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This newsletter is dedicated to the Japanese-American Internees The Oishi family was part of the farming community of Japanese immigrants and Americans of Japanese ancestry who were flower growers and founded, along with Americans of Italian ancestry, the wholesale San Francisco Flower Mart. Seizo Oishi, a Japanese immigrant who had worked long hours in the agricultural fields of California, eventually
Cherries are finicky trees. They don’t like it when it gets too hot, when there’s not enough rain, and when it doesn’t stay cold enough during the winter. For the last few winters, California’s cherries have had all three of these environmental stresses and responded by producing fewer cherries. “[In 2014], we had almost no cherries—only three trees harvested on
Small Farms Left Out of Farm Bill By Charlene Oldham When the first “farm bill” was created in the late 1930s to help family farms, horses and hand plows were as common on farms as Model As and mechanized tractors. Today the $300 billion farm bill up for revision in Congress is a complex web of extensions and additions to
By Judith Redmond of Full Belly Farm, courtesy of Capay Valley Farm Shop Years ago, when I was studying at the University of California, I noticed that there was research being done on “organic” agriculture with results that proved it to be not viable. Upon closer examination, it turned out that the researchers had compared plots of carrots, one treated
Winter Farm Conferences The Monterey Peninsula is one of the most beautiful spots in the world, but it wasn’t just the sparkly ocean breeze dancing through the pines that brought a near sell-out crowd to the 2012 Eco Farm Conference held February 1-4. It was the exchange of important ideas and sharing of issues that concern family farmers that
My daughter broke her pinkie when she was ten years old while battling to catch a football in a Hail Mary melee on the school blacktop. She had surgery to pin the bone together so it would grow back correctly. “She’s going to need a few sessions of finger therapy,” the surgeon told us afterward. My other daughter, who had
What does winter weather mean for you? A change in work wardrobe from grey to black? From seersucker to faux fur? Maybe a change in your bike commute? We contacted two of the farmers we work with to find out how the approaching winter affects their work. On the west coast, we spoke with Torrey Olson of Gabriel Farm in
I try to stay out of agricultural politics. I’d rather support farmers by buying their wonderful produce without having to testify on their behalf. Sometimes, however, circumstances land on your shoulder like a little butterfly—or in this case, a light brown apple moth (LBAM). For the past two years, I’ve been active in opposing California’s quarantine of small farms that
The Light Brown Apple Moth is an indigenous pest considered harmless to crops in New Zealand, Hawaii, Australia, and the UK, all countries that are free to export fruits and vegetables to U.S. markets while California farms currently face quarantines if it is found, a practice panelists at a recent forum called unfair to small sustainable farms. “Why are American
As a kid, I always looked forward to springtime. Winter didn’t just mean less sunlight and standing at a bus stop early in the morning in a red down jacket trying to quickly mound up disparate flurries and street gravel into soggy battlements that would derail any school bus on its journey of despair. For me, winter meant that I
Chairman Florz, vice-Chair Maldonado and esteemed members of the Senate Committee on Food and Agriculture – thank you for taking the time to hear testimony today about the light brown apple moth and the implications of the quarantine program. My name is Chris Mittelstaedt and I am the founder and CEO of The FruitGuys. I founded The FruitGuys in 1998
In March, California held senate hearings on the status of the state’s eradication program for the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). FruitGuys founder and CEO Chris Mittelstaedt testified in defense of small family farmers whose farms have been hurt by the current California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) practice to quarantine farms and sale of their produce whenever any
The FruitGuys GoodWorks Project includes our Farm Steward and Community Outreach programs which have donated thousands of pieces of fruit to charitable organizations nationwide. Our Farm Steward program (The FruitGuys Community Fund) donates trees, bee hives, and bat and barn owl boxes to farmers to support sustainable agriculture practices. Since 2008, generous FruitGuys customers have donated more than 200 fruit
The first time I went to a Scion Exchange I didn’t know what to expect—was it a science-fiction convention? As I drew nearer I saw people entering the building with little sticks under their arms—was it some sect of Wicca? The Wicker Wiccan maybe? But no, a Scion Exchange is where farmers and home gardeners bring twig cuttings from their
Oroville, CA – Oroville is a gold rush town in Butte County, CA. Oro means gold in Spanish, and during the Gold Rush prospectors stampeded over the area in a greedy frenzy. When Del Chaffin came to the area, he was looking for riches of a different kind—a valley where he could grow crops year-round. Del bought land from
Fruit is so good that scientists think it may make chimps smarter. “Chimpanzees remember the exact location of all their favorite fruit trees,” wrote Matt Walker on Earth News (A BBC.com website). “Their spatial memory is so precise that they can find a single tree among more than 12,000 others within a patch of forest.” He cited a joint Ivory
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