Picture of Manuel Jimenez in the studio with Stella Romo.

In the late 1990s, radio certainly can't be called high-technology communication. But University of California Small Farm Program farm advisors Manuel Jimenez and Richard Molinar have found that it's still one of the best ways to get information out to the people they serve.

As part of the Small Farm Program's outreach efforts, Jimenez and Molinar work with small-scale farmers in Tulare and Fresno counties, respectively, helping them sustain their small businesses with information on crop production, pest control, labor management, fertilization, harvesting and marketing. They make personal visits to farms and answer questions on the telephone. While articles, newsletters, and even a site on the World Wide Web are part of their communication efforts, they say nothing works like radio.

Jimenez drives to Fresno once a month to answer listener questions on Stella Romo's live call-in talk show Comentarios y Entrevistas (Commentaries and Interviews) on KGST. On the program, he's known as "Señor Agrónomo," ("Mr. Agronomist") and he's considered an expert on everything agricultural. Amid the inquisitive calls about backyard avocados (Can I grow it from a seed?), fruit trees (Why are the leaves curling?) and ants (Where are they all coming from?), from time to time Jimenez fields a real peach.

He remembers a call he took from a family who had been struggling for years to grow a viable crop on a west side small farm. "Following our conversation I sent them information and referred them to the Cooperative Extension office in Fresno for some specific advice," Jimenez said. "They called me back later to say it really made a difference. Now they're managing a successful farm."

Because of his success reaching Hispanic farmers on the radio, Jimenez is looking for more air time. He is now coordinating a new special program on Radio Biling'e, a public radio station in Fresno that reaches small-scale farmers and farm workers throughout California, and in parts of Texas and Mexico.

Scheduled to run at 5:30 Thursday mornings in June, the radio spot called Cultivando Raices (Cultivating Roots) is a tightly edited five-minute segment that focuses on one or more topics of interest to Hispanics working in agriculture and their families. Listeners will learn something each week on subjects such as pesticides, food safety, nutrition, work opportunities, housing and farm credit.

While Jimenez directs his programs to Spanish speaking farmers, Molinar's radio service targets Fresno County's Hmong farming community. Every other Monday evening, his assistant Michael Yang, fluent in Hmong and Lao, can be heard on Fresno radio station KBIF 900 AM. The 30 minutes of air time is purchased by the UC Small Farm Program and the USDA's Farm Service Agency.

"Half of the material we present is from the Farm Service Agency, covering such issues as loans and the non-insurable crop program. The other half provides information we wish to extend to the farmers, on such topics as pesticide use and safety, nematode control, disease problems and effective cultural practices," Molinar said.

Yang always reserves part of the program for call-in questions.

"When strawberries were ready, we got many calls," Yang said. "With the wet weather, people had problems with botrytis and rot. We explain about the products that help the problem and what they should be doing for the safety of workers and themselves."

Molinar and Yang have offered radio listeners free pH and salinity soil testing. A number of farmers have taken them up on the offer, including one who was wondering why he was having trouble getting anything to grow.

"We found pH to be OK, but salt was extremely high," Molinar said of the farm, which turned out to be a former dairy. "We told him how to solve the problem by leaching out the salt with a lot of water and planting alfalfa for a couple of years to reclaim the soil."

In this case and many others, radio has proved to be an effective way to reach small-scale farmers "many struggling unnecessarily with problems University research has already solved" and provide them practical information and counsel from the UC Small Farm Program advisors.

Jeannette Warnert
Public Information Representative
UC Regional Office
550 E. Shaw Avenue
Fresno, CA 93710