CALIFORNIA
Vegetables A SPECIAL GROWERS’ REPORT OF AG ALERT ®
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Kevin Collins shows off the garlic crop at Borba Farms in Fresno County. The county produces 77% of garlic in the U.S. Fresno County played host to the National Garlic Festival on May 13-15.
Fresno lays claim to title of California garlic capital By Dennis Pollock If you open your car window just a tad as you drive through Gilroy, you’re almost certain to detect a distinctive smell: garlic. It’s a smell that Kevin Collins, a manager at Borba Farms in Fresno County, loves. He’s a grower of garlic, after all.
garlic cooking demonstrations, garlic-inspired foods, midway games and more. “I’m glad they (Fresno promoters) picked it up,” said Collins, ranch manager at Borba Farms, looking out at a field of fresh garlic where a worker is barely visible as he moves through the field checking drip lines. Collins had no qualms about the festival being held there and talk about “the garlic capital of California.” It was promoting the crop, after all. With a nearly $400 million value in 2020, according to the most recent crop year report, garlic is Fresno County’s forth most valuable crop, ranking behind almonds, grapes and pistachios. It ranks seventh overall in commodities when poultry, milk and cattle are added to the list. The crop is grown on some 24,000 acres in the county. He explained that fresh garlic and garlic for the dehydrator are not labor intensive to grow. “Once they’re planted, there’s not much tractor work,” Collins said. Collins was preparing to cut water to the field in anticipation of harvest. A machine would next go through the field, slicing beneath the bulbs. Then workers put them into windrows where they will dry. After the bulbs dry, as many as 400 workers come in and do the clipping needed to ready the bulbs for their trips to supermarkets.
“A dairyman likes the smell of cow manure,” he said. “I like the smell of garlic.” Gilroy smells that way because of a major dehydrator operated there by the multi- national Olam Group. Much of the garlic grown in Fresno County goes elsewhere for processing into fresh bulbs or dehydrated powder. But Collins, like many in the garlic industry, has long known that Fresno County has been the true “garlic capital of California.” People who don’t know better may have assumed, beyond the smell, that the title belonged to Gilroy because of the famed Gilroy Garlic Festival. That event recently announced its closure before being rescued and relocated to Stockton this year. In truth, the competition between Gilroy and Fresno was never close. Fresno County is America’s foremost producer of the bulbs, with 77% of all the garlic in the U.S. grown in the region. Over the weekend, the Big Fresno Fairgrounds sought to cement the county’s garlic credentials by playing host to the National Garlic Festival. The May 13-15 event featured
See GARLIC, Page 14
May 18, 2022 Ag Alert 13
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