Defining “Big Ag”

William Selby — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 18:51:01 +0000

In our Chapter Nine: Primary Industries and Rural Landscapes, we examine the many types of farms that have helped make California’s approximately $60 billion dollar agricultural industry second to none for several decades. The state also celebrates an incredibly diverse farming industry from small family farms and community supported agriculture to some of the largest corporate farms on the planet. A January 2018 article in The California Sunday Magazine put the spotlight on the Wonderful Company, one of the greatest agricultural empires in the world, an empire that helps define Big Ag and big water. Chances are good that you have consumed food from their farms and even viewed their orchards while travelling between southern and northern California through the Central Valley.

Here, we invite you to read A Kingdom from Dust to learn more about the people and communities that help characterize California’s rural landscapes. We entice you with Resnick’s quote (the most powerful California farm owner so far in the 21^st Century) from the article:

“My life is about California. I didn’t grow up here, but if it wasn’t for California, its openness and opportunities, I wouldn’t be sitting where I’m sitting.”

The post Defining “Big Ag” first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

Vista’s Annual Strawberry Festival

William Selby — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 21:02:44 +0000

trawberry festivals are annual events where traditional agriculture and popular cultures have been converging in southern and central California cities that continue to celebrate and exploit their sweet berry legacies.

As of 2018, there were at least nine different annual strawberry festivals in the state, mostly in late April and May, peaking near the end of traditional harvests on Memorial Day Weekend. In a few of these cities (such as Garden Grove), developments and population growth consumed their strawberry fields long ago; but the festivals live on, as if to celebrate their transitions from rural to urban cultures. And so some of these festivals have evolved to highlight many of their modern cultural attractions for younger generations that may have never seen a strawberry growing on a plant.

Still, the list of strawberry festival locations remains impressive, as if to remind us that the state’s more than $2 billion dollar annual strawberry crop often ranks 6^th or 7^th in the long list of agricultural commodities within this leading agriculture state. Here’s the rough list in alphabetical order as of 2018: Arroyo Grande, Cal Poly Pomona, Garden Grove, Oxnard, Placer County BerryFest, Santa Maria, Stehly Farm Organics (in Valley Center), Vista, and Watsonville. You will also find the Strawberry Music Festival in the Sierra Nevada foothills during Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends, an event based on a culture of quality music jamming rather than jamming strawberries.

Here, we visit the annual strawberry festival in Vista, an old and new suburban-style community in northern San Diego County, inland form Oceanside and Carlsbad, with a population of more than 100,000. What do these images tell you about the people and cultures of Vista, how they celebrate their Memorial Day weekends, and how they might compare and contrast with the rest of California?

Morning activities start with the annual run that ends at Vista’s Paseo Santa Fe and its Strawberry Festival.

California pet cultures that may be more urban than rural are on exhibit at these festivals.

A few booths find ways to exhibit strawberry products.

Art mixes with irony as we look toward downtown Vista and its annual Strawberry Festival.

Community Supported Agriculture proves that farms are still productive not so far from Vista’s neighborhoods.

Like many California communities, Vista has earned its own playhouse to feature local and traveling performing artists.

It is sometimes easier to find a strawberry character than the real fruit at some of these festivals.

The real fruit has finally arrived from California’s farms.

You can participate in the art that represents one of the latest cultural trends and will remain here long after the festival is over.

This sidewalk decoration appears to pay homage to avocados rather than strawberries. Avocados, incidentally, are a major cash crop in the region.

Nostalgia mixes with construction in this industrial landscape in an older part of Vista just beyond today’s downtown.

Vista’s historic suburban landscapes seem distant from the state’s more congested modern coastal cities and hipster cultures.

The post Vista’s Annual Strawberry Festival first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

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Defining “Big Ag”

Vista’s Annual Strawberry Festival