DCA Celebrates National Agriculture Day
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Director of Public Affairs, Jill Bolton
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Jill Bolton
Almost half a century ago Walt Disney turned 160 acres of orange and walnut groves into the "happiest place on earth" and today, under the creative guidance of Walt Disney Imagineering, a portion of that acreage has come full circle and is once again home to a great variety of California crops. I now invite our good friend Kathy Rogers from Walt Disney Imagineering to point out a few of the highlights of Bountiful Valley Farm.

Kathy Rogers, Senior Show Producer for Bountiful Valley Farm, Golden Vine Winery and Pacific Wharf
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Kathy Rogers
Thank you, Jill. Bountiful Valley Farm is a celebration of the people and story of California agriculture. The Golden State has an abundance of natural resources like our climate and our souls that enable our farmers to grow over 350 different crops, some of them all year long. Here at Bountiful Valley Farm you can find our citrus grove where we have our navel oranges to our fingered citrons, our fruits and nut trees we have plums, apricots, walnuts and almonds. In our seasonal crop area we have Brussels sprouts, strawberries, snapdragons and artichokes just to name a few. Although crops are a big part of the story that makes California the number one agricultural state it is not all of the story.

Kathy Rogers shares her hope that Bountiful Valley Farm will spark the talent of one of the students seated in front of her.
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Another big aspect is the people story. It is about the dreamers and the doers. It is the dreamers that provided us drip irrigation that conserves our water resources for all of us to use. And when it comes to dreamers and doers California struck it rich like Eliza Tibbets who in 1870 is credited with starting the navel orange industry here in California by nurturing two small navel orange trees from Brazil that had been sent to her by a friend in Washington D.C. There is also an Anaheim horticulturist named Rudolph Boysen who created the boysenberry by crossing a raspberry, blackberry and loganberry together. Today those dreamers and doers live on in such people as Kate Murty who is a retired schoolteacher who is growing persimmons down in San Diego. Today as you wander around Bountiful Valley Farm I hope that you discover some of the stories of our crops and technology but especially the people. And perhaps one day in the future one of you may be the dreamers or the doers of agriculture here in California. Thank you.