. They all come out nice at the end, and it’s fun.”

Leno, who has seen a range of pumpkins, which are native to North America, from different regions in the country with variations in size, shape, color and texture, but he prefers Prizewinner Pumpkins and small Atlantic Giant Pumpkins from the central California coastline. “These 100-pounders or 150-pounders are really good carvers because of the thickness -to-size ratio is very well proportioned so that you can get a fairly deep cut along with a proportionate-sized piece. They’re just great carving pumpkins.”

Big Fresno Fair Pumpkins

“I carve large pumpkins, and the people who grow the large pumpkins and I share a great love for the pumpkin itself and what it takes to grow them to their large sizes and their capability of being sculpted. You just don’t find these giant pumpkins just any old place. They require a little better soil conditions and fertilizers and specific pH balance in the soil to get these up at these sizes.”

“Pumpkin carving, which began as an all-American craft, has gained international popularity because of the internet and cultivation of pumpkins in other countries. A lot of countries now celebrate Halloween like we do, and people across the globe are now carving pumpkins and having a good time with them.”

“The internet has also created a way for sculptors to share their different carvings with like-minded people around the world.”

California Ag Today2016-10-26T14:30:05-07:00October 26th, 2016|

Select Growers Asked to Remediate Nitrates in Water

Cris Carrigan Opens Dialogue With Growers about Nitrates in Water

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Over the last year, 19 Salinas Valley growers, and recently 26 citrus growers on the east side of Tulare County, each received a confidential letter from Christian Carrigan, director, State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), Office of Enforcement. The letter constituted an invitation to a meeting to discuss the provision of uninterrupted replacement water to communities and individuals who rely on the region’s groundwater which contains too many nitrates.

Invitation recipients are growers who farm larger tracts of agricultural land in regions identified to have elevated nitrate-contaminated groundwater based on historical evidence. The ‘Harter Report,’ officially submitted to SWRCB in 2012 as, “Addressing Nitrate in California’s Drinking Water,” reinforced the nitrate problem.

The letter presented recipients with a choice: provide replacement potable water to disadvantaged communities with substandard drinking water or face a mandated Cleanup and Abatement Order that would require the development, installation, and ongoing operation of expensive reverse-osmosis water treatment systems or other fixes.

“We’re looking at ways to have a broader dialogue with the larger agricultural community,” Cris Carrigan explained. “I sent the confidential letter to a group of agricultural land owners in Tulare County and because I offered to maintain its confidentiality, I really don’t want to talk about the contents of it now.”

“I should be clear, this is an action by the Office of Enforcement at the State Water Board,” Carrigan said. “It is led by Jonathan Bishop, chief deputy director. I am a legal officer and he’s my client, the decision-maker at the Board.”

“We have not talked about this with the board members, Tom Howard, executive director, or Michael Laufer, chief counsel,” Carrigan clarified. “We have preserved their neutrality by not communicating with them about this action in case we need to do an adjudicatory proceeding. We did the same thing in Salinas.”

Carrigan noted that his office does not want this to go into an adjudicatory proceeding. “We are really set up, primarily, to try and resolve this in a mutually acceptable and cooperative way. We think there are ways to do that. We’ve learned a lot from engaging with the agricultural community in Salinas. Now we hope to apply those lessons and learn some new things in Tulare County.”

Carrigan commented that he is having the right kind of dialogue with farmers. “We’re talking about the right kinds of things. Again, I understand that nitrogen means food, food means jobs. We need to have a scientifically defensible way to bring back [water] resource restoration, so that our aquifers can become clean again.”

“In the meantime, we have to prevent people from being poisoned by bad water. That is what this is all about,” Carrigan said.

Are Nitrates and Nitrites in Foods Harmful? (By Kris Gunnars, BSc, Authority Nutrition)

California Ag Today2016-10-25T15:46:02-07:00October 25th, 2016|

Ag Uses Sound Science to Help Fish

Ag Collaborates to Help Endangered Fish

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Don Bransford, president of the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District (GCID) as well as a member of the State Board of Food and Agriculture, expressed major concerns with the proposed State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) diversion of 40% of the water from many irrigation districts on rivers that drain into the San Joaquin River to increase flows in the Delta to protect endangered fish.

“It’s a very difficult challenge because it appears that the SWRCB wants to increase the flows in the Sacramento River. That water has to come from somewhere, and it looks like it’s going to come from the irrigation districts. Unless we can do environmental projects on the River to improve habitat for fish and re-manage our water, we have water at risk,” said Bransford.

Don Bransford, president, Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District

Bransford, who is also a rice farmer, said “Everyone has their own science regarding protecting those species. We’re talking about salmon, steelhead trout, and of course the smelt.”

“The difficulty is, we believe they’re using a lot of old science. There is newer science that suggests there are better ways to manage this. And, if something does not work, then you change. You just don’t throw more water at it,” he noted.

“We think habitat improvements are important in providing refuge for the fish,” Bransford explained. “We’re looking at flushing rice water into the rivers to provide food. Currently, the rivers are pretty sterile because they are just channels now. If we could apply flows from rice into the rivers like we did for the Delta Smelt this summer, you’re providing food for smelt.”

Bransford noted the Northern California irrigation districts work with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to increase flows in certain areas of the Sacramento River at certain times. “Our irrigation district managers work with the Bureau to provide flushing flows on the upper Sacramento.” These flows clean out diseased gravel beds in the absence of natural high water flows.”

“So they used some extra water late March of this year,” Bransford elaborated, “to just turn the gravel over to freshen it up. It did help the fish, particularly the salmon,” said Bransford.

Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District (GCID), according to its website, is dedicated to providing reliable, affordable water supplies to its landowners and water users, while ensuring the environmental and economic viability of the region. As the largest irrigation district in the Sacramento Valley, GCID has a long history of serving farmers and the agricultural community and maintaining critical wildlife habitat. The District fulfills its mission of efficiently and effectively managing and delivering water through an ever-improving delivery system and responsible policies, while maintaining a deep commitment to sustainable practices. Looking ahead, GCID will remain focused on continuing to deliver a reliable and sustainable water supply by positioning itself to respond proactively, strategically and responsibly to California’s ever-changing water landscape.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:45-07:00October 24th, 2016|

Farm Water Coalition Shames State Water Resources

Farm Water Coalition Shames SWRCB Over Proposal

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

The California Farm Water Coalition (Coalition) was formed in 1989 to increase public awareness of agriculture’s efficient use of water and to promote the industry’s environmental sensitivity regarding water.

Mike Wade, executive director of the Sacramento-based Coalition, has major concerns about the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB)‘s proposal of taking 40% of the water from many irrigation districts along three rivers that flow into the San Joaquin River to protect an endangered fish. The SWRCB proposes to divert water from the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced Rivers to increase flows in the Sacramento Delta.

Mike Wade, executive director, California Farm Water Coalition

Wade explained, “The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is important for the United States, and we want to see it work. However, it’s not working. It’s not helping fish, and it’s hurting communities.” But Wade wants to revise the ESA “in how we deal with some of the species management issues.”

Wade said SWRCB is doubling down on the same tired, old strategy that is not going to work any more now than it has in the past. “What happened in the past isn’t helping salmon. What’s happened in the past isn’t helping the delta smelt. You’d think someone would get a clue that maybe other things are in play, there are other factors that need to be addressed.”

The State Water Resources Control Board estimated the proposed 40% diversion of river flow would decrease agricultural economic output by 64 million or 2.5% of the baseline average for the region.

Ag officials warn that if the proposal goes through it would force growers in the area to use more groundwater—which they have largely avoided because the Turlock Irrigation District and Oakdale Irrigation District historically met the irrigation need of local farms.

This is the only agricultural area in the Central Valley that does not have critical overdraft problems. If the state takes away 40% of water available to growers, it could lead to a critical overdraft issue there as well.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:45-07:00October 21st, 2016|

Successful Temecula Winegrape Harvest Wrap-Up

Temecula Winegrape Harvest to Become More Mechanized

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Winegrape harvest is going well in the Temecula area of Riverside County, east of San Diego. Ben Drake, president of Drake Enterprises, Inc., a vineyard and avocado grove management company there, summarized this year’s winegrape harvest. “We’re doing real well,” said Drake, who is also a grower board member of the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA).

“We had some real hot weather in middle of June, which reduced some of our yields. We got through that warm weather. Vines recovered and some of the fruit recovered. We’re seeing a slight reduction in yield—somewhere between 10 and 20 percent overall—because of that hot spell.”

Ben Drake, president of Drake Enterprises, Inc. and grower board member of the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA).

Harvest began toward the end of July and is now complete, Drake’s winegrape harvest is all hand done, not yet by machine. Drake said only one winery in the Temecula area has a machine.

Hand labor will change soon, according to Drake, because the new overtime bill mandates that farmworkers will receive overtime pay after working a threshold of 8 hours instead of 10. Drake is looking at machines that will dramatically decrease the hours of his workers—a consequence the state’s agriculture industry warned the Assembly about before they passed AB-1066.

“Overall,” Drake said, “it has been a long season. I grow about 35 to 36 different winegrape varieties, which allows me to pick some earlier and some later. That’s just the way they mature. It allows us to have plenty of time to get everything harvested.”

Drake Enterprises, Inc. the premier vineyard and avocado grove Management Company located in Temecula, California. Drake Enterprises, Inc. provides a full range of vineyard and avocado related activities to its clients. These include site selection, soils and water evaluation, variety, rootstock and scion selection, vineyard and avocado grove layout and development, vineyard and avocado grove management, harvest, consulting, avocado marketing strategy and grape brokerage.

California Ag Today2016-10-26T20:41:03-07:00October 20th, 2016|

@AlmondGirlJenny AgVocates on Social Media

@AlmondGirlJenny Urges Everyone in Ag to AgVocate on Social Media

By Laurie Greene, Editor

Digital platforms—not newsprint—lead the information superhighway-world we live in. Beyond news websites, everyone in the agricultural industry who is able should engage and agvocate on a few social media platforms such a Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or blogs, according to @AlmondGirlJenny.

Jenny Holtermann, aka @AlmondGirlJenny, fourth-generation almond farmer in Kern County, is fully engaged with social media. Social media has become the news source for her, her friends and her generation. “I think it’s important to be involved in social media to tell your story,” Holtermann explained. “That’s how people are getting their news; that’s how people are getting their information these days.”

@AlmondGirlJenny is engaged on such social media platforms as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

Tim Holtermann and son, Henry

“It’s critical for us to be out there,” she added, “showcasing what we’re doing and highlighting the benefits of agriculture and how it’s multi-generational, how it’s family oriented. Get people to relate to it and become engrossed in it,” Holtermann said.

Last year a reporter from the Los Angeles Times asked Holtermann about water use in farming almonds. “I was able to set the reporter straight regarding all the myths about almonds and water use,” she commented. “I told her that over the last 10 years, almond growers have reduced their water use by 30 percent and we are working on saving even more.”

Jenny and her husband, Tim Holtermann, have a big story to tell. “I’m a fourth generation California farmer” she began. “My family farms almonds and walnuts in northern California. Then I married a fourth generation California farmer as well.

“We farm together with my husband’s family in the Wasco area. It’s very important to us to care for our land and treat it as best as we can so that it can be passed down to future generations. We’re raising the fifth generation, and we hope that someday, if he so chooses, our son has the opportunity to farm here as well,” she said.

“All of us in agriculture should tell our story,” Holtermann said, so others who are not involved with Ag can learn. “If social media is not your game, hire someone to help you get started.”

Resources:

Bayer CropScience AgVocate

California Ag Today2016-10-19T16:21:47-07:00October 19th, 2016|

Clinton’s Backdoor UFW Endorsement Deal Trumps Farmworkers’ Rights

Assemblyman Patterson Comments on Clinton’s UFW Endorsement vs. Farmworkers’ Rights

By Laurie Greene, Editor

As reported in, “Leaked Clinton emails include pledge to help UFW in fight with Gerawan Farming,” published by the Fresno Bee last Friday, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, traded support for the United Farm Workers Union (UFW) endorsement and then conspired to undermine Fresno County-based Gerawan Farming and its farmworkers’ rights.

Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R-Fresno)

Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R-Fresno) has been supportive of the constitutional rights of farmworkers at Gerawan Farming whose votes cast in a sanctioned 2013 election to decertify UFW representation have never been counted. Under the jurisdiction of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB), the ballots were collected, sealed, and locked away. To date, election results and the location of the ballots are unknown.

In an exclusive interview, Assemblyman Patterson stated:

I think it’s the height of hypocrisy when a candidate for president of the United States goes behind closed doors and makes a backroom deal with an institution that is trying to deny the very privilege of having a free election to decide whether or not [farmworkers] want to be a part of the UFW.

Not supporting or recognizing the Gerawan workers’ right to an election to determine their own future—how they wish to organize, how they wish to value their labor and how they wish to conduct the relationship with their employer through elections—is to me, a slap in the face of the electoral process, of the fundamental constitutional right of everyone to be able to vote and to have a say in their labor and in their future.

It also demonstrates just how deep and wide this intertwining web of deceitfulness really is. Of all things, for the democratic nominee for President of the United States to make a deal over something that is happening in Central California, with 3,000 workers who decided that they wanted to have elections?”

After the election, the ALRB took and hid the ballots. The ballots were never counted. Election results were never announced. The election was not the expression of individual farmworkers exercising their right to vote, but considered [by the ALRB] an unfair labor practice.

[The Democratic nominee] decided to make a deal with the UFW over this. It tells me in no uncertain terms that the revolution that is happening with Silvia Lopez and the Gerawan workers—the independence, the thinking for themselves, the willingness to chart their own course with their employer—is frightening the UFW and the ALRB to its foundations.

To the degree that [the UFW] would literally go into a back room and get a pledge from the democratic nominee. . . Notwithstanding the facts—information about the election, the efforts of the ALRB and UFW to suppress [decertification] elections, and their choices for making decisions themselves. . . but to just simply decide to go low . . . and in this instance, go so low that she would be making a deal to abridge—destroy—the fundamental right of an election. That is just unconscionable.

California Ag Today2017-05-10T16:28:50-07:00October 18th, 2016|

Despite Great Harvest, California Apple Growers Face Challenges

California Apple Growers Face Regulatory Disadvantage

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Many California apple growers are in the midst of harvest season right now. Alex Ott, executive director of the Clovis-based California Apple Commission expects a 3% increase in production across the country. Ott foresees a 1% increase in California this season, where apples stand out because of their freshness.

“California is the fifth largest producer of apples in the United States,” Ott explained. “We are about the third largest exporter of apples in the United States. We like to pick, pack and ship. Unlike other states that like to store fruit and have that fruit around longer, California apple growers like to get in and get out,” Ott said.

“We have a small marketing window and we pride ourselves on fresh crops,” Ott elaborated. “So we try to get out of the market no later than December. Sometimes we go as late as January, but the idea is to [quickly] fill that niche window between the Chilean and the Washington state fruit.”

Alex Ott, executive director of the Clovis-based California Apple Commission

Yet, the California apple industry faces challenges going forward. Ott stated, “Over the last five years, California apple crop production has decreased by nearly 39%. A lot of that has to do with the changing of the crops. Any time you start to see an uptick in another crop, especially when it is not hand labor-intensive like apples, you will see a migration to those types of crops.”

Transitioning toward less labor-intensive crops may accelerate since Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 1066. This bill will enable California farm employees to accrue overtime pay after working an 8-hour day, instead of a 10-hour day.

“It’s definitely going to be a challenge for California apple growers,” Ott said, especially given the labor shortage. “So apple production in the state will decrease.”

Ott lamented many countries already produce a lot of these other less labor-intensive crops. AB 1066 definitely puts us at a competitive disadvantage in keeping up with demand. The challenge is how can California apple growers compete with farmers in other state and countries who can do it faster and cheaper?

California Ag Today2016-10-14T18:26:24-07:00October 14th, 2016|

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California Ag News…
At Your Fingertips!

Celebrate World Vegan Day!

Peterangelo Vallis, executive director of the Fresno-based San Joaquin Valley Wine Growers Association, has an insightful viewpoint on California agriculture. That’s why California Ag Today considers him to be our Ambassador of Agriculture, and we’re glad he’s on our team.

In Celebration of World Vegan Day, Peterangelo Vallis addressed the need for California farmers to think about and engage with all the people who eat fruits and vegetables, including vegans*, environmentalists and fringe groups:

John Hartnett on Forbes AgTech and Urban Appreciation for Agriculture

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Editor

Forbes AgTech Summit

Urban Appreciation

Celebrate Pumpkin Artistry!

By Laurie Greene, Editor

Cris Carrigan Opens Dialogue With Growers about Nitrates in Water

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Ag Collaborates to Help Endangered Fish

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Farm Water Coalition Shames SWRCB Over Proposal

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Temecula Winegrape Harvest to Become More Mechanized

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

@AlmondGirlJenny Urges Everyone in Ag to AgVocate on Social Media

By Laurie Greene, Editor

Resources:

Assemblyman Patterson Comments on Clinton’s UFW Endorsement vs. Farmworkers’ Rights

By Laurie Greene, Editor

California Apple Growers Face Regulatory Disadvantage

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Sign Up For Our Newsletter!

California Ag News… At Your Fingertips!

California Ag News…
At Your Fingertips!