Fresno: For Punjabi farmers, a spread in the Valley is an opportunity to get back to familiar soil. Through thick and thin, recession and prosperity, Punjabi farmers have come to the Central Valley. People from the Indian state of Punjab are drawn to the Valley, Even Punjabi doctors and other professionals have bought Valley farms to get back to nature.
“It’s in the blood,” said Param Fagoora, a Fresno eye surgeon who bought 29acre farm in south Fresno in 1991. He grows raisin grapes.
Fagoora’s father, Nazar Singh, operates the farm, and Fagoora himself likes to spend weekends and off hours walking among the vines,
Singh came to the United States after years of farming in India, Farmers in Punjab grow sugar cane, cotton, potatoes, rice and corm.
In the central San Joaquin Val ley, grapes and almonds are the most popular. In Sutter and Yuba counties, the large Punjabi community grows peaches, almonds and walnuts.
Didar Bains, a third generation Punjabi farmer in Yuba City who also owns 2,000 acres of peaches and almonds in Madera County, believes Punjabis grow 50% of the peaches in Sutter and Yuba counties.
No one is certain how much land Punjabis own in the central San Joaquin Valley, but Fresno real slate agent Ed Peelman, who has sold $1 million of real estate to Punjabis this year, thinks it could be 5%.
“They are significant buyers to day. They are a factor in the market,” said Hersch Thompson, president of Pearson Realty and a farmland specialist. “Raisin vineyards don’t stay on the market. There is a backed up demand,” he said,
Avtar Gill, a Caruthers insurance agent who said he insures 90% of the Punjabi owned land in the Valley, estimates that 20% of the Raisin grape acreage in the central San Joaquin Valley is owned by Punjabis, and estimates that eight of every 10 current farmland sales in Fresno County are to Punjabis.
Avtar Gill is also the owner of a well-known Gill and associates dealing in real estate business.
Punjabis first came to California in 1905 to seek economic opportunity, said Bains, Recently, some have come to escape violence between militant Sikhs and government authorities in India.
Many Punjabis have settled in Caruthers, which is home to a Sikh temple and many Punjabi owned businesses. The temple in Caruthers is one of five in the central San Joaquin Valley. Two are in Fresno,
Punjabis buy farms of all sizes throughout the Valley, but are especially evident in the Fresno County communities of Raisin City, Selmaand Fowler, said Rudy Alcoser, the broker of Home and Land Agency in Selma. He said Punjabis account for about 75% of his sales.
courtesy: The Fresno Bee
Article extracted from this publication >> April 2, 1993
