Jimmy Simonian of Simonian Fruit Company in Selma, California shares how regenerative agriculture systems improved his ranch's crop quality and production. The conversation covers the shift from traditional farming methods to new practices developed by John Kempf.
My name is Jimmy Simonian. I'm with Simonian Fruit Company.
We're in Selma, California, at our ranch here. And we're in a block of Summer Flame 34 peaches.
And these will be harvested in the next two to three weeks.
My grandfather farmed very differently than my father in the sense that after the Second World War, all these combinations of chemistry came out. Chemistry for her that killed weeds, chemistry that killed bugs, chemistry that fertilized crops. And that was something that my grandfather, and certainly my great grandfather never utilized. So as my dad came into farming in the 50s, all these technologies were new and exciting, and they were doing very well with them. But what I've seen is that as I work here over the past 20 years, those technologies aren't working as well. And so we needed to find something new and we needed to find something different to grow these crops at a higher level. There's a lot more to regenerative agriculture than what I realized. The first thing I had to come up with is how to say regenerative, and I don't think I've got to that yet. But I certainly enjoy what we're learning and what we're doing with being involved in this program.
I think John Kemp has done a wonderful job developing this system, and he's just. I'm grateful for John Kemp a lot.
I also appreciate the team here.
This team is a good team of people who are committed to.
To growing better food.
This system is allowing for us to pack more boxes.
This field that we're standing in has.
Only been in the program one year.
Others have been in two years, and our food quality has noticeably improved.
As we move forward in this program, I think this is going to be the way the growers are going to have to farm this to move forward into the next, you know, 50 years of agriculture.
