Fred Strauss

Member-at-Large

AbouT:

Fred Strauss didn’t grow up around agriculture, yet ended up in the industry by getting a job almost accidentally. He then became a pest control adviser. Around the early 90’s, the CCA organization came about and he was one of the first people to get their license. Years later, he was asked to serve on the CCA Board and was previously Chairman of the board. In his job, he eventually got with Western Farm Service, which then became Crop Production Service and is now Nutrien. He managed for thirty years and retired at the end of 2016. He has gone on his own and stayed active in the industry, helping with the international certified crop adviser board as well.

Q+A:

How has the industry evolved or changed over the years?

“It’s turned into a lot of specialties. A CCA is a specialist in four basic areas: nutrition, water, crop management and pest management. There are people that spend their whole day managing water. There’s people who specialize in silage corn. Even in pest management, there’s people who only deal with tomatoes. To me, the biggest change is the specialties. The second biggest thing is the consolidation of companies. Growers have all gotten bigger. With all the issues related to cost (tax structure, rules and regulations), consolidation is a big deal. I used to deal with 40 acre growers and that was common. Now you don’t want to mess with that. Number three to me is what I call the outside corporate farmers. This is the big names that are joining investor groups that are buying agricultural land and farming it with management companies. The term corporate farms unfortunately has a bad reputation with the public but in reality almost all farms are corporate farms. California has 25 million acres that are farmed. Iowa has more than that in just corn; yet California’s total income from farming is 51 billion dollars. The second state is Iowa, their total income is 31 billion. We aren’t even thought of as a farming state, we are thought of as Disneyland, San Francisco, LA, all that. In California, the role of a CCA and the different crops that are grown here is vital. Those are the three big changes- specialization, consolidation and outside corporate farms.”