Comstock's magazine 0620 - June June 2020 | Seite 79

Special Promotional Section
The Harvest’s Worth
by Ashley Stone-Hayes
Sean Favero wipes beads of sweat from his brow as
he drives his tractor and attached hay baler in a field
at his farm in Dixon. The machine gathers dried alfalfa,
forms it into squares and catapults them into a wagon
behind the baler.
“As farmers, we have a love for the land and a love
for what we do,” he says. That love translates into an important
financial driver locally, with international reach.
Favero, who is also the Solano County Farm Bureau president,
considers himself a small grower, farming about
200 acres of olives and alfalfa at Favero Farms, but he is
just one of the approximately 850 farms in the county,
39 of which are registered as organic.
Solano County has more than 342,000 acres of
land dedicated to agricultural production, according to
Ed King, the agricultural commissioner and sealer of
weights and measures.
The “Solano County 2018 Crop and Livestock Report”
says 46 percent of the crop value is fruit, nuts and
vegetables, 20 percent field crops, 14 percent animal
production, 12 percent nursery products, and 8 percent
seeds. “We’re probably the most diverse county, since
our growers grow up to 75-80 different crops,” King
says.
The total crop value in Solano County is about $364
million, according to the report, and the harvest is
distributed nationally and internationally to 31 countries,
with Japan and the Republic of Korea importing the most
goods (35 percent and 27 percent, respectively).
Farms like Hines Growers in Winters produce nursery
products, which has the highest value of all the commodities
— $43.2 million in 2018 — although it uses a
lower acreage (1,880) than the other top planted crops,
like alfalfa, which uses the most (28,400), and was the
No. 3 highest value crop at $31.7 million.
“There’s something very rewarding about growing
something,” Favero says. •
June 2020 | comstocksmag.com 79