Educational Media Reviews Online

The Central Valley of California (the “other” California rarely depicted in movies and television) accounts for almost half of the production of fruits, nuts and vegetables in the United States. Over the past twenty years the population of this region of California has climbed to almost six million and is expected to reach fifteen million by 2040. Almost all of this growth has been urban, as valley towns allow prime agricultural land to be converted to suburban subdivisions. The cost of homes in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles megalopolis is so high that many workers are willing to commute long hours from their jobs in those two areas to cheaper housing in the Central Valley.

This video concentrates on two valley locales: Tracy, just over the hill from the Bay Area, and Madera, twenty miles north of Fresno. The Tracy segment chronicles the fight that has erupted from residents anxious to slow growth and preserve what farmland still exists versus the pressure from real estate developers who argue that subdivisions are inevitable and will eventually create jobs. Partisans of both viewpoints are interviewed. The Madera segment tells of the creation of an agricultural preservation easement to allow financially hard-pressed farmers to keep some of their lands in production and away from urban development.

The editorial viewpoint of the video is plainly in favor of preserving agricultural land against urban encroachment, but opponents of preservation are included in interviews. The stakes in terms of food and fiber security for the United States are high, and at some point in the near future a point of no return will be reached, so political and economic steps must be taken soon if the agricultural nature of the Central Valley is not to be changed irrevocably.