"People are losing touch with farming. They don't know where their food comes from," says AgVenture's guide and owner, Evan Oakes. Five years ago, Oakes set out to remedy this problem, one visitor at a time. He operates the only wine tours in the Monterey area and, as far as either of us know, the only agricultural tour in the state of California.
Oakes' knowledge of agriculture is encyclopedic starting with "artichoke." "God knows who figured out how to eat this thing," he says, and then he tells us which ones taste best (medium-sized), shows us how to cut up a baby artichoke, pulls out a photograph of an artichoke flower and then adds that a local company uses artichokes to feed their escargot "herd." A few miles later, he asks, "Have you ever had an asparagus sandwich?" and then supplies the recipe (cold asparagus, cream cheese, lettuce, sprouts, tomato on bread).
As we travel through the Salinas Valley, the "salad bowl of the world," past some of the most expensive farm land on earth, we learn that broccoli seed costs well over $1,000 a pound, that twenty to thirty people can harvest 2,000 boxes of lettuce in a day, and that the farmers here get no government subsidies and have no crop insurance. We discuss labor issues and water rights. Lettuce, artichokes, strawberries, cauliflower and asparagus sprout in the fields, and we pass an enterprising local "ranch" which raises geese and ducks for San Francisco's Chinatown markets. Most improbable of all is a neatly-planted field of cultivated prickly pear cactus. "We don't fertilize it. We don't water it," Oakes says, but it grows anyway.
There are plenty of vineyards in Monterey County, more than in Napa and Sonoma Counties combined. Many of the grapes are used by Napa Valley wineries, and until recently, Napa got all the credit. But in the past few years, Oakes says Monterey growers decided, "Well, forget this. We want credit for wine from grapes grown here," and there are now over thirty wineries in the area. Oakes holds a degree in viticulture and worked in the Australian wine industry, and many of his tours focus on local wines. He brings a unique perspective to the topic, teaching his guests how their wines are grown as well as how they are processed.
Contacting AgVenture
AgVenture Tours
831-384-7686
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