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By Ramona Frances - The Madera Tribune

Senior Farmer Richard Johnson experiments with growing different types of avocado trees in a greenhouse environment on his north Madera County ranch.

Photo by: Wendy Alexander

Senior Farmer Richard Johnson displays one variety of artichokes he grows in his greenhouse as a hobby.

Photo by: Wendy Alexander

Senior Farmer Richard Johnson, right and wife Lila Nelson-Johnson have been married for 54 years and raised three boys, Robert, Steve and Carl.

Photo by: Wendy Alexander

Senior Farmer Richard Johnson likes to run his farming operation like a well-oiled piece of machinery. With an eye for order and efficiency, he is deliberate in his approach to farming and in his approach to life.

Johnson muses over life and takes pleasure in trying new things, working to improve what has been done before. His hobbies include finding a way to grow different plants and trees, adapting new methods to old ones, and experimenting with projects.

One of his projects was to install overhead misters to create a better growing environment for artichokes. Johnson, his son and longtime employees are dedicated to using and modifying practices needed to enhance farming, particularly pistachio farming.

In the early days, cotton is what Johnson was known to grow, but now it's pistachios. He does everything from nurturing seedlings and planting young trees to maintaining and harvesting pistachio nuts.

"Farmers are the original optimists," said Johnson's wife, Lila. "They have a crop failure and you'll hear them say, 'It will be better next year. One great crop makes up for three bad ones, three bad years.' Then they start all over again.

"Dick came from a farm family and I came from a farm family and we raised a farm family," she said.

Dick and Lila do not romanticize farming. They know something about what it entails.

"My grandfather, my dad's father, farmed in the late 1800s," she said. "I grew up thinking there was nothing else. Farming on the outskirts of Madera, mom and dad did it all. They used a French plow, tied, pruned and rolled raisin trays."

"Farming was back-breaking work from the 40s," Richard Johnson said. "We took alkali soils and turned it around. There were lots of Grade B dairies that pastured on that soil and helped build it up. And many of those dairies didn't make it. They paid a price."

Knowing farming is knowing about its disillusionment. It is knowing about the way it was, and it is knowing the way it is now. Johnson shows depth in his experience, accepting both the positive and the negatives of his advocating.

"Farmers used to have a lot of respect," Richard Johnson said. "It got to where farmers are not respected at all. What would it be like to wake up and find your food supply doesn't exist?"

Speaking from a farmer's perspective, Dick Johnson said, "When you want it to warm up, it doesn't. You are the guy who has to improvise. Let's face it. You have to have pride in what you do.

"Today, I think the farmer is crazy," he said. "He is competing with too many other elements. We can't compete. County taxes alone is more than it costs to ship in grapes and tomatoes from Peru, Mexico and Argentina. In regards to pests, they don't have the regulations we have here. If foreign countries went through half of what we do, they wouldn't do it. With the amount of food that is coming into this country, shiploads, we need the point of origin labels.

"Our competition is really our own government, not overseas. The words, 'free-trade' should be changed to fair trade. You lay your money down in this business and pray to God you get it back."

Ramona Frances Ramona Frances is a staff columnist, writer and photographer for the Madera Tribune. You may contact Ramona at 674.8134 ext. 222 or by e-mail ramona (at) maderatribune.net The Madera Tribune online subscription To subscribe or log on, CLICK HERE. For more information first, CLICK HERE.