President's message

Working together for a bright, bountiful future

By Paul Wenger, president, California Bountiful Foundation

To bridge the gap between consumers and those who produce, process and deliver food, fiber and horticultural products within our state, the California Farm Bureau has formed a new foundation called California Bountiful. The purpose of this new endeavor is to promote research and to educate as well as reach out to the general public in order to provide a better understanding of the many benefits our rural landscapes and natural resource industries provide to all our state’s residents.

If you live in California, you enjoy the widest array of fresh food products grown anywhere in the world. The great majority of the farms and ranches that produce these food products are family owned and operated, many spanning generations. In addition to producing the greatest variety of food products found anywhere in the world, working farms and ranches provide natural landscapes and habitat for a multitude of plant and animal species. In fact, 90 percent of endangered species co-exist within the open spaces of working farms and ranches. An additional benefit of farming is the trapping of carbon and turning it into oxygen through the photosynthesis process of growing plants and trees.