Posts By: Tim Linden
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Recall Insurance Gaining Traction
In recent months, several retailers around the country have asked their produce suppliers to have at least $5 million invested in recall insurance in the event that a contamination issue leads to costly disruption at the retail level. This trend, asking suppliers to financially protect retailers from unanticipated costs caused by issues at the point ...
Biologicals Effective, Sustainable, and Offer a Strong ROI
Pam Marrone, a pioneer and leader in the bio-pesticide world, looks forward to the day when the majority of growers use biologicals because of their efficacies, not just because they offer other advantages. She freely admits that biologicals are most often used today to stay below maximum residue levels (MRLs) and allow workers back into ...
Safe Drinking Water Bill Moving Toward Finish Line
A unique coalition of agricultural and environmental groups are close to realizing their goal of passing Senate Bill 623, which will create a “Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund” and shield growers from enforcement activities concerning nitrate contamination. “We need everyone’s help right now,” said Gail Delihant, director of California government affairs for Western Growers,…
Water Year 2017/18 Solid Spring Helps with Disappointing Winter
A series of March and April storms helped California move much closer to a normal year in terms of precipitation and helped keep the dreaded “D-word” out of the conversation for at least another year. “As of today’s date (April 16), we are still well below average with regard to snow depth,” said Doug Carlson, ...
WGCIT Sponsor: City of Salinas Offered Impetus for AgTech Movement
Today, the Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology is fulfilling its potential and helping connect agriculture and technology in a way that is moving the industry forward and tackling some difficult challenges. Dennis Donohue, consulting director of the Center, played an integral role in the establishment of the concept when he was mayor of ...
AWARD OF HONOR: Stephen Patricio Exemplifies the Best of Ag
It’s 5:00 am on August 18, 1962, and the City of Los Banos is already buzzing with excitement in anticipation of President John F. Kennedy’s visit to their little community for the groundbreaking ceremony of the San Luis Dam. Nine-year-old Stephen Patricio is getting ready to hop on his bicycle to make the 15-mile trek ...
Withstanding the Test of Time
Growers Ice Salinas, California Member Since 1978 It is hard to believe that any technology applicable in 1936 is still viable today, but getting the field heat out of produce by topping it with ice is still in vogue. Growers Ice is offering the same service concept today that fueled its establishment more than ...
ORGANIC FARMING: “Liquid Compost” Fuels AgroThrive
AgroThrive Inc., a firm offering organic fertilizers to growers, is built on the premise that all organic wastes can be converted to safe and nutritious organic fertilizers. Founder and CEO Dragan Macura, who is a food scientist by training, has developed a 21-day process to turn virtually any waste into a pathogen-free, organic-certified liquid fertilizer ...
TRANSPORTATION Ag Exemption Eliminates Major ELD Hurdles
The new rules governing the use of electronic logging devices (ELD) and hours of service in the world of produce trucking have eliminated many of the issues concerning the mandated use of ELD and basically given truckers back the time the use of an ELD would have taken from them. In a nutshell, produce truckers—and ...
WGCIT Sponsor: Vic Smith Eyes the Big Picture
Vic Smith readily admits that the agricultural technology play he and others are helping to fund is long term in nature with a positive return on investment still off in the future. “If I had to justify it with my CFO, that might be difficult to do,” he quipped. But Smith, CEO and president of ...
Continual Expansion Has Served Kautz Farms Well
During the late 1960s, the development of the mechanical tomato harvester saved the California processing tomato industry and led to great expansion of production. As others were entering the industry, Lodi tomato farmer John Kautz saw difficulties on the horizon and began diverting his acreage to wine grapes. This going-against-the grain action was a seminal ...
Legal Issues Gain Complexity Matching Modern Times
It’s a complicated world with far more nuances than a generation ago, which has led to a matching of complexity in the legal issues that agricultural firms face. Battles with farmworker unions dominated the ag legal scene a generation ago. Today, the issues that companies deal with are wide ranging with 2018 bringing particular focus ...
2019 Chairman of the Board: Ratto Bros. Thrives with Unique Niche
Modesto, CA-based Ratto Bros. Inc. is very representative of the agricultural industry at large. It has a long family history in agriculture and deep roots so commonplace in the fresh produce industry. But it also has developed its own unique niche that has set it apart from the norm and allowed it to thrive as ...
Gary Pasquinelli: Steps Down after 45 Years of Service
After 45 years on the Western Growers Board of Directors, Gary Pasquinelli stepped down in November having served the longest tenure in the 90-plus year history of the association. “Our longest serving board member is not only one of the most active producers in the industry, he puts his time, talent and treasure into everything ...
McInerney Set to Retire after 43 Years with Western Growers
After 43 years with Western Growers—the last 25 as the number two person—Western Growers Senior Executive Vice President Matt McInerney is retiring in March of 2019, after the association’s first board meeting of the year. McInerney grew up in Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley, the youngest of five kids. His mother was a registered nurse ...
Danish Roots Run Deep at Arvin Farm
BACKGROUND: It was in 1927 when twin brothers Viggo and Soren Stenderup emigrated from Denmark to the United States and found their way to the farming town of Arvin in the southern San Joaquin Valley. They got their chance to literally establish new roots after the Great Depression. “They were able to buy a farm ...
WGCIT Sponsor: Taylor Farms “Bruce Taylor Deserves All the Credit!”
So says Tom Nassif when speaking of the development of the Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology. The technology incubator, aimed at bringing farmers and entrepreneurs together to develop solutions for challenges facing production agriculture, is housed on the first floor of the Taylor Farms complex in downtown Salinas. That alone is worthy of ...
Speed Breeding: New Technology Shows Promise
Researchers in Australia first began looking at a new technique called speed breeding eight years ago, and U.S. researchers have followed suit with their own trial projects in recent years. The concept involves exposing plants to an inordinate amount of light in a close greenhouse environment in an effort to speed up the growing process ...
Plant-Forward Concept Drives Meal Kit Firm
The philosophy that drives menu decisions for Sun Basket, one of the top three meal kit firms in a crowded field, appears to be a perfect fit for produce suppliers. Produce industry veteran Don Barnett, who is the company’s chief operating officer, recently told Western Grower &Shipper that from the very beginning Sun Basket’s point ...
Ag Economy Faces Uncertainty
Uncertainty in several areas including world trade, tariffs and labor do pose some issues for the agricultural sector that does impact its attractiveness to lenders, according to a couple of financial experts interviewed by Western Grower & Shipper recently. “There is a lot going on that is impactful to agriculture,” said Dean Cardoza, executive vice ...