We can all agree that strawberries are a good-looking fruit. Their bright red color against the green leaves practically screams “sweet and juicy.”

For most of my life, that was exactly how I shopped for them. I would walk down the grocery store aisle scanning clamshell after clamshell, looking for the reddest, plumpest, most perfect-looking berries. No discoloration. No odd shapes. No imperfections. If I was spending money on them, why wouldn’t I pick the best-looking package in the bunch?

I never thought much about what happened before that clamshell reached the store.

That changed about two years ago when I joined Western Growers as Marketing Manager.

Before working here, my understanding of agriculture was pretty general: someone grows the food, it gets shipped to a store and I buy it. Simple, right? And when something wasn’t available, or when the price was higher than I expected, I noticed that. What I didn’t think about were all the decisions, people and circumstances that came before that moment.

I had no reason to. The food was simply there.

My role at Western Growers has given me the opportunity to visit many of our members and tour their farming operations. I’ve walked fields, visited packing facilities, watched harvest crews work, seen new technology being tested and asked growers probably more questions than they expected from the marketing person visiting for the day.

And every single time, I’ve walked away with a greater appreciation for what it takes to put food on our tables.

One of my earliest memories was visiting a strawberry operation on the Central Coast. The landscape was beautiful, with rows and rows of strawberries stretching across the field. But what really caught my attention were the people harvesting them.

I watched as they moved quickly down the rows, selecting berries and packing them directly into the same type of clamshell I had picked through countless times at the grocery store. Each package looked carefully arranged. Watching from the outside, I knew it was physical work. But I’ll admit that a thought crossed my mind: How hard can packing strawberries really be?

Then they let us try.

We got our boots into the field and attempted to fill the clamshells ourselves. Except you couldn’t just throw strawberries into a container. They had to be selected and arranged properly, all while moving at a pace that made our attempts look painfully slow.

Suddenly, that perfectly packed clamshell looked different.

I thought about shoppers like me standing in a grocery store, passing over one package because a berry looked a little funny or another package looked slightly better. Meanwhile, someone had worked quickly and skillfully to harvest that fruit and pack it by hand.

It was one of those seemingly small experiences that sticks with you.

And there have been many of them since.

I’ve spoken with farmworkers whose specialized knowledge follows the harvest. During a watermelon harvest, I learned about crews who begin in the Coachella Valley around May and work their way north, eventually reaching Los Banos, Calif., as the season continues into October.

Their job isn’t simply to walk through a field and pick the biggest watermelon. They know how to read the crop and determine which fruit is actually ready to harvest. They move through the field looking for signs that most of us would never notice.

Before seeing it firsthand, I didn’t even know that was a specialized job.

That realization has repeated itself throughout my time at Western Growers. Agriculture is full of people who know how to do things I never knew someone had to know how to do.

There are people who can look at a crop and recognize exactly when it is ready. People who can harvest and pack produce with a speed and precision that comes from experience. People managing food safety, labor, logistics and equipment. There are scientists and entrepreneurs developing technology to solve problems most consumers will never know existed.

And then there are the growers themselves.

Some have shared stories that go back generations. They talk about the people who came before them, the operation they are responsible for today and, in many cases, the hope of passing something meaningful on to the next generation. At the same time, they are navigating labor shortages, regulations, weather, water, rising costs, market conditions and countless other variables that can change from one season to the next.

What has stayed with me most is the way they talk about it.

There is pride, but rarely in a flashy way. It comes through when they talk about what they grow, the people who work alongside them and the land they are responsible for. They know how difficult the work can be, and they keep doing it anyway.

It has given me a new sense of pride in my own work, too. My role is a very small piece of a much larger industry, but now I understand the people on the other side of the stories we tell, the events we promote and the work Western Growers does every day. I’ve stood in their fields. I’ve listened to their concerns. I’ve seen what they are trying to protect and what they are trying to build.

There are dozens of experiences I could share. I could write about the technology and automation I’ve seen in the field, the packing facilities I’ve walked through or the conversations that have stayed with me long after a tour ended. At some point, though, this article would become a book.

What all of those experiences have taught me is surprisingly simple: food looks different once you understand what it takes to grow it.

I still find myself looking for the best strawberries at the grocery store. I’m still a consumer, after all. But now that clamshell represents more than what I see through the plastic.

I see the person moving through the field selecting the fruit. I think about the skill it takes to pack it. I think about the grower making decisions months before I ever walk into the store. I think about weather, water, labor, transportation and all the other things that had to go right for those strawberries to be sitting in front of me.

Most of all, I think about the people.

So, to the growers who have indulged my curiosity, answered my questions and taken time out of already busy days to show me what you do: thank you. Thank you for letting me into your fields, facilities and operations and giving me a firsthand look behind the scenes of agriculture.

You gave me something I wasn’t expecting when I took this job. You changed my perspective on food.

Agriculture can feel distant when your closest interaction with it is the produce aisle. But food is one of the few things every single one of us depends on every day. There is an entire world of people, knowledge and effort behind something we so easily place in our shopping carts.

Sometimes, it takes getting your boots in the field to finally see it.

In California, the nation’s leading producer of fresh fruits and vegetables, the importance of water could hardly be overstated. And we certainly can’t ignore the obvious: California needs a water system growers can rely on.

This is where the California Farm Water Coalition (CFWC) comes in. Founded in 1989, in the midst of a six-year drought, the organization was formed to increase public awareness of agriculture’s efficient use of water and serve as a collective voice for California farmers and water users. At the helm of the coalition is Michelle Paul, CFWC Executive Director. While Paul considers herself an “inductee into the agriculture community,” she has spent years building a career at the intersection of communications, agriculture and water policy.

“I fell into the agriculture industry when I found myself working in support of state commodity group export programs,” said Paul. “It really was my first taste outside of my formal education at Fresno State.”

Graduating with a master’s degree in international affairs, Paul ultimately found a way to capitalize on her political acumen, spending a few years working in the Capitol. She later moved to AgWest Farm Credit (then known as Farm Credit West), where she supported member outreach programs and became increasingly engaged in the storytelling and advocacy work the organization used to support its members and the agriculture industry. She is also a graduate of the California Agricultural Leadership Program.

As she continued on her path of professional development, she had a yearning to get into the driver’s seat to have a greater impact on the industry at large. When longtime CFWC Executive Director Mike Wade announced his retirement, she saw an opportunity to step into that role and secured the position in November 2025.

According to Paul, “it’s been full speed ever since.”

That mix of communications experience and policy exposure now shapes how Paul approaches one of California agriculture’s most persistent challenges: making water issues understandable outside the industry. And in her view, water may be the most critical issue facing the state’s next administration.

Beyond “Not Enough Water”

The conversation around California water is often distilled into a simple question: Does the state have enough water?

According to Paul, the answer is considerably more complicated.

“We often think of water as simply a supply issue,” she said. “People say, ‘California doesn’t have enough water.’ But the conversation is much broader than that.”

Paul broke the state’s water situation into three interconnected components. The first is legal: who has the right to divert water and for what purpose. The second is operational: how that water is stored, moved and ultimately delivered. The third is physical supply: the water actually available in reservoirs, rivers and canals, snowpack and groundwater.

Paul said the current system inherently creates variability in the water allocations delivered to farmers, making it incredibly challenging, if not impossible, for growers to plan and continue operating a business under these conditions.

“We have increasing climate volatility, or weather whiplash, where the swings in precipitation and snowpack from year to year are increasing,” Paul said. “And that makes it very difficult to look at historical averages, which has typically been the way in which water operators, and the regulations, have allocated water.”

The result is a system in which multiple pressures can compound one another, and Paul emphasized the urgency in building a more reliable water system. The overlapping legal, operational and supply constraints are exactly what producers contend with when allocation decisions arrive after planting, budgeting and harvest operations are already underway.

Paul cited a recent example: In August, Central Valley Project south-of-delta contractors received a 3 percent increase in water allocation, bringing final delivery from 25 percent to 28 percent of their contract total. While additional water is valuable, the timing presented a challenge for growers who were already preparing for or actively harvesting their crops.

“It’s extremely difficult to account for and plan ways to maximize that water use when you don’t get that information until very, very late in the year,” said Paul.

Closing the Water Reliability Gap

The need for more reliable surface water is also closely tied to California’s efforts to manage groundwater, which Paul said has usually been utilized to fill in the gap as surface water deliveries have become more constrained.

But that safety net is tightening too, as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) limits pumping to protect aquifers and prevent subsidence. The result is a narrowing set of choices at the very moment growers need flexibility most.

The effects of SGMA implementation also extend beyond the farm itself. When less land can be farmed, workers can see reduced hours, and rural communities can lose economic activity, tax revenue and investment.

“Agriculture is a big engine that keeps them going,” Paul said of rural communities. “So if you remove that tax base and the amount of investment that comes into these rural, often socioeconomically challenged areas of the state, you have some real significant impacts on the economy that are very challenging to mitigate.”

Paul emphasized that growers are already taking significant steps to use water more efficiently. Between 1980 and 2015, farm production value increased approximately 38 percent while agricultural water use declined 14 percent, which she attributed to improvements in irrigation and farm management.

“Growers are more efficient with their water today than ever before,” she said. “On-farm growers are leaning hard into technology with soil moisture, using automated irrigation systems and looking to more efficient practices.”

But efficiency alone cannot close the gap.

“We can’t just conserve our way out of the water supply gap,” Paul said. “The gap is too big.”

The challenge now is implementing groundwater regulations that protect the resource while allowing growers and the communities that depend on agriculture to remain viable.

“SGMA needs to be implemented in a way that allows growers to survive and care for their community and their workers, in a really thoughtful and achievable way,” Paul said.

Infrastructure, Technology and the Path Forward

As groundwater pumping becomes increasingly constrained, Paul sees investing in increased storage capacity and surface water conveyance as two of the most important areas for policymakers to address.

Most of California’s major water storage infrastructure was built decades ago, when the state had half the population it does today, and Paul said, “We just haven’t kept up with it.”

While the solution sounds simple enough—modernize water infrastructure—she said the path forward is challenging from a regulatory and cost perspective. “And infrastructure projects that are most viable take a really long time before the shovel hits the ground,” she added.

When a project gets approved or begins to move forward, it is often met with legal pushback, which further delays any solution being implemented, including the long-discussed proposal to raise Shasta Dam.

Since contending with the politics surrounding water can take years, Paul thinks increased use of modern technology could be an answer for moving forward and in the right direction with how California manages and moves water. This includes greater investment in forecasting technology, reservoir operations, conveyance infrastructure and groundwater recharge.

“We’ve got to use updated technology, like using aerial devices for snow forecasts, to understand what the snowpack looks like in the high Sierras so that our water managers can better deliver water more efficiently, more effectively,” she said.

She also pointed to Forecast Informed Reservoir Operations (FIRO) as one example of how improved forecasting could help guide when and how water is released from reservoirs, adding that expediting environmental permitting would allow the state to take better care of its water resources in a more timely way.

Paul also sees opportunities beyond traditional surface storage. She explained how water districts are exploring groundwater recharge, recycled water projects and urban-ag partnerships, efforts she said are reflected in the state’s work toward SB 72 and its goal of identifying an additional 9 million acre-feet of new water supplies.

“I’m hopeful that focus on leveraging better data and technology to prioritize identifying new water supplies will survive the change in administration,” she said. “We need California’s top office to prioritize improving our water situation.”

Agriculture is Part of the Water Solution

For CFWC, policy debates are also communications challenges: how to help people see the connection between water decisions, food production and rural economies.

Much of CFWC’s work, Paul said, centers on helping policymakers and the public better understand what water means beyond the farm gate. The coalition uses media outreach, editorials, letters to the editor and interviews with non-industry publications to communicate the realities growers face, while also bringing media and influencers to farms to see issues firsthand.

“We’re really an educational organization,” Paul said. “The more aware people are of the significance of these issues, the better.”

That education is particularly important when it comes to public perceptions of agricultural water use.

“I think there’s a real disconnect with policymakers and voters, that water stays on the farm. Water doesn’t stay on the farm—it leaves the farm in the form of the product that goes to market,” Paul said. “All food takes water to grow. The question is where and how it’s grown.”

Looking ahead, Paul said California’s water policy needs to become faster, more transparent and more integrated. Decisions need to account for how policies affect agriculture, communities and the environment rather than addressing individual issues in isolation.

“There is a tendency to approach water supplies in a very siloed manner,” she said. “That’s not a long-term solution.”

Despite the challenges, Paul sees an opportunity to move toward more practical water solutions, particularly through new water supplies, improved technology and groundwater recharge. She noted that agricultural lands make up approximately 70 percent of groundwater recharge lands south of the Delta, another indication that agriculture can play an important role in addressing the state’s water challenges.

Ultimately, she said, communicating that role to the public will be critical.

“We’ve got to get out there and share success stories,” Paul said. “We need to share our story with the public because they are the ones who elect the policymakers. We need to help them understand that we’re part of the solution, not the problem.”

Expect the unexpected.

This is the message that climatologists have been repeating over the past few years. Well, that, and the word of the season: anomalous (which essentially means, “whoa, didn’t see that coming”). Over the past few years, California has experienced several record-breaking events: “hottest night on record,” the “first-ever tropical storm” and most recently, a “Super El Niño.” Is all of this the new normal, or can modern tools allow us to predict the future?

What Even is a Super El Niño?

A normal El Niño is the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), where a warm swell of water moves eastward, suppressing cool water upwelling along the coast, among other interruptions to typical ocean patterns. Usually, this injection of energy (warm water) increases the odds of above-normal winter precipitation across the southern U.S. Massive amounts of ocean heat releasing into the atmosphere increases air temperatures, resulting in the year following a Super El Niño peak being, historically, almost always the hottest year on record.

The catchy term “Super El Niño” essentially refers to a “very strong” El Niño event and is characterized by above-average ocean temperatures of an added 2 C (3.6 F) or more. When ocean temperatures spike this drastically, we can expect rising sea levels, and the increased frequency and intensity of storms. So far, climate scientists predict an overwhelming probability that 2027 will eclipse all prior records to become the warmest year ever observed.

Notably, warming from El Niño paired with warming from climate change is additive. This El Niño’s temporary atmospheric warming influence (+0.2 C to 0.4 C) will occur atop an existing (and essentially permanent) +1.4 to 1.5 C baseline global warming. California is expected to experience significantly wetter-than-normal conditions, which can lead to heavy rain, flooding, mudslides and coastal erosion fueled by high El Niño sea levels.

What Does This Mean for Agriculture?

The prediction for El Niño is not simply “more rain.” Rather, rainfall may become less evenly distributed, with more of it arriving in concentrated storms and longer dry intervals separating major precipitation events. Additionally, a Super El Niño is like a candle that burns hotter and faster, where we expect it to last a shorter amount of time, but the outcomes will be more extreme. While models and other tools are able to predict the probability of events, averages become less useful when anomalous extremes increasingly determine outcomes and agricultural impacts.

Projected climate risks for California farmers include increasing heat and precipitation volatility, drought-to-flood swings, wildfires and the difficulty of relying on historical averages. With a “thirstier atmosphere,” warmer air can increase evaporative demand and draw more moisture from soils, vegetation and water bodies. With warmer nighttime temperatures (such as the record-breaking nighttime temperatures in August 2026), plants may struggle to recover from daytime heat (nighttime warmth can affect respiration, flowering, pollination, fruit development, ripening and quality) or may not accumulate degree days necessary to trigger flowering.

However, despite all of these predictions, some of the more significant flooding events have occurred outside of El Niño years. Models are really only calculating the probability of possible events, not the certainty. Today, modern techniques can leverage machine learning and models, genetics and breeding, biostimulants and other tools to help growers make better decisions despite uncertainty.

Farmers have been trying to hedge uncertainty since the beginning of farming. While we can expect more extreme weather events as the new normal, modern tools help us to predict the probable future. Models can be valuable by presenting several plausible outcomes rather than attempting to identify one certain future. The future of agricultural prediction is less about identifying exactly what anomalous event will occur and more about preparing with resilience against a wide range of more extreme possibilities.

By Cierra Allen, Program Manager, and Bryan Nickerson, Membership Director

In mid-August, the Western Growers Leadership Program (WGLP) and several WGLP alumni had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit a Nutrien potash mine in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

To start our trip, the WGLP group, along with a few Nutrien employees, arrived early Monday morning to the Nutrien Cory Potash Mine, located about 20 minutes outside of Saskatoon.

Before heading underground, we first went through several safety training courses and reviewed the necessary precautions for our visit. We then suited up in hard hats equipped with lamps, protective jumpsuits, goggles and oxygen self-rescuers. Once we were fully prepped, we climbed into a large elevator for the four-minute descent to 1 kilometer (over 3,000 feet) into the mine.

Once we made it down, we were greeted by surprisingly warm 81 degree temperatures. Our tour guides liked to mention that while 81 degrees may seem a bit warm, the temperature stays consistent year-round, regardless of the weather on the surface. That means that when the temperatures plunge during the winter, the mine isn’t that bad of a place to work.

Once underground, we loaded into electric ATVs and off we went to the “face,” or area where the potash was actively being mined that day. The mining face was about 15 kilometers, or about a 45-minute drive, from the elevator.

Yes, you read that correctly. We traveled 45 minutes through the underground tunnels, getting farther and farther away from the elevator—the same elevator that served as our only way in or out. Needless to say, it was a little nerve-racking.

The group consensus was that the best way to describe that trek through the mine was the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. You know the one: you are in a jeep, traveling fast through dark tunnels, with ropes hanging from the ceiling and gates that suddenly stop your vehicle? It was remarkably similar to our trip as we drove through dark tunnels only illuminated by the ATVs’ headlights, passing through large underground “garages” operated by ropes hanging from the ceiling, zooming along in twisting tunnels.

Eventually, we arrived at the mining face, where we got to see a massive machine called a continuous miner actively cutting into the potash. The continuous miner uses a large rotating cutting drum to break apart the potash from the rock. The mined material is then collected and transported by several miles of conveyor belts toward the surface.

After exploring more of the mine, we made our way back to the elevator and returned to the surface.

Once our mine tour was over, it was time to head to the mill portion of the facility to see what happens after the potash is brought out of the ground. This is where the raw ore is processed and transformed into a finished product ready for transport.

We were able to see the process from start to finish: from the arrival of the raw ore, to crushing and sizing, separating the potassium chloride from the salt, cleaning and concentrating the product, drying it and finally seeing the different types of finished potash.

After seeing the finished product, we then got to see how it makes its way to customers. We watched the process of loading the potash into railcars, where they average about 77 rail cars per day and ship about 2.4 million tons of potash a year.

While the potash produced at this mine is primarily used for fertilizer that gets shipped around the world, potash also has a variety of industrial and medical uses.

It was a very eventful and informative day, and we feel extremely fortunate and grateful to have had the opportunity to experience something that so few people ever get to see firsthand.

You may have noticed that this article has two authors. There is a reason for that: one of us came down with a terrible bout of the flu and was unfortunately unable to make it to the activities of day two. So, while we may have started this adventure together, only one of us made it through the entire experience.

…

Following a full day observing Nutrien’s Cory Potash Mining operations, the group had the opportunity to visit the breeding facility located on the University of Saskatchewan campus. The University of Saskatchewan and Nutrien share a long-standing partnership focused on advanced agricultural research, including crop breeding and development.

Led by Senior Director Bruce Harrison, the tour provided an inside look at the facility’s on-site laboratories, where subject matter experts shared insights into molecular science, chemistry and plant pathology. The group also received a hands-on tour of the greenhouse facilities, highlighting the research and breeding efforts focused on developing climate-resilient crops and advancing agricultural innovation.

In the afternoon, the group traveled to the Nutrien Tower in downtown Saskatoon for a series of presentations from Nutrien leadership. The presentations provided valuable insight into the company’s approach to quality management, economic and market research, distribution and logistics and proprietary innovation. Collectively, the sessions offered a broader perspective on the complex business operations and strategic considerations that support the global agricultural supply chain.

The day concluded with a private tour of Black Fox Distillery, operated by fifth-generation farmers John Cote and Barb Stefanyshyn-Cote. The farm and distillery provide a unique example of agricultural entrepreneurship and value-added production, with nearly 95 percent of the ingredients used in their products—including triticale, grains, fruits and flowers—grown on their own farm.

More than simply a distillery, Black Fox represents a living farm, a cultural symbol, and a compelling testament to the connection between agriculture, craftsmanship and entrepreneurship. The operation has earned significant recognition, including Saskatchewan and Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmers awards, as well as Saskatoon’s Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2018.

Altogether, the trip was one for the books. The WGLP Class VIII and alumni were able to bond and share experiences like no other. From traveling more than 3,000 feet underground to watching potash go from raw ore to a finished product ready to be shipped around the world, to learning all about Nutrien and its part in the agriculture industry, the experience gave us all a whole new appreciation for the scale and complexity of the potash industry. We are incredibly thankful to Nutrien and their amazing team for their generosity.