I have had an enjoyable month of working with lots of great folks. I had the pleasure of presenting with Jackie Wasche (Colusa County RCD), Ami Gunasekara (CA Dept. of Food & Ag), and Greg Baker (Glenn County RCD) at the Colusa Farm Show a few weeks ago. There were several farmers and ranchers in the audience who raised some very intelligent questions, so (at least in my opinion) we ended up having multiple informative discussions during that single workshop session. Thanks again for the invite, Jackie!
Our RCD held down a booth focusing on specialty crops at the World Ag Expo in Tulare last month, and we had a blast. We worked hard and played hard, and with country music going all week, I got to reminisce about my days growing up in Memphis. We met a ton of great people from all over the world—we talked to folks who lived as close as Tulare and as far as Australia and China. It’s interesting how similar things are, even half way around the world. Some similarities are a bit dis-heartening—the same desertification issues that we have in several parts of our home state and country, they too have in many parts of China where several food scientists we had a discussion with had traveled from. Other similarities are a bit more aesthetically-pleasing, such as when I was speaking to an agronomist from Italy, and he told me how the place he works in Tuscany looks almost identical to some of the foothills he visited in San Diego County—bellissimo! It’s always great talking to folks from different cultures to remind you just how alike we all are.
Darrell Cordova and I had the pleasure of presenting about networks and farmer-to-farmer interactions with Kandi Manhart and Steve Gruenwald from Glenn County at this year’s CalCAN conference in Davis and had a blast. And on that note, please remember that if you’re interested on being on your local Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), please let us know.
There are just a few things that are coming up that I’d like to mention. We have a tree crop workshop coming up in Modesto on March 30, contact us at ESRCD for more info on that workshop. And finally, more demos will be popping up soon, so please tell us what you’re interested in seeing happen—even the simplest things can be the most powerful. Thanks for reading and I hope y’all stay warm and dry!
-Jeff