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Ukrainian farmers find the familiar on Pajaro Valley farm
-Santa Cruz Sentinel ^ | 08/04/2010 | By Donna Jones

Posted on 08/04/2010 7:58:47 PM PDT by artichokegrower

WATSONVILLE - Ivan Melnyk grows strawberries and apples on his 74 acres, selling his produce at a farm stand and through supermarkets.

So a visit to Gizdich Ranch on Wednesday had a familiar ring for the onetime collective farm manager who now has his own operation near Kiev, Ukraine.

Melnyk is part of a group of farmers and agricultural researchers on a tour of California agriculture through Bridges, a program founded in 2008 to bring American agribusiness expertise to Ukrainian growers.

The group visited several berry and apple ranches, Driscoll's cooler, Sambrailo Packaging Co. and the Watsonville Strawberry Festival during a three-day local stay facilitated by Agri-Culture, a Pajaro Valley-based nonprofit education and land preservation group.

"Ukrainian farmers are more like American farmers than European farmers," Melnyk said through an interpreter.

In Europe, everything is modern, computer-driven, explained Ukrainian crop researcher Viktor Lysanyk. In America, as in Ukraine, there's a mix of old and new. But, he said, to see a family farm like Gizdich, which was founded 75 years ago and is now being run by a third generation, was unusual because during the Soviet era agriculture was taken out of the hands of individuals and given to collectives.

"It's an old farm and it's not destroyed," Lysanyk said. "They continue to work."

Melnyk, who pegged his sales at $500,000 annually, worked on a collective farm for 16 years, and Advertisement was vice director when Ukraine moved to a market economy after the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. He said the difference was "like the ground and the sky." Asked how, he replied with one word: "Independence."

Melnyk said he was still processing the information he was picking up on the tour, so couldn't say what he'd take home to his own fields. But he was here to learn.

Lysanyk said production and yields are higher here than in Ukraine.

Bill Ringe, president of Agri-Culture, said the nonprofit has hosted foreign farmers in the past from Burma, Azerbaijan and Zimbabwe. He said local farmers enjoy the foreign visitors, and he was impressed by how much growers like Jim Cochran of Swanton Berry Farm are willing to share of their craft.

"One thing about farmers, whether from the Ukraine or the U.S. or some other country, there's that bond, that natural bond with growers," Ringe said.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: ukraine; watsonville
Watsonville is a town on the central coast of California about 100 miles south of San Francisco. Do you think that they would teach on American college campuses how agriculture and the family farm was destroyed during the rule of Communism?
1 posted on 08/04/2010 7:58:48 PM PDT by artichokegrower
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To: artichokegrower

Too bad the La Frontera club is OOB. Used to spend many
a night in there in the early 70s hauling off stabbed braceros to the hospital. They could should show Mr Melnyk
how to get some field hands..


2 posted on 08/04/2010 8:16:20 PM PDT by rahbert (Come heavy or don't come at all)
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To: artichokegrower

Ha! Having lived in Santa Cruz, I would say not. They ought to have these farmers tell of their experiences under collectivism to the student bodies around town.


3 posted on 08/04/2010 8:29:58 PM PDT by Amberdawn
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To: Amberdawn

True what a great life lesson to be taught up at the UCSC Agroecology Center. No collectivism (socialism) does not work.


4 posted on 08/04/2010 8:34:18 PM PDT by artichokegrower
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To: artichokegrower

They should have gone to the Giant Artichoke and had the best meal they would have all week.

MMMmmmm.......


5 posted on 08/04/2010 9:42:20 PM PDT by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously... You'll never live through it.)
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