I grew up in the “bread basket of the world,” a place where you can drive down seemingly endless roads and highways and see nothing but almond orchards and grape vineyards on either side. The Central San Joaquin Valley is one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world, and some estimate that the San Joaquin Valley produces almost 25% of the United States’ agricultural production dollars. Yet as a young person, my experiences on a farm in the Valley were few and far between.

I remember one experience when I was in elementary school, and I visited one of my friends orange groves. Her father was a lawyer and at the time I was really quite confused about why he would grow oranges on the side. Now that I think of it, I had yet another friend who’s father worked full time and tended to an orange grove on the side! Wait, I’m seeing a trend here now, one of my old high school friends has oranges on his property. His family owns the local hardware store too.

This is unbelievable.

Looking back, I realize now that I never set foot on any of those groves of beautiful oranges. Instead, I chose to hang out with friends in their pools, inside their homes playing with dolls and crayons. I can’t remember ever eating any of those oranges.

During high school and college, I never really thought about farming or agriculture. I had a great understanding of environmental issues related to agriculture, but that was academic and on paper. I was too involved in other activities, too. When I came home for Christmas and other holidays during those years, I can’t remember ever thinking about agriculture. Yet it surrounded me everyday, all the time.

But this year was different.

This year, I flew home, after having worked at The Food Project for about six months. I went home for Christmas to visit my family. And amazingly, agriculture was on my mind How the orange and lemon trees on everyone’s front lawns popped out at me as I drove around visiting family and friends. It was incredible!

I visited the Fresno State Farm Market, a local market run by college students at CSU Fresno. I was like a kid in a candy store; fresh cheese, wine, milk, oranges, raisins!

I even found agricultural ties in my long time friends and even my family. One my friends who recently finished serving in the army told me his parents were having difficulties selling their grapes in the Valley because of large agribusiness firms consolidating family farms and driving the price of grapes down. He’s worried about the family farm and has been helping out his folks and working to make it profitable again.

My own cousin, Miranda who goes to college in Southern California, but lives in Northern California, started her own little garden in a section of her parents old Almond Orchard!

Another friend of mine told me she’s dating a man who grows nectarines and apricots. He’s taking over for his father who can no longer run the farm.

My mom and dad have a few fruit trees in their yard, lemon and cherry. I never really appreciated those trees; my dad would talk about how proud he was of the cherry tree finally producing fruit. He wasn’t proud of the birds that’d eat away at the cherries and leave the pits hanging on the stems. And I was happy for him, but didn’t truly appreciate his accomplishment.

It was easy to determine what changed the lens I look through to view my hometown. It’s been my experiences here at The Food Project. It’s been the amount of knowledge I’ve soaked in about food and agriculture here that have really changed my perception of a place that I have known for so long. I guess you can say that my experience hasn’t changed my vision; it’s given me vision.