2017 Fresno County Crop Report Totals $7 Billion

Fresno County’s Ag Value Increases Significantly in 2017 Crop and Livestock Report

The Fresno County Department of Agriculture’s 2017 Crop and Livestock Report (Crop Report) was presented to the Fresno County Board of Supervisors Tuesday. Overall, the 2017 agricultural production value in Fresno County totaled $7.028 billion, showing a 13.58 percent increase from 2016’s $6.18 billion.

“Once again, Fresno County farmers and ranchers have produced an agricultural bounty for the world,” stated Fresno County Agricultural Commissioner Les Wright. “While much of this food and fiber goes towards feeding and supplying our nation, the Fresno County Department of Agriculture also issued 18,604 phytosanitary certificates for 133 commodities destined for 97 countries around the globe in 2017.”

“This Crop Report is comprised of nearly 400 commodities, of which 73 crops exceed $1 million in value,” Commissioner Wright continued. “Crop values may vary year-to-year based on production, markets and weather conditions, but our farmers and ranchers, their employees and all those who support their efforts work tirelessly year-around to bring in the harvest.”

With the great diversity of crops in Fresno County and the many variables in agriculture, it’s a given that some crops will be up in value while others are down. Increases were seen in a majority of the Crop Report segments, including field crops, seed crops, fruit and nut crops, livestock and poultry, livestock and poultry products, apiary products and pollination services, and industrial crops. Decreases were seen in vegetables and nursery. Surface water supplies were significantly better in 2017, although many Westside federal water contractors received much of that good news too late to benefit them with additional annual plantings.

Fresno County’s Top 10 Crops in 2017 (Source: 2017 Fresno County Agricultural Crop and Livestock Report)

Too often, the Crop Report gets summarized down to just a single overall number, but it yields a significant amount of information, such as the ability to examine changes and trends in crop acreage and yields. Amounts in the report reflect the gross income values only (income before expenses) and not the net return to producers.

“The San Joaquin Valley is the food capital of the World, and Fresno County is the region’s heart,” said Fresno County Farm Bureau (FCFB) CEO Ryan Jacobsen. “Daily, millions of food servings unceremoniously originate within our backyard, the result of generations of families and agricultural infrastructure that has been built to furnish an unbelievably productive, wholesome and affordable food supply.”

“The annual Crop Reports are more than numbers,” Jacobsen continued. “They provide the industry, the public and policymakers, regardless of the overall number, the opportunity to salute local agriculture and give thanks for the food and fiber, jobs and economic benefits, agriculture provides Fresno County.”

One popular component of the report is the review of the county’s “Top 10 Crops” that offers a quick glimpse of the diversity of products grown here. In 2017, these crops accounted for three-fourths of the report’s value. Almonds continue to lead the way as Fresno County’s only billion-dollar crop in 2017, representing 17.4 percent of the total gross value of the Crop Report. Added to this year’s list was mandarins at number six. Dropping out of the “Top 10 Crops” was garlic.

This year’s Crop Report was a salute to the Fresno-Kings Cattlemen’s Association. The organization is one of 38 affiliates of the California Cattlemen’s Association, a non-profit trade association that represents ranchers and beef producers in legislative and regulatory affairs.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:17:09-07:00August 21st, 2018|

Motion Filed in Fifth District Court to Count the Votes!

Editor’s Note: Anthony Raimondo with Raimondo & Associates filed a motion with the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Fresno to count Gerawan ballots .

SILVIA LOPEZ AND GERAWAN FARMING, INC V. AGRICULTURAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA IN AND FOR THE FIFTH APPELLATE DISTRICT (FRESNO)

No. F073730

To Whom It May Concern:

On May 30, 2018, the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Fresno issued a unanimous decision that the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) violated farmworkers’ Constitutional and statutory rights by refusing to count their ballots, essentially stripping them of their right to decide for themselves whether to be represented by a union.

Silvia Lopez and her co-workers from Gerawan Farms organized themselves in opposition to the state’s effort to force the United Farm Workers Union, a dying union looking to save itself with money from their paychecks, and through determination, organization, and civil disobedience forced the ALRB to hold what was the largest farmworker vote in history. From the dawn hours to late in the evening, thousands of farmworkers voted on whether to be represented by the union. Sadly, the ALRB, in cahoots with the union, refused to count the votes, suppressing the workers’ vote in order to protect the UFW.

Anthony Raimondo, of Fresno-based Raimondo & Associates, attorney for Gerawan employee spokesperson, Silvia Lopez

Since that time, the workers have been fighting to expose ALRB corruption and get their ballots counted. While they believed that day had finally come, the ALRB has chosen to defy the court and continues to refuse to count the ballots. In fact, the ALRB refuses to confirm where the ballots are stored, or whether it has them at all.

On behalf of the Gerawan workers, Silvia Lopez has filed a motion with the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Fresno, respectfully requesting that the Court order the state to immediately open the ballots, complete the election process, and preserve the record of the election as appeals wind their way through the Court.

The workers believe, as the Court ruled, that to suppress worker votes violates not only principles of democracy, but principles of government transparency as well. In the view of the workers, there is simply no justification to refuse to count the ballots, except for a desire to avoid exposing the overwhelming worker opposition to UFW representation.

California Ag Today2018-07-06T18:03:29-07:00July 6th, 2018|

Officials Applaud Ruling in Gerawan Employees’ Favor

Ballots in UFW Decertification Vote Must be Counted

By Joanne Lui, Associate Editor

Two officials spoke out via press release following today’s ruling that the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) must count the ballots cast by Gerawan employees in the 2013 vote to decertify the United Farm Workers (UFW) as their union bargaining representative.

George Radanovich, President of the California Fresh Fruit Association, applauded the decision by the 5th District Court of Appeal.

George Radanovich

Radanovich stated, “This has been a long time coming. We are encouraged and pleased to see the Court account for the most important opinion in this entire matter, the prerogative of the employees.”

Gerawan employees voted in a sanctioned election in November 2013 to decertify the United Farm Workers as their bargaining representative. Despite having ordered, sanctioned and supervised the election, the ALRB impounded the ballots, withheld a final vote count, and thereby denied recognition and acceptance of the employees’ decision.

Radanovich continued, “Today’s Court action would not have occurred without the determined effort of Gerawan Farming, Inc.; the Gerawan family; and in particular, company president Dan Gerawan, for defending his company and his employees’ right to choose. Finally, sunlight has been cast onto this injustice and the farmworkers’ voice will be heard.”

Assemblymember Jim Patterson (R-Fresno) made the following statement regarding today’s ruling:

Jim Patterson

“This moment is the next step in the most important civil rights battle of our time. More than 2,600 immigrant farmworkers from the Central Valley cast their ballots to determine their own future. Those votes were locked up tight and stowed away by the ALRB—the same agency whose job it is to protect the rights of farmworkers.”

“These hard-working men and women know exactly why their ballots were taken, and they have spent countless hours fighting for the fundamental right to have their votes counted so their voices can be heard loud and clear. Today is victory for them.”

Patrick Cavanaugh2018-05-31T20:24:07-07:00May 30th, 2018|

Laurie Greene Wins Journalism Award

Greene Wins Fresno County Farm Bureau Award for Series on Farm Workers’ Rights

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Editor

The Fresno County Farm Bureau (FCFB) recognized Laurie Greene, founding editor of CaliforniaAgToday.com, with a First Place Journalism Award in the Farm Trade Print category on May 3. Her nine-part series published on our Google News-recognized CaliforniaAgToday.com website entitled, “Who Safeguards California Farm Workers’ Rights?” focused on recent, predominantly legal developments that illustrate the increasingly complex quagmire that masquerades as protecting farm employees’ rights in the state.

Ryan Jacobsen, FCFB CEO; Laurie Greene holding tractor award; and Donny Rollin, FCFB President.

According to the FCFB, “The annual awards recognize excellence in reporting on agricultural issues from journalists throughout the region. The criteria for the awards were: awareness of agriculture’s importance in the Valley; use of visuals to tell the story, where applicable; thorough and objective coverage of the issues, given time and space limitations; and portraying the ‘human side’ of the industry, making the issues relevant to consumers and/or producers.”

Laurie’s careful coverage of a complicated story was unrelenting in its meticulous research and thorough in cultivating numerous sources to tell the complete legal story of Gerawan’s farm employees. Laurie has been cited as a journalist with a sharp legal mind and is a strong asset to the company.

“When I moved to the Central Valley,” Greene said, “I was shocked to discover that Cesar Chavez’s legacy was tarnished. His UFW had evolved to mandate that farm employees submit to mediated union representation and payment of dues—all this by a union elected a quarter century earlier that subsequently abandoned the workers for two decades.”

Gerawan Farm Workers Protest against UFW at California Supreme Court.

Greene explained, “Current farm employees have had to fight to have their voices heard, to gain access to pertinent court hearings, to work unimpeded for the employer of their choosing, to face employment termination if they refuse to pay union dues, to exercise their right to vote to decertify the union in a sanctioned election and to have their votes publicly counted. I felt compelled to relay the facts in this important story.”

FCFB 2018 Journalism Award Winners Alex Backus, CBS47; Laurie Greene, CaliforniaAgToday.com; and Dominic McAndrew, 580AM KMJ. (Absent was Maria G. Ortiz-Briones, Vida en el Vale)

Greene’s work in the series was shared across the California Ag Today’s social media platforms and broadcasted across the California Ag Today Radio Network of 22 radio stations. She is also the owner of Cultivated Words, which provides professional editing services and college application essay coaching.

Other award winners were:

Audio: Dominic McAndrew, News Talk 580AM, KMJ, “Signing the application for state funding of Temperance Flat Dam,” August 14, 2017.

Video: Alex Backus, CBS47, “Fear in the Fields,” May 19, 2017.

General Print: Maria G. Ortiz-Briones, Vida en el Vale, “Farmers, immigration rights advocates push back after ICE checks in the Central Valley,” February 12, 2018.

Who Safeguards California Farm Workers’ Rights? (abridged)

Greene focused on the ongoing pressure the United Farm Workers (UFW) and the California Agriculture Labor Relations Board (ALRB) has placed on Gerawan farm workers in an attempt to force them to accept mandatory fee-based union representation by the UFW. Gerawan employees voted in favor of UFW representation in 1990, an election the ALRB certified in 1992. UFW never reached a contract to represent Gerawan employees in wage negotiations with their employer and never collected union dues. The UFW effectively abandoned the farm workers for 20 years.

The California Legislature amended the Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 2012 to impose a mandatory mediation and conciliation process for union contracts. The UFW offered Gerawan employees a new contract proposal via this forced legal process.

On Oct. 25, 2013, Gerawan employee Silvia Lopez filed a petition to decertify the UFW as the bargaining representative for the company’s workers. Gerawan voted in an historic, ALRB-sanctioned election on November 4 or 5, 2013; however, the ALRB impounded the ballots, reportedly without having counted them.

Silvia Lopez, Gerawan farm worker spokesperson

The twists and turns of who actually safeguards California farm employees’ rights have been strikingly dramatic, undemocratic, political, and arguably unconstitutional. And yet, the conflict remains legally unresolved.

Click here to read the series.

Click here to search for California Ag Today’s multimedia coverage since 2013 of this ongoing battle. Search suggestions: Gerawan Farming, Silvia Lopez, UFW, and ALRB.

California Ag Today2019-12-25T16:01:33-08:00May 7th, 2018|

Temperance Flat Denied Funding

All Hope Dries Up

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Editor

Again, it came down to fish, specifically Chinook salmon, that forced the proposed Temperance Flat Dam out of the race for Proposition 1 funding for building new water storage projects.

Mario Santoyo and Temperance Flat Denied Funding

Mario Santoyo fought hard for Temperance Flat Dam funding.

For more than 20 years, the Temperance Flat Dam proposal was passionately advocated with unwavering support by Central Valley cities and the San Joaquin Valley Infrastructure Authority (SJVIA) who were behind the application. Temperance Flat came crumbling down Wednesday at the California Water Commission (CWC) meeting in Sacramento on the second day of discussion.

On Tuesday, CWC staff members assigned to crunch the Public Benefit Ratios for the project were solidly encased in concrete, refusing to grant the project any consideration for its ecosystem restoration benefits. The Dam would provide critical cold water to flow down the San Joaquin River, thus helping the salmon spawn.

CA Water Commission kills Temperance Flat funding

CA Water Commission denied funding for Temperance Flat Dam.

And while the official public benefit calculation came up short today, proponents already saw that the project was already on life support Tuesday, with a dire prognosis.

“Stunned is an understatement,” said Mario Santoyo, executive director of the SJVIA, who has worked for more than 18 years on the project. “Temperance Flat is the most critical water project ever proposed for the Central Valley, which is ground zero for significant water shortages that will not go away.”

It all boiled down to the Ecosystem Diagnosis and Treatment (EDT) model that was approved by Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Water Resources. Despite both approvals, that model did not jive with the Commission staff’s model, which undervalued the project’s public benefit ratio, killing the opportunity for Temperance Flat Dam to receive funding of more $1 billion for construction.

“We are working in an area of great uncertainty in professional judgment,” Bill Swanson, vice president, Water Resources Planning & Management for Stantec, a global planning and engineering firm, who presented data for the SJVIA. “We do not have fish in the river. We do not have empirical data. The only issue available to us is a comparison of how the system would respond to changes in flow, temperature and habitat,” Swanson said.

“That’s the reason we used the EDT model, the same model that the Bureau of Reclamation has used in their models of flow,” Swanson explained. “The SJVIA’s challenge was how to take the results of that model and analyze them to a level of detail that distinguishes the precision that we might want to have around the results,” said Swanson.

Stantec’s Bill Swanson advocated for Temperance Flat Dam funding.

“I’m very disappointed with the way they scored a great project that needed to be built,” noted Santoyo. “And I am not happy about one commissioner from Orange Cove who stabbed us in the back and scolded us on why we did not meet the Public Benefit Ratio. We did meet and exceed that ratio, but the CWC disagreed with our ecosystem restoration model that had been used by both the state and the feds.”

Several Water Commissioners publicly wrangled with their staff on how they could make the project work. They sought areas to increase the project’s cost-benefit evaluation to get it funded.

Commissioner Joe Del Bosque read the ballot text of Prop 1, approved by California voters by 67 percent in 2014. He reminded those present that voters expected a water storage project to be built, adding, “We need to find more certainty in order to get Temperance Flat built.”

Commissioner Daniel Curtain distinguished two parts to the discussion—physical and monetary. “Take a look and see if there is a physical benefit for ecosystem restoration. Finding a potential benefit and attaching a potential monetary benefit could be helpful,” he said.

The project was also short on points for recreation opportunities on what would be a new lake behind the 600-foot high dam east of Fresno, behind Friant Dam. Commissioner Joseph Byrne said he hoped for more thought given to the recreation cost benefit. “Intuitively, zero benefit does not make sense. We need a higher level of confidence in the estimated recreation cost-benefit,” he said.

CWC staff stipulated that while the newly created lake behind Temperance Flat Dam would accommodate boating activity, the lack of camping, hiking, and other activities within the existing San Joaquin River Gorge neutralized any recreation benefits.

If built, the Temperance Flat Reservoir would contain 1.26 million acre-feet of new water storage above Millerton Lake, northeast of Fresno. Temperance would have helped provide a more reliable supply of fresh drinking water for disadvantaged Valley communities. It would have enabled below-surface groundwater recharge, addressed extreme land subsidence and provided critical help to farmers facing severe groundwater restrictions due to the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).

Santoyo said the SJVWIA spent more than $2 million on the California Water Commission application, utilizing what he said were the most qualified engineers to develop the technical data required by Commission staff. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which administers California’s Central Valley Project for the U.S. Department of the Interior, has invested more than $38 million in studying the project. Santoyo said those studies supported the finding that the selected Temperance Flat site is the most preferred location for such a crucial project.

California Ag Today2018-05-03T15:42:58-07:00May 3rd, 2018|

Who Safeguards California Farm Employees’ Rights? – Part 9

Court Allows UFW to Force Representation and Dues on Gerawan Employees

By Laurie Greene, Founding Editor

The California Supreme Court announced their decision on Nov. 27, 2017 in favor of forced UFW representation on Gerawan employees, thus mandating these workers pay three percent of their wages to the UFW or lose their jobs.

As background, the UFW was elected to represent Gerawan employees in 1990, but never successfully represented them in contract negotiations. Subsequently, the UFW disappeared from this farm operation for nearly two decades, so 99% of current Gerawan employees never voted for union representation; many were born after 1990. In addition, Gerawan employees have reportedly been paid the highest wages in the industry.

Gerawan Farm Workers Protest against UFW at California Supreme Court.

Below is the transcript (in English) of the message, which was recorded in Spanish, that all Gerawan employees heard when they called in on Nov. 27, 2017 to hear their work schedules.

Hi, this is Dan Gerawan.

Unfortunately, the California Supreme Court today decided to overturn the lower court that had said you should have the right to choose whether a contract is forced on you. Instead, the California Supreme Court agreed with UFW and ALRB that you should not have the right to choose, even though you have to pay UFW.

Fortunately, today’s decision does not strip your right to decide whether the UFW can represent you. The majority of you asked for the right to make that decision, and the ALRB held a decertification election over four years ago.

Nothing in today’s court decision prevents your ballots from being counted. As you may know, the California Fifth District Court of Appeal is still going to decide whether your votes from the November 2013 election will be counted.

You are entitled to the same dignity and respect that all other workers in our state and country have, which is the right to choose who represents you.

As for today’s decision, we intend to ask the United States Supreme Court to review it.

Thank you for listening.

According to the November 27, 2017 press release posted by David A. Schwarz, legal counsel for Gerawan Farming, “We believe that coerced contracts are constitutionally at odds with free choice. The employees are entitled to the dignity and respect that they earned by giving them what is their right. A secret ballot election allows them to decide for themselves who will speak for them at the bargaining table.”

Laurie Greene Wins Journalism Award

Greene Wins Fresno County Farm Bureau Award for Series on Farm Workers’ Rights, by Patrick Cavanaugh, Editor

California Ag Today2019-12-25T15:59:00-08:00December 7th, 2017|

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|

Who Safeguards Farm Worker Rights? – Part 8

Pick Justice, Gerawan Farm Workers Protest Forced Unionization

By Laurie Greene, Founding Editor

Jesse Rojas, spokesperson for Pick Justice, a farm worker rights group (not a union) organized a rally of farm workers last week at the California Supreme Court building in San Francisco to bring attention to the court hearing on the UFW’s effort to force unionization on farm workers at Gerawan Farming, Inc.—despite having abandoned the workers for nearly 20 years. Over 150 Gerawan workers traveled from the Central Valley to protest the UFW/ALRB team that is pushing for forced unionization of these farm workers via the justice system through Mandatory Mediation and Conciliation (MMC).

Jesse Rojas, spokesperson for Pick Justice (PickJustice.com)

Gerawan workers, dressed in blue Pick Justice t-shirts and armed with company ID cards and pay stubs to demonstrate authenticity, chanted at the UFW protesters who wore red UFW t-shirts. Rojas said the UFW individuals were apparently not Gerawan farm workers and were paid to be there. “All attending [in our group] are employees of Gerawan Farming,” he stated.

“I wish all 3,000 Gerawan workers could have come today like they’ve done in the past,” Rojas said. “But they actually have to work because they are real workers and they don’t get paid to come here. They miss days of work. A lot of them are going to get written up. They are going to get into trouble. They have had to find babysitters to take care of their kids; they are real workers.”

Rojas explained the focus of the demonstration is the need for these employees to choose their own future. “At this point, what is really important for them—not just them, but for all farm workers in the state—is simply to have the freedom to choose—freedom to vote.”

“Why would they have to be forced into a contract without reading it, without negotiating it, without approving it?” Rojas asked. “It’s not the American way. That’s not a democracy. The most fundamental civil right that all employees have is the right to vote if they want a union or not or if they want a contract or not.”

“But they are not getting those rights. Why not them? It is their right to vote and have their votes counted,” Rojas said.

If the Court imposes mandatory mediation, Rojas said the outcome “would affect about every farm worker in the state, almost 800,000 of them. The rights of the workers would be taken away.”

“The way mandatory mediation and conciliation works is the ALRB, the state government, has the right to write and impose a contract on employees without their approval,” Rojas explained. “In the Gerawan case, they will not have the right to strike or protest like they are doing today.”

“On top of that, this so-called contract will actually lower their take-home pay,” said Rojas, because mandatory UFW union dues totaling three percent of their paychecks would be imposed on the workers. If any of them refuse to pay the union as a condition of employment, they will be fired.

The justices of the California Supreme Court have until December 5th to make a ruling.

To see a video of Jesse Rojas speaking to California Ag Today, click here.

PickJustice.com celebrates freedom of choice for farm workers. As posted on their website:

We are concerned citizens who support the rights of workers to choose whether or not they want to have a union represent them. We are standing up for workers who are victimized by a politicized government agency.

Freedom of choice is a human right. People who are not educated are deprived of their freedom by those who are educated.

PickJustice.com exists to educate the public about the corrupt relationship between a once-noble union and the dishonest attorneys at the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB). We want to help social change to show that, once a union has violated the trust of those it purports to represent, that union no longer votes for the workers.

As César Chávez himself said, “Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.”

A generation ago, many farm workers were afraid of their employers. That isn’t the case anymore.

Thanks to organization against social injustice and a greater consciousness of producers and consumers alike, the plight of thousands of farm workers in America is over.

In César’s words more than three decades ago: “The very fact of our existence forces an entire industry – unionized and non-unionized – to spend millions of dollars year after year on improved wages, on improved working conditions, on benefits for workers.”

Who Safeguards California Farm Employees’ Rights? – Part 9 Court Allows UFW to Force Representation and Dues on Gerawan Employees

California Ag Today2019-12-25T15:48:07-08:00September 14th, 2017|

Dave Cogdill Will Be Remembered at Temperance Flat Dam

Dave Cogdill Remembered For His Water Priorities

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

Dave Cogdill, a former state senator (2006 to December 2010) and the California State Senate Republican Leader from 2008-2009, has passed away at the age of 66. Cogdill was instrumental in getting Prop 1 through the state House and Senate and onto the ballot. Mario Santoyo, executive director of the San Joaquin Valley Water Infrastructure Authority, shared his thoughts on the late Dave Cogdill and his influence on California water.

The late Dave Cogdill

“Many thank Cogdill for the success that Temperance Flat Dam has been seeing,” Santoyo said. “He is the guy who made this happen, yet not enough credit has been given to him. Those of us who have been involved know what he contributed.”

“Senator Cogdill initiated some water bonds for water storage when he was in the Assembly. He wrote the water bond in 2009 and facilitated getting it across the table with both Republicans and Democrats. I can safely say Senator David Cogdill was a consistently strong proponent for water service storage and the one individual who had the most to do with the ability to have Temperance Flat built,” Santoyo said.

“Lots of folks could be characterized as being critically helpful; but if it wasn’t for Cogdill, nothing would have happened in terms of developing big water storage,” Santoyo said. “Many wish to memorialize him at Temperance Flat Dam, whether it is a plaque or some portion of it being called Cogdill, because he deserves it”.

OF NOTE:

Cogdill was awarded the Profile in Courage Award from the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation for his actions during the 2009 state budget fight for joining Governor Schwarzenegger in putting the people’s needs above party.

California Ag Today2017-09-11T16:11:56-07:00September 11th, 2017|

SGMA Workshop Features GSA Updates

SGMA Workshop Sept. 20

Clovis Veterans Memorial District

Join the Department of Water Resources (DWR) staff for an interactive workshop to discuss DWR Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) implementation efforts and key components of Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) development.

The workshop will feature groundwater sustainability agency (GSA) formation updates, assistance & engagement information; guidance, data, and tools overviews; interactive forums on Groundwater Sustainability Plan development; and information booths on the Proposition 1 Sustainable Groundwater Planning Grant Program (SGWP).

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet DWR’s SGMA Program and Region Office Staff! Information booths will open at 12:30 P.M.

The workshop will be held on September 20, 2017, from 1 PM to 5 PM at the Clovis Veterans Memorial District, 808 Fourth Street, Clovis, CA 93612.

Please RSVP for the workshop by clicking here. Registration is not required but is appreciated to ensure suitable accommodations for all attendees. This workshop is free of charge and is open to all interested persons and the public.

California Ag Today2017-09-08T16:56:14-07:00September 8th, 2017|