San Joaquin Valley

 Posted by on November 28, 2011
Nov 282011
 
Central Valley
California

I spent my Thanksgiving holiday driving the back roads of the San Joaquin portion of the Central Valley of California.  For those unfamiliar with the area it is a large, flat valley that dominates the central portion of California. It is home to California’s most productive agricultural efforts. The valley stretches approximately 450 miles from northwest to southeast inland and parallel to the Pacific Ocean coast. Its northern half is referred to as the Sacramento Valley, and its southern half as the San Joaquin Valley. The Central Valley covers an area of approximately 22,500 square miles, making it slightly smaller than the state of West Virginia.

I have lived in and around the valley most of my life and yet I learned some amazing new things.  First, California grows more cotton via yield than the state of Texas, and often the rest of the world.

California has long been one of the nation’s most important oil-producing states, and the San Joaquin Valley has long since eclipsed the Los Angeles Basin as the state’s primary oil production region.

The San Joaquin Valley has—by California standards—an unusually large number of European ethnicities. These communities are often quite large and, relative to Americans immigration patterns, quite eclectic: for example, there are more Azorean Portuguese in the San Joaquin Valley than in the Azores. There is also large populations of Dutch, Swedish, Armenians and Basque.

An absolutely fabulous restaurant in the town of Los Banos

There are miles and miles of nothing but agriculture, nut trees and fruit trees abound.

Yes of course there are grapes everywhere too, not just in the Napa and Sonoma Valleys of California.

Broccoli Harvest
And the most surprising to me, miles and miles of cactus. This is what the department of agriculture had to say – Cactus is a crop that sounds just about ideal for the Western U.S. First, it doesn’t use a lot of water. Second, it appeals to Hispanic consumers, one of the fastest growing population segments in the U.S. Third, it tolerates selenium, an antioxidant so desirable to another fast-growing consumer segment, baby boomers, that they purchase it in pill form. All that, and this particular variety, Indian fig Opuntia, commonly known as prickly pear cactus, doesn’t even possess those painful spines.
Prickly Pear, and its myriad of uses is found throughout the world, if you are interested in how other countries consume it here is the wikipedia link.
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  4 Responses to “San Joaquin Valley”

  1. gina says:
    November 28, 2011 at 3:46 pm

    Wonderful photos of the beautiful valley — I especially like the light in the vineyard shot. Sounds like my husband and I will have to make a field trip to that restaurant. 😉

  2. bfarr says:
    November 29, 2011 at 12:32 am

    We drove thru this area (I think) a couple of years ago on our way to Yosemite. We were amazed at all of the fields filled with fruit to nuts. And windmill farms. Quite beautiful.

  3. RedPat says:
    November 29, 2011 at 12:42 am

    I have never been to California so thanks for the tour of an area that I knew little about until now.

  4. geetlee says:
    November 29, 2011 at 6:46 am

    this is such an informative and interesting post. i never knew that CA grew so much cotton!!!
    i love this state 🙂

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