COLUSA, CA (MPG)—The seed planted for the Sacramento Valley Orchard and Machinery Show in the mid-1960s has grown into a legacy of the late Tom Aldrich and the organizers who spearheaded what would become the Colusa Farm Show, the oldest continuous farm equipment exhibition on the West Coast.
According to the archives of the Territorial Dispatch, the Colusa County Pioneer Review, and other local publications, Aldrich and colleagues from the University of California Cooperative Extension Service met with prune, olive, and nut growers in the summer of 1965, to discuss a method for farmers to keep up with rapid mechanizations of the 20th century in the agriculture industry.
“The demand was great enough that it compelled us to put a show together to allow growers to see and compare various types of orchard equipment in one place,” Aldrich said in an earlier interview. “We couldn’t imagine it would become such a success.”
Organizers and farmers held the first Orchard Show committee meeting on July 7, 1965, at the Country Kitchen in Gridley to begin planning a dead-in-the-winter, middle-of-the-week exhibition when they could realistically bring equipment manufacturers and farmers together.
Aldrich, Colusa County farm advisor, reached out to then Colusa County Fair Board President Hugh Jones and Fairgrounds Manager Morris DeLay to secure the Colusa County Fairgrounds as the location. He then arranged 85 exhibits, demonstrations, and educational programs that highlighted custom-built equipment for pruning, spraying, and harvesting. The first Orchard Show was held Jan. 11-13, 1966, with an expectation that 3,000 people would attend.
At the time, the Sacramento Valley was anxious to have some organization take the responsibility of allowing growers to see and compare various types of orchard equipment in one place, and all the Sacramento Valley UC farm advisors, including Wallace Schreader, Arthur Retan, Dave Chaney, Ralph Parks, and D.C. Alderman, obliged.
What the Extension Service did not expect was the 14,000 people that would attend the first show and the particular interest from rice growers, cattle and dairy farmers, aviators, and other crop producers up and down California to see more than wind machines and limb shakers.
A year after the first show, the Colusa Chamber of Commerce named Aldrich “Citizen of the Year” in recognition of exceptional service to the citizens of Colusa County by establishing the first exhibition with the plan to make it an annual event.
By the third year, the UC Cooperative Extension Service teamed up with the 44th District Agriculture Association (Fair Board), who wanted to create a farm trade show that would benefit everyone in the agriculture industry. It was not long before majestic metal giants, manufactured by John Deere and Caterpillar, would become a main attraction.
In 1975, on the 10th anniversary of the Colusa Farm Show, which was still commonly referred to as the Orchard Show, more than 41,000 people came through the gates, slightly down from the previous two years, due to severe weather on the final day, although machinery sales were up overall, with visitors coming from South Africa, Sweden, and Canada to view the latest innovations in agriculture, Fairgrounds Manager Robert Bisho said in an interview.
In 1995, with the Colusa Farm Show still going strong after 30 years, the Colusa County Farm Bureau recognized Aldrich with the “Distinguished Service to Agriculture” Award. In addition to getting the Colusa Farm Show off the ground, Aldrich was instrumental in starting the Nickels Soils Lab, the largest almond research facility in the United States, whose early work on soils and drip irrigation was a breakthrough in modern agricultural practices.
After the turn of the 21st century, the fairgrounds continued to burst at the seams the first week in February with 350 vendors sprawled across the grounds to offer information, services, and equipment to everyone from home gardeners to major crop producers and has stayed on the forefront of agriculture.
At 60, the Colusa Farm Show has well earned its moniker “The Granddaddy of All Farm Shows,” as it was the forerunner for Tulare’s World Ag Expo, now the largest farm trade show in the world; the Northwest Agricultural Show, in Oregon; and the Spokane Ag Expo, in Washington.
Aldrich died at the age of 90 on Oct. 24, 2013.