Focus on Agriculture

SALINAS VALLEY — As the country celebrates National Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month this June, the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA) is spotlighting the farmers behind the produce — and the power of farming to change lives. Located in the heart of the Salinas...

KING CITY — Kacey Hass, a seventh-grade life science teacher at Chalone Peaks Middle School, has started a GoFundMe page to raise money to start a school garden. Hass is also the gardening teacher for both seventh and eighth grades, but the campus currently does...

KING CITY — Salinas Valley Fair Heritage Foundation has announced Valeria Beltran, a junior at Gonzales High School, as the recipient of the 2025 Heritage Foundation Scholarship. As this year’s winner, Beltran will raise the official Heritage Animal, a hog she has named “Zero,” and...

MONTEREY COUNTY — The nation’s oldest farmworker union announced Tuesday that it has canceled all events celebrating labor organizer César Chávez after allegations surfaced that he sexually assaulted several women and girls. “As a women-led organization that exists to empower communities, the allegations about abusive...

SALINAS VALLEY — California Rangeland Trust has announced the conservation of the 9,400-acre Silacci Ranch in San Benito and Monterey counties. The project was completed by the Rangeland Trust with funding from the California Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB), the California Strategic Growth Council’s Sustainable Agricultural...

CASTROVILLE — The beloved Artichoke Festival, a cherished tradition in Monterey County for more than six decades, will not return this year. The festival’s board of directors announced its official closure after 65 years of celebrating the region’s rich agricultural heritage, artichoke royalty and community...

SALINAS VALLEY — Applications are currently being accepted for the prestigious title of Miss Salinas Valley Fair, which is open to any junior or senior high school girl who is a resident or student of school districts in the counties of Monterey, San Benito,...

CALIFORNIA — Before state officials announced that 40% of California's new vaccine doses would go to low-income communities, leaders were struggling to make good on promises to prioritize vulnerable Californians in the vaccine rollout. As my colleague Miriam Jordan recently wrote, farmworkers were among those...