Oranges, mandarins and huge fields of grape dot California landscape

When Wisconsin farm folks think of California agriculture, chances are they see so called "happy cows" grazing in green pastures (which aren't really available to most cows because there aren't many actual California dairies that graze dairy cows).

Thy also see earthquakes and a state economy that always seems to be in financial trouble.

But, California has a few things Wisconsin doesn't have: Oranges and mandarins, huge fields of grapes made into wine and raisins and figs, for instance.

These are foods and drinks that we Wisconsinites dearly love and sometimes admit do not fit into the much promoted "buy local" program but we'll eat them anyhow.

In fact the San Joaquin or Central Valley stretching from Bakersfield on the south to Sacramento on the north is often referred to as our nation's breadbasket.

Tulare, Kings and Fresno counties are the heart of the biggest milk-producing area in the U.S. but you wouldn't know it by driving the rural roads: The dairies are seemingly far apart; there are no silos marking farmsteads and you don't see row after row of corn and soybeans and woodlots and fence line trees are seldom seen.

But what you do see are seemingly never ending fields of grapes all in rows that go on forever with the individual plants tightly attached to stakes; endless rows of trees all neatly pruned, weed free and sometimes in bloom.

Frankly, I've traveled many, many miles in the valley and don't know one tree from another but do know that there are walnuts, pistachio and almonds in abundance.

I don't remember ever eating a fig but have eaten more of my share of fig Newton's mostly while riding a bicycle long distances. They are easy to pack, don't crumble easily and seem to provide a good bit of energy. Not once did I ever ponder what a fig was or where they came from.

Well, I found out that figs are the most mentioned fruit in the bible and were referred to in a Babylonian hymn in 2000 B.C.

The fruit was apparently first grown in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers area in Mesopotamia and found its way to California via way of Asia.

Today, almost every fig raised in the U.S. (about 25 million pounds last year) is grown in three adjoining counties in central California: Madera, Fresno and Merced.

Karla Stockli, CEO of The California Fig Advisory Board says that the first figs grown in California were in a small area in Fresno, actually in what is called the "fig district" right where her office is now located.

She says figs are marketed as fresh and dry with most going into food ingredients, with fig Newton's being an important consumer product.

Some Wisconsin dairy producers may remember Karla Stockli prior to her return to California to head the fig marketing group - she worked with the National Guernsey Association from 1987 to 1990 and the Holstein World from 1990 - 1993. She was raised on a dairy farm and is an ag graduate of Cal poly San Luis Obispo.

On Sunday prior to World Ag Expo in Tulare, while traveling west of Fresno, on the way to visiting a dairy farmer I knew from previous visits to California, I noted what I took to be an orange grove.

Out of curiosity, I stopped at a nearby house where a kindly resident, Charley Lambetecchio, a Fresno businessman and grape farmer, said it was 120 acres in size and was owned by Fowler Packing, Co. who marketed fruit across the U.S.

He said he knew the owners and that they'd be happy to give me an education in orange growing - if I visited them on Monday - and that they had their facilities just a few miles away.

And, so I did.

My first piece of information on my visit to Fowler Packing was that the field did not have orange trees at all - those were mandarins.

My guide, Max Anderson, production supervisor, emphasized that his company only handled mandarins along with stone fruit, no oranges.

From then on it got confusing: From November to January, Clementines are picked and marketed under that name although they are really mandarins. And from mid January to April, they pick and sell Murcotts, which are always labeled as mandarins...

And, both also carry the "Cuties" label and are marketed by three fruit packers (Fowler, Sun Pacific and Paramount) who have formed a marketing cooperative and sell as Cuties Cooperative in Bakersfield.

A modern food processing/packing plant is a technical wonder, whether it involves milk, butter, cheese or mandarins. In this case the mandarins were coming in one end of the large packing facility, sized, graded, inspected multiple times, put in bags and ended up in boxes.

Anderson said the fruit was all handpicked ever so gently and that process of gentleness continued on the entire route from truck to shipping box.

He pointed out that his company dates to 1950 with Sam Paragon the founder. It is still family-owned with the founders four sons now the owners.

Some readers may remember my column of 4-5 years ago when I wrote of the surplus of grapes in California and how vast fields were being bulldozed. Charlie Lambecchio said he had destroyed 20 acres on his small operation of only 120 acres.

Pistachios became the new crop of choice he says. But, it takes a number of years before you actually get a crop, now there is a shortage of grapes again and some folks are replanting. "That's what farmers always do, isn't it?" he asked.

Charlie has his own small orange grove on his property.

"These are navel oranges and I always pick them and sell them at my liquor store in Fresno, he says. "But, this year they don't seem to be very sweet and I've been slow to get the picking going."

He asked if I'd like to look at a half a dozen rows of his Thompson grapes that are over a hundred years old. "They still produce well, "he says. "But, you have to keep taking care of them."

California agriculture is indeed diverse, complicated and supplies an unbelievable amount of food for Americans.

Yes, it's largely produced by large farms, many family-owned, and as Max Anderson of Fowler packing says, "We consider the whole U.S. as local for our products.

And, I guess it is - we don't raise a lot of peaches and mandarins in Wisconsin.

John F. Oncken is owner of Oncken Communications, a Madison-based agricultural information and consulting company. He can be reached at 608-222-0624 or email him at jfodairy@chorus.net.