EDTORS: A photo opp and media availability to showcase some of the $2 million in investments from Farm Market proceeds will be held 10:30-11 a.m. Friday, June 29, at the Farm Market (Barstow and Chestnut). Ag College Dean Dr. Charles Boyer will inspect new equipment, including a $150,000 John Deere tractor with GPS guidance system, on display at the Summer Festival on the Farm on June 30.

How buying a bottle of Fresno State wine benefits ag programs and students

Farm Market marks 20th anniversary with Summer Festival on June 30 and displays of some of the $2 million worth of investments realized from market sales proceeds.

(June 28, 2007) � It started 20 years ago as a small roadside corner stand at California State University, Fresno to sell excess sweet corn. Today, the Fresno State Farm Market has grown into a full-fledged operation that surpassed the million dollar mark this fiscal year selling a wide range of student-produced or processed products from the University Ag Lab � or University Farm �� such as fresh vegetables and fruits, wine, meat, dairy products, nuts and olive oil. Proceeds help strengthen teaching and research programs in the university’s College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology. The farm provides the college’s seven departments and more than 1,200 students a hands-on lab for their ag training.

Question: How does buying that $12.95 bottle of award-winning Saviez Syrah, spending $1 for four ears of popular sweet corn or paying $5.40 for Fresno State Raspberry Romance ice cream help ag students, faculty and research at Fresno State? Answer: In the past two years alone, the University Farm has invested more than $1 million in equipment, infrastructure improvements and new technologies thanks to the proceeds from the farm’s 20 enterprises that sell their products at the Farm Market.

On Saturday, June 30, the University Farm will show off some of those investments � highlighted by a $150,000 John Deere 155-horsepower tractor with a GPS guidance system �at its Summer Festival on the Farm from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Farm Market at Chestnut and Barstow avenues. The event coincides with the first anniversary of the introduction of the “Fresno State Farm Fresh” theme.

Another $1 million investment is planned in the next couple of years, reports Dr. Ganesan Srinivasan, director of the 1,000-acre farm located mostly on the north and east boundaries of the campus.

Investments from Farm Market proceeds include $540,000 in major farm infrastructure upgrades as well as new equipment investments of $330,000 in 2006. Another $1.1 million will pay for improvements during 2007, Srinivasan said. “Revenues from the Farm Market have steadily grown from a humble $12,000 in 1987 to a little over a million dollars during this fiscal year,” Srinivasan said. “The community support for our student products, our program and our students has been simply amazing. Many of our regular customers’ kids and grandkids went to school here and they like to see Fresno State and its ag program thrive and prosper.”

To observe this support and show off the fruits of the students’ labor, the Farm Market’s inaugural Summer Festival will “thank the community for what it does for Fresno State.” The festival, which evolved from the successful Summer Solstice Celebration last year, is planned as an annual event, said Jennifer Sobieralski, the Farm Market manager. It’s collaboration among the college’s various academic programs and the farm’s enterprises. Activities include a wine tasting, cooking demonstrations and food sampling, accompanied by music performed by two groups led by Fresno State employees: Fernando Gonzalez’s El Mariachi Tepeyac from 11 a.m. to noon and Lisa Kao’s Lisa’s Big Night Out from noon to 2 pm. Wine tasting will be conducted by University Food Services, with the Summer Solstice 4-Pack currently on special at the market, featuring 2003 California Solstice, 2006 San Joaquin County Chardonnay, 2006 Muscat Canelli and 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon. Fresno State Winemaster Ken Fugelsang and enterprise marketing manager Jessup Wiley will discuss wines and sign bottles.

Klaus Tenbergen, professor in Fresno State’s new Culinology® program, will conduct a cooking demonstration of stir-fried vegetables and meat with award-winning Fresno State Extra Virgin Olive Oil from noon to 1 p.m. (See his web site at www.knead-2-know.com).

Meat science students in the Animal Science department, under Dr. John Henson, will barbeque the sake-infused junmai skirt steak that won acclaim at the National Meat Association during the past academic year.

The Dairy Processing Unit will serve samples of its chocolate chip and butter pecan ice cream.

The investment display will be a special attraction for festival, said Sobieralski. “Patrons will get to see what their purchase of a bottle of our award-winning wine, or popular sweet corn or the tasty sausage has resulted in.”

Besides the high-tech tractor, new equipment on display will include a swather for cutting alfalfa, a 14-foot offset disk, a multiterrain loader, six bi-fuel pickup trucks, an all-terrain backhoe loader with trenching and irrigation attachments and a refrigerated van to transport ice cream.

Among the infrastructure upgrades financed from Farm Market proceeds were a dairy lagoon waste management facility, a Farm Market freezer and cold box: an ice cream freezer for the Dairy Processing Unit and a chiller barrel replacement for the Viticulture and Enology Research Center.

Planned for fall are a $270,000 state-of-the-art 2 x 6 herringbone dairy milking parlor with computer-guided monitoring system and a $65,00010-ton Defranschescci wine press.

“We want our students to be able to get training in world-class agriculture using some of the latest technology available,” Srinivasan said. “The community’s support helps accomplish this.”

For more information contained in this release, please go to the following Web site:
Rue and Gwen Gibson Farm Market