The World Ag Expo will be held down in Tulare in a couple of weeks. My Uncle, Cousins and I usually attend once every two or three years. At 80 acres of show-space (essentially 80 football fields), it is the largest farm show in the world.If you manufacture ag related equipment, or provide services to farmers, this is the one show that is almost compulsory to attend. Last year over 1500 exhibitors and more than 100,000 attendees from 71 countries went. Even if you have little interest in agriculture pursuits, it is a spectacle like few others.
To be sure, only a small percentage of the exhibits are applicable to a farm of our size. And in many ways the Ag Expo is a testament to what I would consider the excesses of modern agriculture, and society in general. Every year one vender from the Central Valley brings a “one-pass” tillage implement called “The Optimizer” that probably costs more than all of our trucks, tractors and implements combined. It is truly massive—40 feet long by 18 feet wide, weighing 46,000 pounds. It requires an equally large, 500 horse power tractor to pull it and could only be justified for someone farming on thousands of acres.
Much of what is exhibited at the Ag Expo is aimed at these large acreage farmers, but there is that small percentage of venders whose wares are appropriate for small growers like us and seeking them out becomes the main challenge at the farm show. It has been true for some time that the European manufacturers do a much better job catering to small and medium sized farmers, and I’m happy they have been appearing in larger numbers at the Ag Expo. Then there are the things like irrigation supplies, hand tools, soil amendments, and maintenance supplies that all farmers use, regardless of size. The opportunity to speak face to face with someone, who is often the one person who knows more about a given piece of equipment than anyone else, is invaluable.
But perhaps the biggest reason to go is the sheer spectacle of it all. For better or worse, we do exist in a cultural bubble of sorts here along the coast. To attend The World Ag Expo is to break out of that bubble big-time. On the one hand there is the over-the-top Americana—the country music that they blast through speakers dangling high atop massive cranes competes with huge racecar engines, portable saw mill demonstrations, and the enormous “wind-machines” that citrus growers use for frost protection. And then there are the people. As you sit down to eat your barbequed tri-tip sandwich (pack your own lunch if you are a vegetarian) you can’t help but notice that you are no longer in Santa Cruz. The camo baseball cap and cowboy hat wearing crowd that predominates is mixed in with turban wearing Sikhs and Mennonite women in bonnets. And in the parking-lot, which has to be another 80 acres again, you will witness what has to be one of the largest collections of pickup trucks anywhere in the world.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
