Colorado Member RT Sakata Sakata Farms Brighton, CO Member Since 2013 CALIFORNIA ROOTS: Bob Sakata, the patriarch and founding father of Sakata Farms Inc., Brighton, Colo., grew up in California and first began farming in the Golden State. However, World War II led to his internment in a camp and negated the start of his ...
The Thrive Accelerator program, which was launched last July to foster innovation in the agricultural sector, reached a milestone in early March when 10 of the most innovative firms gave 20 minute presentations of their business ideas to a panel of judges. The judges were charged with scoring the concepts and the top three scorers ...
(Editor’s Note: The questions and answers have been condensed and paraphrased for clarity and brevity.) Bill Dodd, who was a member of the Napa County Board of Supervisor for 14 years, was elected to the Assembly in his first run for the office in November of 2014. He is a Democrat having switched party ...
In late March, members of the Western Growers’ Board of Directors engaged over several days in a series of Sacramento meetings and discussions with administration officials and state legislators on key issues affecting the specialty crop industry. Additionally, Governor Jerry Brown visited with Executive Committee members prior to the week’s events. Water, labor and workplace…
Western Growers and Silicon Valley Global Partners (SVG Partners) have entered into an exclusive strategic alliance agreement to find, accelerate, advance and invest in innovative solutions intended to solve critical challenges to production agriculture through technology and produce more with less water, labor and inputs. The two companies will collaborate on innovation centers in Salinas…
With California now firmly entrenched in its fourth drought year in a row, the irrigation industry is rightly focused on water efficiency. Paul McFadden, who is senior sales manager for Toro Micro-Irrigation, El Cajon, CA, said while the focus is clear, that doesn’t always mean using less water. “It’s an equation: units of input vs. ...
On Wednesday, April 1, Jerry Brown stood on a bare patch of ground in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and announced mandatory statewide cutbacks in water use to deal with the California drought. It is now in its fourth year and, by some measurements, is the worst drought on record. In fact, the location picked for ...
(Editor’s Note: Questions and answers have been paraphrased for brevity and clarity.) (Arizona House Representative Tony Rivero, a Republican, won in his first run for the state Legislature in November 2014. Previously he was on the Peoria City Council.) Where were you born and raised? I was born in Phoenix and grew up ...
In the late 1860s, Mark Killian’s ancestors first started farming in Arizona. Since that time, the family has continually been involved in agriculture, which made his selection as the new director of the Arizona Department of Agriculture (ADA) a natural choice. “The Killians and Ellsworths, which are the two families that are my ancestors, were ...
Director Profile John McPike Vice President California Giant Berry Farms Director since 2014 Member since 1985 FAMILY BACKGROUND: It is a story played over and over again in the fresh produce industry of a career passed from father to son. John McPike grew up in Watsonville where his father of the same name managed several ...
(Editor’s Note: The questions and answers have been paraphrased for brevity and clarity.) Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson was first elected to the California Assembly in 1998 where she served for six years. After a several year hiatus, she was elected to the State Senate in 2012. From your start in Boston, how did you ...
Darci Vetter serves as Chief Agricultural Negotiator with the rank of Ambassador at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. She is responsible for bilateral and multilateral negotiations and policy coordination regarding agricultural trade. Recently she answered several questions from Western Grower & Shipper concerning her career and the current negotiations. Q:…
Eye-in-the-sky to pie-in-the-sky technology was front and center at The Forbes AgTech Summit, held in Salinas, CA, in early July with Western Growers as a strategic partner. The summit was part of Forbes’ Reinventing America series and was held in partnership with SVG Partners and Thrive Accelerator, which is a highly selective mentorship and investment ...
Two innovative companies—both using byproducts from fresh fruits and vegetables—received the top two Thrive Accelerator awards at The AgTech Summit held in Salinas in July. Nuritas was the winner of the top award for the development of a process that extracts nutrients from plant and food products at the molecular level. Nora Khaladi, who is ...
The building of the Central Valley Project in the early 1960s was the genesis of the current Woolf Farming and Processing firm in Fresno, CA. Stuart Woolf, CEO and president, and a member of the Western Growers board of directors, said the building of that project and the use of the water came with restrictions ...
Within two decades there will not be a single human harvesting fruits and vegetables in this country. That provocative statement is the work of David Evans, formerly the chief futurist at Cisco who is now working on technology to connect all the machines in your home. Wouldn’t it be great, he said, if when you ...
The first lawyers specializing in the fresh produce industry tended to practice ag labor law, as articulated by Western Growers CEO Tom Nassif in his President’s Notes column on page 4 of this issue. Ag labor law was heady stuff in the 1960s and ‘70s when many young lawyers took their newly-minted licenses to practice ...
(Editor’s Note: The questions and answers have been edited and paraphrased for clarity and brevity.) Senator Cory Gardner grew up in “the other” Yuma, a small town on the Eastern Plains of Colorado. He began serving in the Colorado House of Representatives in 2005. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in ...
This summer, in a small way, genetically modified fresh produce got a bit of a makeover, with a larger transformational effort planned for the future. Since the first genetically modified fresh crop hit the market more than two decades ago with the Calgene Flavr Savr tomato, the pro-GMO movement has not done particularly well. While ...
The Nunes Company launched its Broccoleaf product more than a year ago as a way to utilize a part of the broccoli plant that was discarded. The item has been well accepted and has received kudos from food writers across the country. At the time, Matt Seeley, vice president of marketing for the firm, said ...