DOWN on the FARM
with Tom Willey
First Friday of the month at 5p.m.
KFCF, 88.1 FM Fresno
Listen to our podcast.
Down on the Farm with Tom Willey
First Friday of the month at 5p.m. KFCF, 88.1 FM Fresno
March 3: 2023 Park Farming Organics with Scott Park
Park Farming Organics might be the most well-known, least well-known organic farm in California. Scott and Brian Park’s 1,500 acres of rich black loam beside the Sacramento River grow tomatoes and grains that organic processors compete for. Scott’s straightforward organic soil management approach employs cover crops, compost, minimum tillage, then “getting out of nature’s way”. Join “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey and farmer Scott Park in conversation.
> Learn More About Scott & Brian Park’s Farm
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Feb 3: 2023 Culture in Agriculture highlights Wendell Berry with John Moses
Among the pantheon of living philosophers who nourish our modern organic movement, novelist-poet-essayist Wendell Berry presides atop Mount Olympus. “Down on the Farm’s” 2023 Culture in Agriculture celebration will delve into the Kentucky bard’s extensive cannon of agrarian literature. Join Fresno City College emeritus professor of English John Moses and host Tom Willey tomorrow at 5PM, on Free Speech Radio KFCF 88.1FM to rekindle Wendell Berry love or to discover an extraordinary author for the first time.
> Learn More About Wendell Berry
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January 6: UC Merced Climatologist Dr. John Abatzoglou
UC Merced climatologist Dr. John Abatzoglou researches the impact of climate change on our American West. The water use efficiency of irrigators has often been exaggerated by Groundwater Sustainability Agencies here in the Central Valley. Dr. Abatzoglou demonstrates that, since 1980, a warming and drying atmosphere has caused all Western crops and forests to consume ever more water, and will continue doing so. Join “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey and climatologist John Abatzoglou in conversation.
> Learn More About Evaporative Demand
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December 2: Pete Goodell PhD, UC Integrated Pest Management Specialist
A focus on chemical-free pest management, once centered at UC’s famed Division of Biological Control, spawned a cadre of independent advisors on California’s farms, most of whom are now retired. Pete Goodell PhD, UC Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Specialist and former president of the Association of Applied Insect Ecologists, recently ended a 35-year career in the field. “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey and Pete Goodell discuss the present state and future of pest management under a new generation of practitioners.
> Learn More About Integrated Pest Management
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November 4: Easton farmer, Kenny Lucero
A featured reward of “self-independent” farmers is durable associations made with fellow cultivators. Just out of high school, Easton farmer Kenny Lucero soon mastered the rare art of growing Japanese eggplant. He also loved greenhouse work, making T&D Willey Farm’s annual vegetable transplants over three decades. Plant management skill ushered Kenny into his second career as a table grape grower. Join “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey in conversation with Kenny Lucero.
> Learn More About Table Grape Flavors
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October 7: Clay Daulton, Madera’s Daulton Ranch
Madera’s Daulton Ranch, once encompassing 17,000 acres, hearkens to California’s Gold Rush era. On half that spread, neighbor Clay Daulton today grazes his own breeding stock, Yosemite’s mules and horses, and overwintering cattle from the Pacific Northwest. This significant agricultural enterprise has never relied on irrigation over its 170 years of operation, thriving on natural rainfall. “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey and Clay Daulton engage in a resource management conversation focused on Madera’s past and present.
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September 2: Agronomist Peter Aleman, Owner of Bio-Gro Inc.
“Biostimulant” joins the lexicon of crop fertility inputs as we begin to appreciate complex interplays between plants and soil microbes in delivering nutrition. How do biostimulants differ from familiar N-P-K fertilizers, do they work, or just more “snake oil” to pick a farmer’s pocket? Join “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey in conversation with pioneering agronomist Peter Aleman, owner of Bio-Gro Inc., Mabton, WA.
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August 5: Author Liz Carlisle, Environmental Scientist Aidee Guzman
Author Liz Carlisle revisits our “Down on the Farm” front porch to discuss her just-published Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming. Liz argues that climate change demands not just playing number games with soil carbon but reembracing ancestral relationships with the land. One connection to such tradition is environmental scientist Aidee Guzman, whose research on San Joaquin Valley immigrant farmers’ soils and cropping systems features in the book. They join host Tom Willey in conversation.
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July 1: UC Davis hydrogeologist Graham Fogg
UC Davis hydrogeologist Graham Fogg’s ‘Paleo Valleys’, buried along the base of our Sierra Nevada’s western slope, are a potential godsend to groundwater recharge-obsessed Central Valley communities. These ancient, buried riverbeds, dating from the last ice age, are cobble and gravel-filled to depths of 100 feet, can extend for miles underground, and have been proven by Fogg’s team to guzzle flood water as much as 100 times faster than surrounding land. Join Graham and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey.
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June 3: Lois Henry, SJV Water
Veteran Fresno Bee and Bakersfield Californian journalist Lois Henry, now CEO and Editor of ‘SJV Water’, gets the drop on all South Valley water happenings. Our Sierra’s modest southern streams can flip from trickle to torrent from year to year. Waterscape scarcity compels California’s wily agricultural titans to sometimes collaborate, and sometimes clash. Join Lois Henry and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey exploring mysterious machinations down yonder.
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May 6: Doug Graham, New Era Farm Service
California law will soon transform all our kitchen scraps into black gold. Tulare’s New Era Farm Service, founded by a half-dozen maverick farmers in 1974, may be the state’s first and most enduring commercial compost operation, producing 100,000 tons of dairy manure compost annually. New Era’s just-retired President and CEO Doug Graham shares three decades of composting knowhow with “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey.
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April 1: The filmmakers of “First Time Home”
“First Time Home” is filmed and directed by Maderans Esmeralda and Heriberto Ventura with Washington State cousins, all second-generation Indigenous Triqui immigrant youth. Deputized to visit an ailing Oaxacan grandfather, the foursome traveled 3,000 miles overland, through an unknown country, ambassadors to an ancestral homeland and extended family they had never met. Join “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey in conversation with Esmeralda, Heriberto, and film producer Seth Holmes.
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March 4: Fresno’s Vineyard Farmers Market founder, owner Richard Erganian
Chez Panisse restaurateur Alice Waters once described the plein air structure sheltering Fresno’s Vineyard Farmers Market as a ‘cathedral’. Why would a profit-minded developer dedicate acres of a major California city’s most valuable commercial property to fruit and vegetable vendors – for over 40 years? “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey will ask that question of Vineyard Farmers Market founder and owner Richard Erganian.
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Feb 4: Pioneering organic produce grower, seedsman and plant breeder Nash Huber
Nash Huber, reared on a 1940s Illinois family farm, found his way to the Pacific Northwest during the turbulent 1960s. Over the next half-century, reborn farmer Nash won a stellar reputation as a pioneering organic produce grower, seedsman and plant breeder, while driving permanent protection of thousands of farmland acres threatened by urban development. Join Nash Huber and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey in conversation.
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Jan 7: Organic Wholesaler Heath & Lejeune’s David Weinstein
Every hard-working produce farmer loves to cuss the “middleman” for siphoning off potential profits, while supposedly doing “nothing”. However, our organic movement’s early days proved wholesaler-farmer relationships could be more symbiotic than predatory. Does harmony yet reign now that organic produce performs on the marketplace main stage? Join “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey and legacy organic wholesaler Heath & Lejeune’s David Weinstein in conversation.
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Dec 3: Jessica Vaughan’s experience with Controlled Environment Agriculture
A California farmer harvesting 50 tons of tomatoes from an acre is a happy farmer. But a farmer in Holland grows 450 tons on that same acre, under glass. Is that possible, and just how is it done? Formerly known as greenhouse growing, Controlled Environment Agriculture or ‘CEA’, heaps more food on tables daily. Jessica Vaughan shares her near-decade of CEA experience with “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey.
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Nov 5: Dan O’Connell and Scott Peters, “In the Struggle”
Dan O’Connell and Scott Peters’ newly published In the Struggle chronicles the stories of eight scholar-activists who, over nearly a century, have championed the cause of agrarian democracy against industrial-scale agribusiness in our San Joaquin Valley. Join “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey in conversation with authors O’Connell and Peters.
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Oct 1: John Diener, Five Points Red Rock Ranch
John Diener’s Five Points Red Rock Ranch is recognized among the most innovative farming enterprises in California’s Central Valley. Red Rock grows nearly 1,000 acres of certified organic processing tomatoes, pioneers vastly reduced tillage, dials water use efficiency to the gallon over 4,000 acres, and innovates on-farm drainage issues common to westside saline soils. Join “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey and John Diener in conversation.
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Sept 3: Gina Colfer, Organics Agronomist at Wilbur-Ellis
Raised on a Santa Cruz County apple orchard that great-grandfather Bella planted around 1900, Gina Colfer’s passion for agriculture burns unabated. Agronomist Colfer’s career witnessed Central Coast organic vegetables scale-up from hundred-acre farms to operations of thousands. “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey and Gina discuss what industrial-scale organic operations do well, and where they fall short of the biological systems management Colfer advocates at agribusiness supplier Wilbur-Ellis.
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August 6: Matt Angell, Madera Pump Co. discuss plunging water table
Matt Angell fixes ailing wells for a living. His Madera Pump Co. chases a plunging water table to depths of a thousand feet trying to keep desperate farmers’ orchards and vineyards alive. Matt warns that end days are near if agriculture doesn’t drastically mend its ways. Is anybody listening? Join Matt Angell and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey in conversation.
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