A Serendipitous Stroll Through Agriculture: Part III

Food Chain Radio Podcast with Michael Olson

A Serendipitous Stroll Into Agriculture III

Various Participants

World Ag Expo, Tulare, California

How do they make our food appear?

As if by some kind of magic, our grocery stores get filled with food in the middle of the night, while we are sleeping! It happens every night, and every morning there is food to eat!

That food is always there in the morning we take for granted­– even the fresh tomatoes we eat in the middle of winter! It’s time to meet the magicians of food, and ask: How do you make our food appear?

Welcome to Part III 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 where the magic of all the food we take for granted begins, join me for Part III of a “Serendipitous Stroll!” through the World Ag Expo and meet the magicians who make food appear!

On this stroll we will meet:

Dr. Roland Fumasi, Executive Vice President of RaboBank’s RaboResearch Food & Agriculture, whose responsibility includes looking into the future to see what lies ahead for the business of agriculture.

Lucas Fuess, Senior Dairy Analyst, RaboResearch, who looks into the future of America’s dairy herd, much of which has been transplanted from the green grasses of the Midwest to the bone-dry Central Valley of California.

David McGanya, Senior Specialty Crop Analyst, Rabo Research, who tracks the always-in-season fruit, nut and vegetable specialty crops as they are grown throughout North and South America.

Jenna Bruna & Vanessa Hycliff, California Bio Energy, who help turn the waste of dairy farms into useful energy so that, “One cow can fuel a car across the country with clean energy!”

Garrick Grabow, Grabow Well Drillers, who family-owned company can drill down into the Central Valley’s ever-shrinking aquifer earth 1,500 feet to find water for growing food.

Dana Pack, FogCo Environmental, whose misting systems can lay down a fog to suppress the dust, flies and smells of concentrated animal feeding operations.

Chuck Serrano, Supervisor of Operations, Westlands Water District, who tries to find enough water at the end of California’s political water hose to keep his District green. His motto: “Food grows where water flows!”

Russell Taylor, Live Earth Soil Conditioner, who puts life back into soil with the proceeds of a mineral rich humic shale sediment mined from the remains of a pre-historic forest.