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ALBA FARMS

Posted at 11:24 PM on September 28, 2008 by Laura Solorio

I was able to attend the You Pick event at ALBA farms last weekend. ALBA, Agriculture and Land Based Training Association helps people, especially farm workers, grow and sell their own organic produce. I drove out to Old Stage Road and had a wonderful afternoon in the warm sun picking produce from the fields. Pablo Perez turned over shovel fulls of dirt, allowing me to pick potatoes. Even though, my parents were farm workers up until their early twenties, I haven't been out to the fields much. We used to visit my grandfather in the Central Valley of California near Mendota. I just remember it being very hot, over 100 in the summer. He was an irrigator for large industrial farms. I also visited farms as a volunteer with the United Farmworkers Union in the late 70's. We really are so far removed from where our food is grown. The farm workers who pick our food are usually the furthest thought in our minds as we eat our food. I usually purchase produce from the ALBA farm stands at the local farmers' market on Saturdays. It seems like I pay very little for the great, organic produce I buy and then they're always handing me a free head of lettuce or basket of strawberries. It's always amazing to me how people who have so little are always the most generous.