Im 80 years old. Each tree produces 22 pounds of nuts. It takes a life every six seconds. He purchased his first 640-acre section in the late 1970s and kept adding more sections of almonds, pistachios, pomegranates, and citrus until he stretched the lines of agriculture like no Californian before him. All this stirring up is a consequence of mechanization. Promotional Rates were found for your code. Youre the one who needs to see., We pull out of the parking lot, past the palm trees and roses, and head up the thin ribbon of Highway 33 into the dust-swirling tunnel of nuts and fruits. Because a human picker is not needed in the almond and pistachio groves, the nut harvest doesnt spread around money the way it spreads around dust. Deadly in the rush of harvest, deadly in the quiet of fog, deadly in the blur of Saturday nights when the fieldwork is done and the beer drinking becomes a second humiliation. Whos it going to? Me, Im a carpetbagger from Beverly Hills. State or federal water isnt enough. He was 13 and standing inside the Rutgers Pharmacy on the first day of his first job. As she announces the newest gift, the men and women in the back of the crowd smile and applaud politely and try not to show their faces to the publicity crew she has brought with her to film the event. He can mix this private water with his leftover state water and ship it to at least one stranded neighbor who will pay the price. This is my wife. "I don't want to make any. Id rather be unknown than known. He had recently read The King of California, and that got him thinking. Maybe not since the wheat barons has the income disparity between farmer and farmworker been greater. Theres a mythology out there that Angiola is stealing water, he said. All told, 36 men operating six machines will harvest the orchard in six days. Its not the fidget of boredom. Before he died at age 86, J.G. A large water pipeline being built near Lemoore in Kings County is raising eyebrows as much for its possible uses as for the name associated with its construction John Vidovich. 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. The people here have traveled too far. This is the domain of Stewart Resnick, the richest farmer in the country and maybe the most peculiar one, too. Anzaldos grandfather came from Guadalajara in the 1950s as part of the bracero farmworker program. As the nuts pour down onto the roof of the catcher, the operator shifts the trough so that it becomes a conveyor belt. Lynda isnt just writing checks, Donoso told me. The tumbleweeds on open ground give you a peek into what Lost Hills looked like before the aqueduct made a river here. What to give a grieving widow and her five children in Lost Hills but drinking water? At the east end, where the highway meets Interstate 5, the traveler gets a choice. It gives me the luxury to keep on working. I ask him how the drought has affected Wonderful. So beginning in the 1940s, Kern farmers went out and grabbed a share of not one distant river but two: the San Joaquin to the north and the Sacramento to the north of that. Thats when the Resnicks decided to sell the concept of wellness to their 4,300 employees throughout the valley the same way they sell workplace safety. Born on 7 Jun 1934. The junk scattered about could be a lot worse. First of all, the myriad laws and rules that govern water wouldnt allow that to happen, they say. The way the Bobcat goes full steam, it takes but a few seconds of splendid violence to uproot a tree. Number three, water from Angiola cant physically get to Semitropics proposed storage cells. Where does the water end up? 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. By the time he drove back, he was a citrus grower. John Vidovich just wants to farm, he says. In the winter of 2010, Vidovich put up for sale half his draw of state water from the Dudley Ridge Water District. But theres no denying his desperation. Not a single one of them wants any part of Wonderful. He found it. Like the waters of the lake, the indent of the Resnicks will recede from the land, too. Lessons? he says, sounding perplexed. The hillocks that existed back in Yokut Indian days were flattened by a hunk of metal called the Fresno Scraper. Four thousand peoplemore than double the number on the highway signlive in town, and three out of every four rely on a payday from Wonderful. You and I look at this meal, he says. 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. As it happened, just down the road, on the other side of the lake bottom, Resnick had captured his own body of water, the Kern Water Bank, and planted millions of nut trees on desert scrub. Stewart was the second of their four children, the only boy. Its happening. The bosses wont speak of it, he says. Not a single penny was put in that piggy bank.. The uncle died at age 22 fighting in Afghanistan. When Resnick plants, he plants his trees wall to wall. "What I was most alarmed about was how I, and most people in the area, knew nothing of this proposal," he told The Leader. By Lois Henry The large, black pipe could be seen earlier this month being tucked into the ground along 21st Avenue just south of Highway 198 and west of Lemoore. Example: 138 Main St. That water would then be moved south through the aqueduct and banked in Semitropic. That was four years ago. Sure enough, cozied up next to the bank of the aqueduct, I see a glint. According to sources, an application for a proposed feedlot and slaughterhouse was submitted last month. Under her rethink agriculture program, the kids will be trained in plant science and irrigation technology, marketing and sales. This last-ditch water in Lost Hills wont make everything right. That was the last straw for Pixley, which sued in 2013. In exchange, the state would get banking rights in Semitropic, said General Manager Jason Gianquinto. Russo and Ellsberg needed a place to photocopy the 7,000 pages, and Lynda volunteered the Xerox machine at her ad agency on Melrose Avenue. Documentary film. Arax: That is the question that you know Im dealing with in this magazine piece. Coke, Gatorade, and Monster Energy are sky-high in sweeteners, but dont be fooled by that SunnyD, either. Thats a billion-dollar crop. Down the great aqueduct, by freight of politics and gravity, came the excess waters of the Sacramento River. But if its the tube that Im looking to follow, I must drive through the almond grove. From the vaulted ceilings with gold-leaf moldings hung two blown-glass chandeliers. But thats not an issue I deal with., I dont even know what it was, to be honest with you.. Mobil and Texaco and Prudential Life were willing to practically give the ground and trees away. 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. To provide context for the size of his subsidy, Vidovich estimated that the current California drought, which has led him to irrigate an additional 24,000 acres, will cost his business tens of millions of dollars this year, while the subsidy brought in $1 million. For half my life, I never stopped to wonder: How much was magic? In the kitchen corner, cases of bottled water are stacked halfway up the wall. Like a lot of empires, it comes to an end., So what about you? I ask. If you already have a subscription, log in or register for an account on our website to continue reading.Click here if youre having trouble accessing your subscriber account. But you take some risks in business. The water sent to Kern County1.4 million acre-feet a yearhas doubled the cropland. I enter an equipment yard where a Wonderful farmhand is standing next to a tractor. PRIVACY POLICY. Hes oblivious, or so it seems. One more bin, a post reads. Lupe and I walk to the far side of the trailer park to find Gustavo. The Sureos gang has tagged the front entrance but otherwise has left the inside unmarked. Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. A van pulls up to the curb, and the door slides open. This is only $3? But for a lot of workers, bringing that big fat burrito from home still makes sense., I had seen what J.G. Vidovich says his quote was clipped and sewn back together to make it sound bad. Each face wears its own weary. 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. Stewart gambled and won for many years. They issued a commemorative medal of Tiger Woods winning the 1997 Masters that offended the golfer. On the shallow bottom, the women fished mussels and clams with their toes. He maneuvers down the middle of the row, sweeps up the dried almonds, and throws them into a catcher. Brad Steinwede. Why not we start with an extended interview or two? I offered. I feel too good to give any of it up.. These books indicate who obtained the land, and include a physical description of the tract and where the land is located. As he bled the aquifer dry, he called on the government to bring him an even mightier river from afar. But you ask the growers we process, and theyll tell you that year in and year out, no one offers a better price. Ive learned that I have to be diversified in my water, Vidovich said. But the smaller farmer still uses a pruning shears to make his most important cuts. I hop out of the car. Or at least thats the way Vidovich puts it when I finally reach him. matt scharff golf net worth; how did iruka die; does albert die in 911. west potomac high school death; john vidovich documentary; is bayville beach open to the public? As you know, our philosophy at Wonderful is doing well by doing good. She is twinkling from earlobe and finger. Rather, they say, theyre harvesting health and happiness around the world through our iconic consumer brands. Their crops arent crops but heart-healthy snacks and life-extending elixirs. He makes $10.50 an hour, and the company provides him with a 401(k) plan and medical insurance. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I reached a moment in my life where I had to give back in a meaningful way, she tells the camera. There is a local water bank, a kind of underground lake, that the Resnicks control. Im not going to live forever, even with the massive amounts of pomegranate juice Im drinking. Hes smiling but speaks only Spanish. FAMILY OFFICE MARKETPLACE. They were actually harvesting record crops. "When commodity prices are at record highs, it is irresponsible to increase government subsidy rates for 15 crops, subsidize additional crops and provide payments that further distort markets.". 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. I would have worn my Levis, he says, but Lyndas here, and she thinks I dress like a bum. Were standing in the sun outside the plants corporate office, a building whose clean lines and retro furniture wear the imprint of Lynda, too. Why not California? Order finds itself through action. Down a rutted road, 100 trailers with foundations dressed in plywood back up against an orchard. Its a bad day, he says, shooing me out. Please log in, or sign up for a new account to continue reading. Resides in Beaver, PA. 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. Angiola was rehabbing old wells, drilling new ones and installed a large pipeline. At the plant, we built our gyms, and we have stretching and walking activities. Each bush is saddled with more than a hundred pomegranates the size of softballs and baseballs. His 15 million trees in the San Joaquin Valley consume more than 400,000 acre-feet of water a year. But that money enabled me to go into Angiola (a water district in Tulare County) and have other water sources.. He unfolds a $20 bill from a wad he keeps inside a bent paper clip, and we take a seat in the far corner. You rely on Marketplace to break down the worlds events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. And, yes, that takes water. The latest water fight between two of the San Joaquin Valley's largest growers will continue with heavy equipment intended to block a pipeline project allowed to remain on the banks of the Tulare Lake Canal in Kings County. This year's farm bill, the most recent incarnation of agricultural policy dating back to the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, is a controversial $300 billion package that combines poverty-relieving nutrition programs with big payoffs to agribusinesses. why teaching is challenging yet rewarding If they pass a law saying I cant sell it, then I cant sell it. Weve had our battles in the past, and I dont agree with everything hes doing. accounts and the history behind a news event. Because, while he does farm thousands of acres of pistachios, almonds and grapes, many believe the only harvest Vidovich is truly interested in is water. The deed had been done in a series of hidden meetings in Monterey. Then hed lose his temper and get the strap out.. I cut across Twisselman Road to the pipeline gliding along the aqueduct like a silver snake. The man and his pincers cant be bothered. "I have sent my opinion to three county supervisors and our city manager. He and the Resnicks had fought an ugly legal battle that tore their Cutie brand in two. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation. John Vidovich is scion of his family's development firm, De Anza Properties, which owns Rancho Shopping Center and is renovating Los Altos Gardens. They had survived the drought. Stewart Resnick is the biggest farmer in the United States, a fact he has tried to keep hidden while he has shaped what we eat, transformed Californias landscape, and ruled entire towns. To grow, Big Ag needed a bigger and more dependable supply. At Highland Park High, he excelled in math and struggled in English. Whether he realizes it, hes part of the biggest pistachio harvest in history. Its gone, I say. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. But for every good-sized fruit, theres a bunch that never sized up. Resnick is giving him one of his looks. I'm going to let the regulatory agencies go through their process and go from there. We changed the culture of safety, and we think we can do the same with health, Anzaldo says. As we sat down to chat, one of his assistants leaned over and whispered into his jewel-studded ear. There are often laws binding it to a basin. It was the early spring of 2008, and this time his secretary didnt hang up on me. I didnt see the tumbleweeds along the roadside and the strip of parched earth that separated what remained of the desert from the perfect rows of irrigated agriculture. And then they pump more groundwater. Lynda is also mapping out a farm-to-food program where students will grow fruits, vegetables, and grains on a plot of village land. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph.. Shell check in every so often to see how business is going. Rain for Rent, the pipes say. High 61F. We produced a short documentary film. Now its the seven-week nut harvest that brings out the inhalers. In the summer of 2009, he and Lynda attended a dinner lecture by Harvard political philosophy professor Michael Sandel about the moral obligations of wealth. He used to work for the Resnicks before Stewart put him in charge of the district. Burglar alarms, on the other hand, offered round-the-clock vigilance without coffee breaks. Arax: This place called Lost Hills, it is kind of a modern-day company town not unlike Hershey, Pennsylvania. Even if he has access to the California Aqueduct, Vidovich would have to jump through a lot of state hoops to move water independently of Semitropic. The land to him isnt real. It wasnt a midlife crisis, he told me. Dont let his boots, blue jeans, and ball cap fool you, the old-timers say. Digging in was its own wisdom, he discovered. Sports and playground activities are prohibited at the beach, picnic areas are closed, and masks must be worn by all visitors. Wow. Contact Eliza Ridgeway at [email protected]. I think I paid $9 million. Hes headed to the Wonderful plant, 13 miles north of Lost Hills, to drop off his load. Big fish eat the small fish here. 2022-02-14 - BY LOIS HENRY. The 5.3 acres are so flawless and at odds with the town that the whole thing feels like a movie set. She was a very frugal lady. Every time I see it, Im inspired and proud of what weve been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. It moves in a wave from trunk to limb to nut and back down to earth. It cracks open and out pops the head shot of Stewart Resnick in a pistachio green tie. But Semitropic is the first district to get this close to making it a reality. The son, 5 foot 6 and thin, with closely cropped blond hair and blue eyes that fix on you, isnt concerned about ingratiating himself. Rather, it is the authority vested in Wonderful that counts. Each tree produces 38 pounds of nuts. He was in the mood to gamble. It agreed to pay Pixley/Lower Tule $240,000 a year to bring in federal water to recharge the groundwater. Stewart and Lynda planted 15,000 more acres and bought a juice plant. Join us for a free, virtual event for International Women's Day on March 8! The sellers include farmers in the Tulare Lake basin who are pumping so much water out of the ground that the levees protecting the town of Corcoran are sinking, not by inches but by feet. He grew up in New Jersey, where his father ran a bar. Still, he insists that it doesn't belong near the city and college. 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. She walks off the stage with Stewart. Vidovich went home with $74 million in his pocket. Hes not only able to irrigate his nut trees with an imported flow of groundwater40,000 acre-feet in some years. If the workers doubt the benefit of the enzymes from apple cider vinegar, video banners stream a continuous message of bad food habits to be broken and body mass indexes to be measured and met. Somehow, 30 or 40 nuts arent compelled to drop. In the distant background, under the gaze of a 10-foot-tall marble goddess, sat Stewart in a gold-skirted chair, head down. By the time he died an old man on his tractor in the Cupertino Hills, where he had planted grapes again and was making wine, the transformation of his valley by the silicon chip was complete. I'm not sure that it (location) being one of the busiest places in Kings County is the right place for that. A meat store, an auto repair, a pool hall, and an arcade pass for a commercial strip. The white flowers have set into buds, and the buds have become baby almonds covered in fuzz. 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. He did his internship at Alkaloid - the la. April 17, 2020. Here, private water jumps from Tulare County to Kern County, but government jurisdictions dont count. The ceiling, all sheetrock and spackling, remains a work in progress. He blames Iran. This is one of the ways the Nut King and the Pomegranate Queen are defying the California drought. His law license is inactive, according to the California State Bar Association website. The workers didnt react well. His frat brother got bored, as rich boys do, and Resnick bought out his half interest for $300. We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content. U.S. immigration has little say-so here. Theyre no longer in danger. By then, Wonderful, if it still exists, will be a portfolio run by men even farther away than Beverly Hills. But this wasnt the Resnick Pavilion at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It was Lynda who came up with the idea of flowers-in-a-gift. Roses are short-lived, she reasoned, but the teapot or watering can that the flowers arrive in is a keepsake. Unlike many other billionaires, they could poke fun at themselves. Then it hits me. Everyone knew where it was going. He had no intention of farming it, either. He knows what I dont know. Do you know what I am? Hes trying to play dumb, but I can see the sliest of grins peeking out from his mustache and goatee. His company has donated items to Stratford Elementary School and recently helped Kings County Sheriff Dave Robinson create a pheasant-raising and release program for jail inmates to earn credit. He lives down the road in Wasco, the Rose Capital of America, though the roses, too, have turned to nuts. The checks the workers bring in here from Mr. Resnick are the same checks they bring in for years. I had not seen any. The city of Los Angeles, by comparison, consumes 587,000 acre-feet. In the summer of 2010, hed spent several days documenting the deplorable conditions of the modern company town. Because Lupe had no papers, she followed the coyote for many more miles until they reached a steep pass. The dam ends up holding and the levees, too. Its been more than a year since the grand opening, and theyre still operating in the red. He yanks and pulls, and it finally comes off, throwing him a foot backward. Its known as a census-designated place, which is another way of saying that Kern County has every reason to neglect it. It goes to doctors and nurses, trainers and dietitians, who track the weight of workers, prod them to exercise, and wean them off soda and tortillas. Observers worry that Vidovich plans to pump Kings and Tulare counties dry, park that water in Kern County and then sell it to the highest bidder in dry years, leaving a once-thriving farm district barren. He and Lynda decided in 1984 to buy the Franklin Mint, the maker of commemorative coins and other kitsch, for $167.5 million. A lot of it is undocumented and they are in these sort of company towns that you describe that are maybe even more sort of dedicated to the company than most. Selfo works 50 hours a week as an irrigator. The water is filtered for arsenic, boron, and other salts, and the monthly tests show no violation of state or federal standards. Eli Lilly announced a cap on insulin costs. You know so I could say, Well, I didnt pass because I was so busy with this project.. His real estate empire became big enough to bring aboard each of his four children. And its that groundwater part of Semitropics agreement with Vidovich that is raising hackles along with eyebrows. John, his oldest son, had served in the military as an intelligence officer and graduated from Santa Clara law school. The truth, as always, probably lies somewhere in between. Kings Officials Unhappy About Water Proposal, Local Water Guys Eyeing Kings River Flood Water. He came to California in the 1950s to remake himself. As for making a major water grab in the Central Valley, Page said Vidovich has nothing on the Wonderful or JG Boswell companies, both of which have far larger land holdings than Vidovich. At the time we were handing out college scholarships in the valley, but Lynda decided it wasnt nearly enough. A year and a half after hearing Sandeland in the wake of Giblers storyLynda kicked into high gear their mission to save Lost Hills and several other farmworker towns where Wonderful operated its orchards and processing plants. Michelle Perez, an analyst for the activist watchdog Environmental Working Group, perceives the bill differently, arguing that because the subsidies are calculated on a per-acre basis, the cash infusions "provide liquidity to the largest, most prosperous farms, allowing them to outbid and outcompete their smaller, less prosperous neighbors. His father grew grapes, cherries, and apricots in the Santa Clara Valley back when Stanford University still had a reason to be known as The Farm. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you. Lupe knocks on his door, and he invites us in. Now, Pace said, Vidovich will do the same thing on a larger scale by moving Kings and Tulare groundwater to Kern County. So much snowmelt comes down the mountain that it nearly takes out Oroville Dam. Every move Vidovich has made, through Hurley and other public water districts, has been about gaining control of water, they say. And its even worse for the children in Kings County. This is the west end of Lost Hills, the extraction end. Posted on August 6, 2018 Bakersfield Californian. Somehow, it made its way to Lynda. You sure this isnt 18 tons an acre? he says, goading. No one pushes their product harder. It was this persistence and, above all, good timing that explained his bigness. We are creating foods. Nothing keeps prices high like a monopoly. When Lynda learned that half the students receiving thousands of dollars in company scholarships were dropping out of school, she wasnt deterred. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Neighbors dont tell on neighbors.. "Would I build there if I had the money? He kept planting more and more trees. If you study his moves, you can see a method to the acres he is accumulating. He has painted the interior and put down two new patterns of linoleum, one to mark the living room and the other to mark the kitchen. The truck driver hits the wide open of Highway 33 and traces the serpentine of the aqueduct. All the rest of that stuff its just jealousy and innuendo, jealousy and innuendo, jealousy and innuendo.. Surely, no one does this better than Wonderful? There, he tells me, in the shadow of the states great concrete vein moving snowmelt north to south, I will find a private, off-the-books pipeline that Stewart Resnick has built to keep his trees from dying. For years, agriculture has been given a wide berth when it comes to monopolistic practices. Vidovich is, after all, a powerful landowner in the Central Valley. The farmers there are raising almost 1 million acres of crops, and fewer than half these acres are irrigated with flows from the Kern. There before me, two aluminum pipes, side by side, 12 inches in diameter each, slither in the sun. I pull over into the dirt of a pomegranate orchard, the ancient fruit that the Resnicks have turned into POMWonderful, the sweet purple juice inside a swell-upon-swell bottle. Whether its the glint of a 15-carat, yellow canary diamond ring, a 25th wedding anniversary gift from Stewart, or one of the pomegranate-colored rubies she says are a girls best friend, its hard to tell from the back row.