Born Punjab, India a farming area as rich as the San Joaquin Valley. Linden area farmer Sukhi
Bisla, born in Punjab, explains that his love for nurturing pasture grass and bummer lambs is genetic. As an employee for Lewallen cattle Company in Linden, Sukhi Bisla manages the irrigation of the ranch’s permanent pasture.
After a 10 hour day in the fields, Sukhi walks through bison family farm which includes a backyard cherry orchard, a vegetable garden sprawling with squash and cucumber vines, and a barnyard where bummer lambs wag their tails, eager for the smile Sukhi has for them. While the lambs nurse baby bottles, four leppie calves begin bawling for the milk cow, Hillary and inside the chicken shed hens cluck for their chicks.
Thirty-one years ago, Sukhi Bisla left India to come to California because he had heard about the revolution taking place in U.S. farming and he wanted to see it firsthand, From Punjab, India, Bisla was born into a class of farmers, the Jat Sikh, He especially remembers the “Festival of Agriculture” that takes place each April “The Festival is like Easter,” explains Sukhi. “It is a holy festival when we pray to God for the land.”
In India, 80% of the country’s economy depends on agriculture. According to Surinderpal S. Pataria, Sukhi’s cousin, who also works on a farm in the Linden area, The laws and the rules of the land protect the Indian agricultural lands, The state of Punjab, about one-third the size of California, produces 60 to 65% of India’s wheat, rice, sugar cane.
and corn.” In India today, There are few large farms over 1000 acres, “While Indian industrial started under British Rule in the 1800s, significant agricultural reform began in 1947 with India’s independence from Great Britain. The law of the land and legal codes: reinforced the value of agricultural land,” says Surinderpal Pataria. In Punjab, the Jat Sikh farmers represented 95% of the commmmunity.
Gian Bisla, Sukhi’s wife, who has lived in the U.S. for27 years, says she has raised her children the way she was raised to give thanks to God for the soil.
It is almost dusk when the youngest of the Bisla family rides up to the house on Trigger, a young horse in raining. I ask Bob, who is 20 ‘years old and an Animal Science/Beef Production major at Fresno Slate, why he likes ranching.
“I like it because every day is different. It’s not punching the same computer keys. Ranching
Keeps me on my toes .i have to look at the cattle for sickness, look for broken fences, check water troughs, saltlicks, mineral blocks .That Keeps me going; that makes me want to get up the next day and do it again.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 29, 1994
