On a bright, cold Monday morning I drove to Richvale to speak at a UC Cooperative Extension rice meeting. The annual series of four meetings in mid-winter offer the best opportunity for rice farmers to connect with the outstanding research done at UC Davis. It was engaging, as always. The meeting was, however more than weed studies, fertilizer research and water use analysis. It was a striking picture of farmers intimately integrated into their community. Monday’s meeting was in Sunday’s building.
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Lost in the often repeated arguments about “big ag” and “corporate farming”, is the very real fact that farmers and farming are inseparable from the communities where they live. There is no better example than the UC Cooperative Extension meeting at the Richvale EV Free Church.
Richvale is a small town with a population of 244. Outside of the high school gymnasium, there is no other building large enough or with the audio/visual equipment necessary to hold a meeting. Farmers are a practical group.
“Well,” people might say, ”that’s Richvale – small town… no other place to meet… how quaint…” Our afternoon meeting was at the Veterans Memorial Hall in Yuba City. In any small town, this is the second place the community meets to learn, eat together and catches up on life.
Agriculture may appear big from an outside view. Take a step closer to the farmer and the places they farm and they view is much more personal. I have been at the Richvale EV Free church for more than Extension meetings, sitting in the back of the small sanctuary as family, friends and children of friends hug, smile and cry at loss. The church has Scandinavian roots, just like the original immigrants into the community in the early 1900’s. I know that many, many farmers and their fathers have served this country in times of war and also in peace. And, like quite, solemn Veterans Hall they don’t boast or draw attention to themselves.
A closer view reveals that farmers are inseparable for the small communities where they live, farm and celebrate among life–long friends. Farmers are not big or corporate. They are real.
Tim Johnson, CRC President & CEO
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