…the heart of American farming. Van Groningen, dubbed the “Pumpkin King of California,” joined the show from Manteca, where his family farm grows over 60 varieties of pumpkins ranging from…
Nat DiBuduo: Politics, Water & California Farming
…Memorial. Everything was surrounded by tree fruit and grapes back then.” From Family Farms to City Limits Today, much of the farmland that shaped DiBuduo’s youth has been replaced by…
Nat DiBuduo, the “Godfather of Grapes,” on the Future of California Wine and Farming
…change he sees as both inevitable and troubling. “Farmers can’t compete with developers when it’s this hard to farm in California,” he said. “Regulations, labor, and water costs keep rising…
Ethnic Roots of American Agriculture: How Immigrants Shaped U.S. Farming
…and livestock management techniques distinct from English, Scottish, or Irish farmers. Each group contributed to the evolving farming culture that defined rural America. Immigrants Start as Wage Laborers Many immigrants…
The Roots of 4-H: Jessie Shambaugh and the Birth of American Agricultural Youth
…stood Jessie Shambaugh, a dedicated farm wife whose passion for education and community development helped shape one of the most influential youth organizations in U.S. history: 4-H. Shambaugh was deeply…
Karen Ross on Water, Workforce, and the Future of California Agriculture
…the sameness in farming, if you’ve seen one farm, you’ve seen one farm,” Ross noted. “Understanding regional specifics helps us see where people are working together to really lean into…
Karen Ross Talks Water, Regulation, and Prop 50 Silence on AgNet News Hour
…mix of climate uncertainty and government regulation has made farming even more difficult. Still, she emphasized that the future can be bright if farmers and policymakers work together on education,…
Elaine Culotti: Fighting for California’s Farmers and Future
…to many as the “Fresno Undercover Billionaire” and “The Lipstick Farmer.” From her Fallbrook farm to national television, Culotti has emerged as a bold voice for California agriculture and a…
David Tangipa: Fighting for California Farmers and Rejecting Proposition 50
…the fourth-generation farmer who didn’t do what our great-grandparents did,” he said. “We got a little lazy, and now we’re losing the farm.” California’s prosperity, he argued, was built by…
Why Prop 50 Threatens Rural Representation: California Farm Bureau President Shannon Douglass
…those products and everybody up the chain involved in the marketing and sales of those.” Yet farms are disappearing at an alarming rate. “We lost 20% of the farms in…
How Rural Electrification Transformed U.S. Farms
…the mid-1950s, the majority of farm families finally had access to electric service. The impact was immediate and transformative. Electricity revolutionized life on the farm—powering milking machines, irrigation pumps, refrigeration,…
Shannon Douglass Doubles Down on Prop 50 Opposition
…Farmers are struggling with water shortages, labor issues, and global trade pressures. Losing rural representation, she argued, would only make those problems worse. Without strong farm voices in Sacramento and…
Mando Perez of Semios Named CAPCA Member of the Year
…monitoring, and climate data. He explained how the company provides growers with water pressure summaries, network uptime reporting, pest phenology tracking, and spray timing recommendations. These tools allow farmers to…
California’s Water Puzzle: Insights from Avid Water’s Cory Broad
…crop, and the environment,” he said. “The technology already exists; our job is to put it to work for the farmer. If the farmer isn’t successful, Avid won’t be successful….