The checks the workers bring in here from Mr. Resnick are the same checks they bring in for years. "There's the argument that to get rid of (farm subsidies) entirely might eliminate the small, inefficient farmers.". When I started to realize the socioeconomic issues of the Central Valley, I decided to stop writing checks to other charities and bring my business acumen into the project. His operation is extensive and very smart.. Back then, the Los Angeles Times had a bureau in the middle of California. Most Los Altos residents don't know it, but one of their neighbors known locally as a developer and political candidate moonlights as a farmer, one currently receiving a dose of notoriety. A judge found this past March that the initiative was flawed because Vidovich used his own project description instead of the neutral description by the Cupertino city attorney. And then it hits me when I reach the road to Weedpatch, where my grandfathers story in Americaa poet on his hands and knees picking potatoesbegan. Boswell told me what a fool he and his forebears had been for wasting water, sun, and soil in California to raise fiber, of all things. We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content. Under her rethink agriculture program, the kids will be trained in plant science and irrigation technology, marketing and sales. The river is nothing if not fickle. Stewart would deny that Giblers reporting played a part in their philanthropy. If those seem like minute details for the head of a major development company to trouble with, hes even more hands-on with Sandridge Partners LP, the family business he formed for farming acquisitions. "There are a lot of unintended consequences in agricultural policies, (but) the intent is to maintain a viable and healthy agricultural base," he said. accounts and the history behind a news event. This is a big crop, the field man tells me. What was so disappointing and alarming was that West Hills College and other educational institutions in the area are not considered agencies of required notification and (that) needs to be amended," said Oliveira. In contrast, John Vidovich, who helms Sandridge, comes from a Silicon Valley farming-turned-developer family. We saved the best for last, he says. Boswell had done for the town of Corcoran. What if I failed? He sat behind a desk without clutter and stood up to shake my hand. I now hear whispers of water belonging to farmers two counties away being pumped out of the ground and hijacked in the dead of night to irrigate the nuts of Lost Hills. The dam ends up holding and the levees, too. We had gangs and murders, but thats better, too., He has come to El Toro Loco to cash his check and buy some beer. Thats $83 a tree. Taxpayers support the continued production of such commodities, at least in theory, through direct payments to farmers amounting to $5 billion last year under the direction of the farm bill. I didnt grow up here, but if it wasnt for California, its openness and opportunities, I wouldnt be sitting where Im sitting., No other farmer, not even Gallo, had cornered a market the way Resnick had cornered the growing, buying, processing, and selling of pistachios. Satellite images from NASA show the area around the well fields Angiola was pulling from is the epicenter for land subsidence in eastern Tulare County from overpumping. She was in her late 20s, almost a decade younger than Stewart, and the mother of two children. After school and on weekends, wed clean and wax floors. City of Sunnyvale NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING. Our relatives have been patient. He worries because there isnt enough water now to properly irrigate the almonds, pistachios, and pomegranates. Vidovich continues to run De Anza and in a surprisingly hands-on manner. For now, shes playing country western music on the sound system and trying to lure a combination of oil-field workers, supervisors at Wonderful, and travelers driving the last miles of James Dean. Or at least this is what I can glean through the car window. I walk into the supermarket El Toro Loco, and the clerk directs me to the back office, where a tobacco-chewing Yemeni named Anthony Hussein is sitting beneath a photograph of an uncle in his U.S. Army uniform. You Have Found Lost Hills! He started cleaning pizza parlors and drugstores. The uncle died at age 22 fighting in Afghanistan. In the maroon of sundown,I follow the workers back to Lost Hills. Number two, Angiola is trying to maintain the local aquifer by retiring land to limit pumping. This is a forgotten community. The three of them spent two weeks of all-nighters making copies. Everything but the turkey had come from his orchards. The truth, as always, probably lies somewhere in between. Rain likely. I take out my cellphone and swipe across Google Maps. The Sureos gang has tagged the front entrance but otherwise has left the inside unmarked. Giant pincers manned by a single worker grab the tree by the throat and start shaking. Contact Eliza Ridgeway at elizar@latc.com. Absolutely not. I had not seen any. He grew up in New Jersey, where his father ran a bar. What market share has been lost in Asia and the Middle East, the company is looking to get back in Mexico with its spicy Latin line of nuts. If he knows what hes doing, the shears can make a thousand more pounds an acre.. I think I paid $9 million. It becomes something else as soon as they encounter their workers in another guiseas a fellow shopper at Costco or as the parents of the kid who goes to school with their kid. A public resource had been privatized for the purpose of growing tens of thousands of acres of nuts, he charged. When a farmers orchards encompass 186 square miles, finding the field man can be a challenge. Its happening. The bosses wont speak of it, he says. It was good for the bottom line. And so the question of sustainability is front and center here now in California. The nuts are kept there a few more daysany longer and the ants will attack themto complete their drying. Most everything that can be touched in this corner of California belongs to Wonderful. Here and there a mulberry tree, its canopy pruned back, breaks up the red-smeared sky.. Here and there my boots crunch down on the dried remains of pomegranates that look like small pieces of scat dropped by a coyote. Too many pistachios. What if he dropped his lawsuit and the two of them worked together to solve their water problems? Not a single one of them wants any part of Wonderful. The farmer isnt here to smell the cracking open of wood, the ripping open of warm secret earth. You rely on Marketplace to break down the worlds events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. Ninety-nine is the deadliest highway in America. You and I look at this meal, he says. The courtship of Stewart and Lynda went fast. They greet me with smiles and handshakes. Preview. You have permission to edit this article. His accountant suggested he buy apartments. He guides me back into the main store with its displays of fresh fruit and vegetables, meats, cold cuts, and baked goods. I dont know. Posted on August 6, 2018 Bakersfield Californian. He doesnt wave me off or give chase. On the whiteboard in front of the weights, the big boys list their totals. Like the wheat barons of the 1870s who lived on San Franciscos Nob Hill, Resnick isnt of this place. 2023 Minnesota Public Radio. The Resnicks are growing again. He needs every drop he can get., Dont you know? He paved over the last orchard in the Santa Clara Valley with some apartments and then went looking for another valley where he might build his own empire. The idea of capturing Kings River floodwaters isnt new. When Lynda learned that half the students receiving thousands of dollars in company scholarships were dropping out of school, she wasnt deterred. A balancing of books in an office in the city has decided that this orchard and others around it, covered by too little water, can go. Resnick wanted no part in my story. Wages that used to go to workers stay in the pocket of the nut growers. Ive done no big wrong in my life that would cause me to have any. It cant be farmed like it was, he says. My father, born in a vineyard outside Fresno, was a raisin grower before he became a bar owner. The jolt and shudder would tear out the roots of a lesser species. Theres not much left over, he says. He certainly looks the part in his well-worn jeans and checkered shirts. (Vidovich said he didnt think Sandridge had hit 100,000 acres, total, yet.). So its a really extraordinary kind of development thats never happened in agriculture in California before really to raise the living of your workers. Though Vidovich describes them as simply having known each other at school, others in Tulare and Kings water circles say Hurley is Vidovichs right-hand man some say henchman. The Southwest Kings GSA is chaired by John Vidovich, who runs Sandridge Partners, which owns hundreds of thousands throughout the San Joaquin Valley. One of the most dramatic alterations of the earths surface in human history took place here. So the state couldnt deliver, in one year couldnt deliver any of it. He lingers in the crowd long enough to shake hands with a friend from Bel-Air whos planting thousands of acres of pistachios in the worst ground of Tulare Lake. If I follow them north through Resnick pomegranates, I can find out where the water is coming from. They are suing Angiola for what they say was Hurleys illegal takeover of the tiny Atwell Island Water District. "There are a lot of good places for it (feedlot). She didnt understand his drive. The scale of productionand the ability to process, market, and sell its own cropsallows Wonderful to be mostly mediocre in the fields and remain highly profitable. Compulsive gambler and alcoholic. He made friends everywhere he went, John Vidovich told the Mercury News in 2007. That was the last straw for Pixley, which sued in 2013. In fact, Vidovich frequently moves water by pipeline, Pace said, pointing to a massive line Vidovich installed that appears to take Angiola groundwater through his Dudley Ridge lands. Shes designing the curriculum.. She is determined that their lives will play out differently from the lives of their parents, but she means no disrespect by this. This is a company that runs its resources to the max, he tells me. To read more copy and paste or select. Even the community water tank is painted baby blue with a big sunflower. This is gamblers ground unlike any other in California, and as I drive from hill to dale, examining each orchard, my head spins. Resnick himself had sold 5,000 acre-feet to a proposed new town in the farm fields of Madera. Notifications from this discussion will be disabled. Theres a mountain range to my left and a mountain range to my right and in between a plain flatter than Kansas where crop and sky meet. If anyone doubted the health benefits of the juice, they spent more than $30 million in research to prove that it fought heart disease and prostate woes. No bee can penetrate the shield, and his mandarins remain seedless. Marketplace host Amy Scott spoke with Mark Arax, who wrote an articlein The California Sunday Magazine about the Wonderful Companys farming business and issues of sustainability in the Central Valley. He wouldnt know one of his Valencia orange groves from one of his Washington navel orange groves. Lynda believes that if theyre enticed in the right direction, the 1,300 workers might choose to prepare the same healthy fare at home. Subscribers support the Los Altos Town Crier please log in or subscribe to continue reading. Too many pomegranates. Food and Beverage Manufacturing . And the Resnicks run the place, thats where this story gets conflicted and very complicated because in the last five to eight years they have committed millions and millions of dollars to making this place better educating the children, helping the workers deal with obesity and things like that. Number three, water from Angiola cant physically get to Semitropics proposed storage cells. This means he can avoid the thievery of a labor contractor who acts as a middleman between the farmer and the farmworker and charges for rides and drinks and doesnt always pay minimum wage. But he got too big. By the decree of Lynda, who once contemplated a bowl of those juicy little seedless mandarins and on the spot named them Cuties, this is now the land of Wonderful. If their fears come true, the Los Angeles water grab in Owens Valley would pale in comparison. These trees are pruned by a machine that hedges one side and then the other, he says. And one Kern County water district could be the linchpin to it all. The stacks of bottles gave him no answer. The graders, sorters, and beeping forklift drivers head to an immaculate caf, where the Wonderful Saladroasted chicken, mixed greens, cilantro, pistachios, and slices of mandarin in a blue cheese vinaigrettesells for $3. He guides me to the caf, and we grab our lunches from the buffet. He had moved out to Long Beach, bought some property, and built one of those new strip malls. Vidovich has more than one reason to be evasive. It was a hit. The problem is this last drought lasted five years. 2022-02-14 - BY LOIS HENRY. Summer or not, theyre dressed in shirt layered upon shirt and the same no-name dusty blue jeans. She divorced her husband in 1968 and began dating Anthony Russo, who worked at the RAND think tank in Santa Monica with military analyst Daniel Ellsberg. What he knows is that Wonderful is buying up to 50,000 acre-feet of water a year in a series of hidden deals. These are donations from other farmworker families, but theyre not for her and Manuel and the kids. I meet up with the Wonderful field man who first tipped me off to the pipeline. Lessons? he says, sounding perplexed. This drought has brought Stewart to his knees. The 5.3 acres are so flawless and at odds with the town that the whole thing feels like a movie set. When its Pablos turn, he hands Hussein a check for $437, and Hussein counts out $433 back to him in cash. That was eight or nine years ago. Maybe not since the wheat barons has the income disparity between farmer and farmworker been greater. He was a small, trim man, no more than 5 foot 5, in his early 70s with thinning silver hair and brown eyes rimmed in pink. For now, theyre selling to farmers like Resnick who can pay the price. The juice isnt selling like it used to. Im not going to live forever, even with the massive amounts of pomegranate juice Im drinking. Page had been a longtime board member of the Semitropic Water District and Vidovich wanted that kind of expertise. Being healthy is a choice. This project may not be fully thought out," said Neves. Each face wears its own weary. Its not the fidget of boredom. I returned for two more sessions, and then he and Lynda took off to their $15 million vacation house in Aspen, where they were warring with the locals over a housing project for community workers that was blocking their view. He sold a chunk of land to the builders of Sunnyvale and decided he could develop the rest himself. The Tulare Lake Canal Company, controlled by JG Boswell Company, moved the equipment onto . Drought turning to floodit is the story of California. He emptied the sky of tens of millions of geese and drained the 800 square miles of Tulare Lake dry. Over the years, they had donated large sums of money to political campaigns, and some of it went to Republicans who had pledged to prop up California agriculture. Tracts of houses, Californias last affordable dream, civilize three or four exits, and then its back to the open road splattered with the guts and feathers of chickens that jumped ship on the slaughterhouse drive. But most of this water has been spent by the Resnicks and other account holders in years two, three, and four of the drought. His many land purchases and involvement on water boards are all about farming, not selling water to L.A. As featured on. I steer past Wasco to the dust-blowing orchards that flank Lost Hills, the densest planting of almonds, pistachios, and pomegranates on earth. I thwack both lines. This was Lost Hills, where the people are dependent on the Resnicks from cradle to grave. In Kern County, one in two adults and almost one in five children are obese. The Boswell comments are in a letter sent from the El Rico GSA, while Vidovich's concerns are outlined in a letter from the Southwest Kings GSA.. The farmer corralled the snowmelt and erased the valley, its desert and marsh. Links: www.sanjoseinside.com. Were still trying to figure out who our typical customer is going to be, Angelica says. I gaze out the passenger window, looking for the glint of the pipeline. The aquifer either doesnt exist or is so befouled by salts that the water is poison.

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