Cultivating appreciation of farming

Pair works to ensure vital future for valley's smaller ag operations

Last summer, Ron Wilkinson found himself at an afternoon gathering in Modesto, eating cherries with family and friends. The group included Wilkinson's niece and her friend, women in their 30s who lived in Oakland.

At some point, the friend asked where the cherries had come from. Delighted to learn the fruit had come from the back yard, the woman asked to see the tree. The fascination in her voice conveyed an odd truth: She had never seen a fruit tree before.

Ron looked at his wife, Darice Nishihara, and the couple smiled. Silently, they sensed the need to accompany the women on their journey to the great outdoors. When they got to the tree, Wilkinson realized the situation was worse than he imagined.

"The woman said, 'Wow, so that's how cherries grow,' " Wilkinson said. "She was all excited about it. Then she asked if after we picked all the cherries if the tree died and another one had to be planted the next year. Like with vegetables. We tried not to make her too embarrassed, but it was hard not to laugh. We told her no, the tree puts off a crop every year, which she thought was really cool. That was an eye-opener."

Ah, city folk.

These days, Wilkinson and Nishihara often find themselves educating people about the importance of farming in the Central Valley, though their audiences usually have a better grasp of what farming entails.

Fueled by their love of the family farm, Nishihara and Wilkinson, who own a Turlock graphic design firm, Nishihara-Wilkinson Design Inc., that specializes in promoting farm-fresh food, have embarked upon a mission to help ensure that smaller farms remain a vital part of California's future. The project they started two years ago is called FarmOn California, ultimately envisioned as a nonprofit group with enough political muscle to help protect the interests of small farms.

"The goal is to keep California green by keeping agriculture thriving in the Central Valley," Wilkinson said. "Our vision is to support local agriculture any way we can and not to limit that support to special-interest groups. The way it is now, we've got all these people with really good intentions but slightly differing messages.

"There's the organic movement, the small-farms movement, the locally grown produce movement and several others. Some of these farmers end up competing with each other, like, 'My idea is better than your idea.' We're trying to take all these positive messages and get them to work together and to not be so competitive."

Nishihara and Wilkinson come by this passion honestly. She was raised on her family's 300-acre farm in Merced County. As a child, her chores included stacking melons and placing milk cartons around young trees to protect them. Wilkinson, who was raised on a horse ranch in Salida, came to appreciate farming later in life when he and his wife began helping her father with the summer harvest. It was then that Wilkinson truly realized how much work is involved in bringing a crop to market.

Simply, he feels it's a way of life worth protecting.

"The legislative process is the other reason we got into this," he said. "Small farmers don't have the political muscle at the state level to protect or ease some of the rules and regulations that come down on agriculture. We're not experts, but from general knowledge, it's apparent that we're the most heavily regulated ag industry in the country. We should use that as a benefit when selling to consumers, to let people know that we're the most responsible farmers in the country."

In touching so many varying aspects of farming, Nishihara and Wilkinson often brush against another truth that's increasingly difficult to ignore: In the days of skyrocketing energy and fuel costs, the age-old practice of food traveling thousands of miles to its destination makes less and less sense. Instead, the concept of small farms producing food for local markets increasingly is becoming more necessity than novelty.

That's why, when Nishihara and Wilkinson aren't busy designing eye-catching product labels or working on the farm, they often can be found quietly toiling behind the scenes, serving on committees, discussing issues with legislators, to preserve a way of life that benefits us all.

"It's something that means a lot to me personally, and I'd just like to see it continue somehow," Nishihara said. "When my dad started his farm, it was just a barren piece of ground. Both of my parents put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears and turned it into prosperous acreage. So many farms like this get bought out and paved over. In some ways, it's a dying profession, and I want to try to help keep it alive."