A Serendipitous Stroll through Agriculture, Part IV

Food Chain Radio Podcast with Michael Olson

Various Participants

World Ag Expo, Tulare, California

How do they grow our food?

Given the extent to which we take food for granted, and how far we have removed ourselves from the source of food, and how much we pay for cheap food, we think it wise to pause and ask those at the source:

How do you grow our food?

Welcome to Part IV of our “Serendipitous Stroll” through the world of agriculture at the World Ag Expo in Tulare, California.

I am Michael Olson, and I will be guiding this stroll with comments and observations that I hope will help you better understand how all the food we take for granted is grown.

Who is Michael Olson? As author MetroFarm: The Guide to Growing for Profit In or Near the City, and as Board Chair of Think Local First, County of Santa Cruz, it is safe to say I am an advocate for local agriculture­– “Food with its farmers face on it!”

However, I am also the host of Food Chain Radio / Podcast Show, and am fully aware that local food does not fill up all the shelves with good stories. And so, without too much prejudice, I travel up and down the food chain looking for good stories about what’s eating what.

When a notice about the World Ag Expo in Tulare, California crossed my desk, I thought about all the interesting stories that might be found among its 1200 exhibitors, 2.6 million square feet of displays and 108,000 visitors from 56 countries!

If you would like to learn how food we take for granted is grown, join me for Part IV of a “Serendipitous Stroll!” through the World Ag Expo and meet the people who grow the food we take for granted!

On this stroll we will meet:

Elisa Bridenbaugh, Knipe Land Company, whose display of Range Writer magazines drew visitors to the exhibit as if bears to honey. What’s the secret?

McKenzie Middleton, Miss California Rodeo, who stands before the throng to champion the rodeo, in spite of all that the woke have to say about the sport being so cruel to animals.

John Knipe, Knipe Land, who is making bank on all the California farmers and ranchers who are cashing in their California land holdings in favor of the greener pastures of Idaho.

Chris Skidmill, Precision Ag Solutions, whose equipment provides growers with such precision that they can trust it to provide them with a close shave in the morning, or so its claimed!

Drake Salwasher, AfriKelp, whose company farms kelp off Capetown, South Africa, reduces that kelp to its nutrient rich essence, and then feeds it into the soils of California’s crop lands.

Steve Joyce, Kubota Tractor, whose company brought small farm tractors from Japan to California a half century ago, and which then discovered the mother lode of gold in California’s specialty crops. Look for the Kubota folks in orange!

Ryan Miller, Case IH, whose classic International Harvester tractor reminded yours truly of the first tractor he drove at the age of six. Look for the Case IH folks in red!

Tanner Cady, New Holland, whose big blue whale of nut and fruit harvester portends the end of farm labor, or so most everyone in agriculture seems to hope. Look for the New Holland folks in blue!

Ken Goble, Cirrus Aircraft, whose display of the best-selling single engine private aircraft gets one to wondering how such an attractive piece of winged-machinery could be an implement of agriculture?

Mel Machado, Blue Diamond Almonds, whose booth spawned a genuine feeding frenzy of hungry people seeking nourishment from their serendipitous strolling about the grounds of the World Ag Expo.