County crop value hits record - Santa Cruz Sentinel

Boycott Driscolls, Dole, CalGiant, et al...they are stealing billions of our water and exporting it in berries...
for decades! w/ UC's, no less!
http://www.cityonahillpress.com/article.php...
http://www.calgiant.com/
http://www.driscolls.com/
http://www.dole.com/
There's still time to save our water supply.
Refuse to buy their products and speak out against them until they agree to a sustainable model/scale of production here. That means reduce production here by 25% minimum.
We can't sustain growing 25% of this country's berries here.
Wake up people...before our groundwater system here is completely shot.
These multi national corp/"family" TENANT agribusinessmen/"neighbor s" are environmental criminals of the worst kind who are stealing our future here from us...sorry to have to report to you.
http://begentlewiththeearth.com/

Buy Local Instead!
For example, try these berries from a local enlightened farmer, which supports, not destroys, our local economy and community..and actually tastes like a strawberry!
These people have the right idea....available at all local Farmer's Markets.
http://www.swantonberryfarm.com/

"People need to realize we are a significant part of the economy, not only the value of the crops, but the people we employ and the products we buy from local businesses," said Steve Bontadelli, president of the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau....
Steve,
Like the 20,000 undocumented workers here, many apparently picking your berries?
Many of us already realize what a "significant part" of the economy they are here for us. That's the problem, too, neighbor.

ps...despite what's recounted above, to my knowlege Steve Bontadelli personally is a local farmer (not multi national corp/"family" TENANT agribusinessmen/"neighbor s" are environmental criminals of the worst kind who are stealing our future here from us) growing brussel sprouts, btw, and is a great guy....despite being Farm Bureau president.

I love Driscoll berries, and I won't buy anything but. The best quality I've seen.

How is it that Driscoll's is not a local business? I'm confused on that part. They've been around forever, started in Watsonville.

Whatever, I don't base my buying on whether it's local or not, but whether someone sells what I want to buy. Far too many local businesses sell crap or have crap customer service.

Yeah...iI'll buy my berries from China if they are big and plump, travel well and taste like wet cardboard! If they were grown with subsidized water, then even better!

Here we ago again another platform for doug deitch and his so called Monterey Bay Conservancy. Doug is so out to lunch with his ideas about water. He professes that he has solutions but has NO scientific data to support his conclusions. If there were some basis for doug's assertions people would be paying attention. Get a life (and a job) doug and get over it. Nobody pays attention to you.

Oh, I thought this article was about marijuana!

Local Guy wrote:

Here we ago again another platform for doug deitch and his so called Monterey Bay Conservancy. Doug is so out to lunch with his ideas about water. He professes that he has solutions but has NO scientific data to support his conclusions. If there were some basis for doug's assertions people would be paying attention. Get a life (and a job) doug and get over it. Nobody pays attention to you.

http://pogonip.org/WaterDocs/EnvironmentalImp...
http://www.begentlewiththeearth.com/

Local Guy wrote:

Here we ago again another platform for doug deitch and his so called Monterey Bay Conservancy. Doug is so out to lunch with his ideas about water. He professes that he has solutions but has NO scientific data to support his conclusions. If there were some basis for doug's assertions people would be paying attention. Get a life (and a job) doug and get over it. Nobody pays attention to you.

Overcoming denial is the first stage in recovery for the substance abuser
...and our local precious groundwater supply, my local friend and neighbor, is a substance last time I checked.
Maybe we both have something to get over?

goober wrote:

Yeah...iI'll buy my berries from China if they are big and plump, travel well and taste like wet cardboard! If they were grown with subsidized water, then even better!

They may be local, but our strawberry brokers (listed in comment # 1) equate to nothing but a bunch of robber barrons who exploit the natural resources of our county for an exhorbidant profit in order to provide a luxury like year-round strawberries. Let's not even get into how much electricity it takes to cool fruit in the middle of summer.... Grow your own. They won't taste lile Tectrol and Methyl Bromide. It's fun, too.

My comment was in reply to this:
love Driscoll berries, and I won't buy anything but. The best quality I've seen.
How is it that Driscoll's is not a local business? I'm confused on that part. They've been around forever, started in Watsonville.
Whatever, I don't base my buying on whether it's local or not, but whether someone sells what I want to buy. Far too many local businesses sell crap or have crap customer service.

5genSC wrote:

<quoted text>
They may be local, but our strawberry brokers (listed in comment # 1) equate to nothing but a bunch of robber barrons who exploit the natural resources of our county for an exhorbidant profit in order to provide a luxury like year-round strawberries. Let's not even get into how much electricity it takes to cool fruit in the middle of summer.... Grow your own. They won't taste lile Tectrol and Methyl Bromide. It's fun, too.

I don't even know where to begin with this.

So Driscoll is local. But not pure enough because they grow berries in the wintertime?

How exactly are we all being harmed by Driscoll?

You sound like a really fun person to hang around with at a party.

From the Driscoll web site:
Driscoll's is a third-generation, family-owned company founded in 1944. Our Mission is to "continually delight berry consumers" by providing the highest quality berries in the world. To do this, Driscoll's uses traditional plant breeding methods to create plants that produce premium quality berries. We then partner with independent farmers all around the world to grow Driscoll's patented berry varieties. www.driscolls.com

I grew 40 plants and made an easy ton of loot.
it cost me practically nothing.I needed no mesican laborers to pick it and they smoke most of it so i get gooks to trim it (Cuz they dont smoke) I boought my home, car and other necessities that a cheapassed job in this dying county doesn't allow me. Cannabis Indica and sativa will set you free and get you out of the slavery the councils have set up for us nobodys

Xanthippe wrote:

<quoted text>
How exactly are we all being harmed by Driscoll?

The scale of berry production here locally (25% of country's total, accomplished principally by corp/"family" tenant multinat'l ag biz, eg Dole, CalGiant, et al)...
uses 90% of local groundwater, 200% overdraft, and causes worst saltwater resource loss, annually recurring, in the world according to knowlegible sources....the late Marc Reisner?...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Reisner
equivalent of 7.5 $40-$100 million new SC desal plants operating 24/7 before E&O...
effectively exported and expropriating our irreplaceable and most essential resource..???
for starters?
http://begentlewiththeearth.com/
Try doing some research please?

....with water for free.
http://www.scsextra.com/story.php...
How's your water bill?

Sorry but I don't buy what Marc Reisner sold. He's full of it.

Don't move to an agricultural area and then complain about argriculture please.

Douglas Deitch wrote:

Overcoming denial is the first stage in recovery for the substance abuser
...and our local precious groundwater supply, my local friend and neighbor, is a substance last time I checked.
Maybe we both have something to get over?

Hey Doug, have you gotten over your crushing defeat in the polls yet? When will we see the first stage in realizing that ones political aspirations were nothing more then an idea failed from the start? Humility.

Jose wrote:

<quoted text>
Hey Doug, have you gotten over your crushing defeat in the polls yet? When will we see the first stage in realizing that ones political aspirations were nothing more then an idea failed from the start? Humility.

No way Jose...
My real aspirations are not political ones, Jose, despite my participation in the political process.
Rather my true aspirations are for us all to achieve the highest and best use of the incredible riches we are so fortunately blessed with here...
...which I am truly and daily humbled by and appreciative of. That's why I write in this blog, too, Jose, and not anonymously
Hope that answers your question?