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Not too long ago, I was talking to a retired University of California Cooperative Extension farm adviser about Farm Bureau farm centers.
Back in the days before paved roads and the Internet, these local meeting halls served as an outreach for Farm Bureau and provided in-put opportunities for rural residents who couldn’t make it to town.
In San Joaquin County, where this farm adviser first cut his teeth, there were roughly a dozen farm centers and substantial rice acreage. Part of his job each month was to visit one farm center and give an update on his work.
How times have changed. The Internet and cell service now connect us from our tractor and combine cabs to the world — we don’t even have to go into the office to access records, thanks to the cloud.
GPS allows us to go back to within less than an inch of where we left off in the field, and Louisiana State University AgCenter specialists text alerts to growers’ smartphones.
Help us look back at the past 50 years of Rice Farming magazine and the rice industry by sharing some of your family’s rice farming history.
We plan to publish a special golden anniversary issue February 2017, and we’d like to include as many photos and stories from you, our readers, as possible.It’s easy to contribute.
Do you have old family photos, possibly of your grandfather harvesting rice in an open-cab combine or driving an old truck to the elevator?
Do you have black-and-white pictures of your grandparents at the “home” ranch where they first started growing rice?
Simply scan the photos, save them as high-resolution (large file size) jpg or pdf files, and email them to us.
Please don’t send the originals as we know they are valuable, and the U.S. Postal Service can be unreliable.
Please include a description of the people in the photo or a story of no more than 400 words to go along with the picture.
Make sure to include your name and contact information. We won’t print your contact information, but we need it in case we have to follow up.
Send your photos and stories to Rice Farming Editor Vicky Boyd at vlboyd@onegrower.com.