DOWN on the FARM
with Tom Willey
June 2, ’17: Philipp Simon, from the USDA
‘Select the best, discard the rest’ – plant breeding was a farmer’s responsibility for agriculture’s first 10,000 years. Today, the purview of scientifically trained professionals, USDA’s Philipp Simon is among the best. For some forty years, Phil has developed and trialed modern carrot varieties at University of Wisconsin, Madison. Simon shares his and the carrot’s interwoven histories in conversation with “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey.
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May 5, ’17: Peter Donovan, “Soil Carbon Challenge”
For six years, citizen scientist Peter Donovan has crisscrossed the continental United States in a converted school bus-soils lab to spread knowledge and passion for transforming atmospheric carbon into soil carbon. Peter’s Soil Carbon Challenge touches down in Fresno to evaluate soil-building efforts hereabouts and to engage “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey in conversation. Learn how your farm or garden can become part of the solution.
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I did not set out forty-some years ago to be a hippy, organic or alternative farmer of any sort. Deeply disillusioned after a few years of striving to reform society’s miscreants in California’s prison and parole system, I ached to produce something of unquestioned value for myself and my community – growing food seemed to fit that bill. Though it’s been a jolly good ride, the journey proved to be not as simple as it looked either. Let me share a “thing or two about a thing or two” that I learned along the “way of the dirt farmer”. [Read more…]
August 5, ’16: 1987 marked a climatological milestone. John Austin
After four-decades with our National Park Service, citizen-scientist John Austin now studies Tulare Lake Basin’s climate history, an expanse into which flow the Kings, Kaweah, Tule and Kern Rivers.
Austin joins “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey to argue that 1987 marked a climatological milestone, contributing to diminished stream flows and our current drought which dates from this millennium’s dawn.
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July 1, ’16: California’s novel carbon trading scheme. Renata Brillinger and Jeff Mitchell
Nature designed earth’s soils to harbor twice the carbon that her atmosphere does. California’s novel carbon trading scheme will incentivize farmers to remove climate disrupting carbon dioxide to their soils for safekeeping.
Host Tom Willey speaks with guests California Climate and Agriculture Network’s Renata Brillinger, and University of California Vegetable Crop Specialist Jeff Mitchell.
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June 3, ’16: Immigration reform. Mario Sifuentez
Immigration reform, one of our modern era’s most intractable political problems, is best examined from a historical perspective. Mario Sifuentez worked Oregon onion fields as a child and now teaches the “History of Food” at UC Merced.
Host Tom Willey speaks with guest Mario Sifuentez, author of “Of Forests and Fields, Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest”.
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May 6, ’16: Picket lines alongside striking Baja California field workers. Dvera Saxton and Elio Santos
Fruits and vegetables daily gracing our tables are harvested by a similar work force on both sides of an international border. While California’s minimum wage soars from $8.00 to $15.00 per hour, Mexican farm workers struggle to earn $10.00 for an entire day’s labor.
Host Tom Willey speaks with guests CSU Fresno anthropologist Dvera Saxton and student Elio Santos while they share their recent experience on picket lines alongside striking Baja California field workers.
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April 1, ’16: San Joaquin grape business. Steve Schafer
The big almond gamble has been hogging all the news of late, while growers quietly yank out thousands of acres of wine and raisin grapes…..why? Farm gate prices are in the tank, as some wineries fill their tanks with foreign wine, not local grapes.
Host Tom Willey interviews Madera vine dresser and San Joaquin Wine Co. vintner Steve Schafer for some low down on the down low grape business hereabouts.
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March 4, ’16: National Land for People history. Berge Bulbulian, Marc Lasher, Janaki Jagannath, John Heywood
Host Tom Willey interviews former National Land People leaders, Berge Bulbulian and Marc Lasher, local water activist Janaki Jagannath and John Heywood, Executive Director of People, Food and Land Foundation.
Four decades ago, the late social activist George Ballis and cohorts waged a nearly successful, if ultimately quixotic, campaign to enforce 1902 Reclamation Act rules limiting farm size to 160 acres in Fresno County’s sprawling Westlands Water District. California Institute for Rural Studies scholars recently retraced Ballis’ National Land for People history, in hopes of shedding light on Valley agriculture’s current state and future trajectory.
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Feb. 5, ’16: Dramatic restructuring of Earth’s plant and animal communities. Jessica Blois
Neolithic Revolution, a term synonymous with our invention of agriculture, suggests humans abandoned hunter-gatherer ways, picking up the hoe rather abruptly some 10,000 years back. Actually more drawn-out and complex, that transformation began altering Earth’s climate long before the Industrial Revolution’s fossil fuel combustion did. Now biologists, publishing in the journal Nature, present evidence that Homo Sapiens’ recent adoption of farming ways also coincides with a “dramatic restructuring of Earth’s plant and animal communities”, not seen in earlier fossil records over several hundred million years. Join UC Merced’s Jessica Blois, co-author of that Nature article, and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey.
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Back in November, we laid another mentor from my early farming career to rest. Neophyte farmers often rivet sole attention on growing crops, only worrying about where and to whom they’ll sell produce when a harvest mountain overwhelms them. Distinguishing ourselves as marketers much sooner than we did as producers, Denesse and I cut our direct sales teeth at Arnett-Smith’s twice-weekly open air market behind Fresno’s old Chamber of Commerce building, over which Florence Smith reigned supreme. Her Arkansas Arnett clan had lit out for California at century’s turn, [Read more…]
Jan. 1, ’16: New Year’s Day Culture in Agri-culture special edition.
On rare occasions when “Down on the Farm” broadcasts on New Year’s Day, we wax celebratory with a Culture in Agri-culture special edition. Parlier tree fruit farmer David Boldt hauls his “portable” pipe organ into our KFCF studio to launch 2016’s festive mood. Reedley table grape grower and author Fred Smeds shares a harrowing tale of one June thunderstorm’s impact on his Savage Island Farm. Dinuba stone fruit farmer Paul Buxman serenades us on his viola and with poems penned by a late friend. Kettleman City asparagus farmer Steve Couture and host Tom Willey chime in with agrarian-themed poetry of favorite authors from near and afar. Let’s ring in the New Year with lots of raindrops on rooftops.
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Dec. 4, ’15: Host Tom Willey and Mario Daccarett discuss one daring dairyman’s remarkable innovation. Mario Daccarett
Familiarity with sprouted wheat grass found in every neighborhood health food store provides some reasonable idea of what a handful of pioneering dairy farmers are up to sprouting barley on an industrial scale for cows, sheep and goats. Golden Valley Farm’s Mario Daccarett shelled out $45,000 for a temperature-controlled, insulated van, about the size of a small bedroom, equipped with grow lights. Six-inch-tall grass mats that emanate like clockwork, 365 days-a-year, from this FodderWorks unit, according to Mario, replace 100 acres of alfalfa hay he previously fed to 350 sheep. Could such indoor fodder systems be embraced by our region’s large dairy operators?
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Although I hardly know one end of a cow from another, Western Organic Dairy Producers Alliance (WODPA) invited me to deliver the keynote at their recent 10th Annual Conference and Trade Show in Corvallis, Oregon. Amongst a parade of tradesmen visiting the podium to hawk wares “indispensable” to any successful dairy farmer, came one waving a large square of what appeared to be AstroTurf. I sat dumbstruck as FodderWorks’ vendor rep claimed smart California dairy operators circumvent our mega-drought by growing pasture grass indoors. My first thought — “What sort of rubes does this guy take dairy farmers for?” — was followed by a recollection that Mario Daccarett, who milks sheep in Chowchilla, had invited me out to see some wacky pasture growing machine he was experimenting with over a year ago. Sure enough, visiting the FodderWorks booth, I learned Mario’s Golden Valley Farm is one of their star adopters. Familiarity with sprouted wheat grass found in every neighborhood health food store [Read more…]
Sibella Kraus’ sights are set on protecting the last seven-thousand-acre remnant of the ‘Valley of Heart’s Delight’ for open space and urban-edge agriculture. Known as the Santa Clara or Silicone Valley today, its 450 square miles of mild climate, well-drained fertile soils and artesian water once hosted the world’s largest tree fruit production region, delighting hearts with apricots and cherries. Some 98% of the Valley’s expanse now lies beneath San Jose’s pavement or sprouts Apples, the computer kind, on sprawling high-technology electronics research and manufacturing campuses. Lest you think Kraus’ notion of restoring its last few thousand unpaved acres to agrarian glory completely fanciful, first consider this remarkable woman’s track record of accomplishment in her San Francisco Bay Area’s local, organic and specialty crop food movements over three decades plus. Sibella and I [Read more…]
Nov. 6, ’15: Sibella connected innovative farmers with creative urban food entrepreneurs to spark a revolutionary Bay Area food movement. Sibella Kraus
Host Tom Willey interviews Sibella Kraus, founder of the Sustainable Agriculture Education (SAGE) non-profit, which “cultivates urban-edge places where farming and local food culture can thrive and be celebrated”, to reminiscence on past accomplishments and vision the future trajectory for local and organic food movements.
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It was welcome news to read in today’s (10-29-15) Fresno Bee that momentum builds to employ winter-fallowed farmlands, including dormant orchards and vineyards for Valley aquifer recharge should anticipated El Nino flood flows materialize. My well and pump man Hollis Priest was on the farm last week tuning us up when I asked him what sort of water table declines he was observing over this irrigation season. Hollis reports the Clovis area remains stable, while other communities, like Raisin City, have experienced drops of greater than 50 feet. In our case, we’ll commission an official Pump Test soon, but our well’s yield decline, from 800 gallons per minute down to 650 GPM, over this summer indicates Madera’s water table has suffered significantly. Warmer than average high temperatures this fall have [Read more…]
Oct. 2, ’15: How does a San Joaquin Valley perennial crop farmer manage such high stakes roulette? Dave Loquaci
Host Tom Willey interviews his neighbor, fourth-generation Madera farmer Dave Loquaci.
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In May of this year, a group of five Certified Organic fruit and vegetable farmers, whose combined careers represent 147 years’ experience in biological agriculture, approached the nation’s largest USDA National Organic Program (NOP) certifier, California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), for help in defending our Certified Organic label’s value in a volatile marketplace.
This appeal was prompted by the nation’s iconic retailer of Certified Organic produce, Whole Foods Market (WFM), recent rollout of their proprietary fruit, vegetable and flower “Responsibly Grown” rating system in its 400 stores. The stated purpose of this initiative, examining and rating Conventional and Certified Organic WFM produce suppliers on parameters of soil health, pesticide use, food safety, labor practices, greenhouse gases, water conservation, waste reduction and [Read more…]
Sept. 4, ’15: Sierra forest & watershed health. Roger Bales, Jim Costa
Host Tom Willey interviews UC Merced Sierra Nevada Research Institute Director Roger Bales and Congressman Jim Costa.
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