Sacramento, California - Here in California, harvest is practically a rolling, year-round occurrence. It’s just one of the many blessings of this wonderful place if you’re a farmer. It’s fitting, though, that National Farmers Day comes at the traditional harvest time of year. The bustle and excitement of this season remind us that farmers are much more than what they produce from the land. They are innovators and scientists, and lifelong students of nature. They are risk-takers and investors, in the broadest sense of those terms. They are equally adept at the wheel of a tractor, at the reins of a horse, at the keyboard of a computer, or simply wielding a fence tool and some baling wire. They are stewards of the land and teachers of generations of farmers to come.

Many of the benefits we get from the work of farmers are obvious – food and drink, health and nutrition, sustenance and bounty. Today, though, let’s all think a bit more deeply about what it means to be a farmer here in California; to live on and from the land, to give back to the soil so it can return the favor, and to know that consumers around the world count on them.

Thank you to our farmers in California and across the country.