Hollister
– George Bonacich has something besides 60 years of growing
apricots to qualify him as the new San Benito County Farm Bureau
president.
Hollister – George Bonacich has something besides 60 years of growing apricots to qualify him as the new San Benito County Farm Bureau president.
“He spent a certain amount of time being a referee at college-level football,” said Paul Hain, the outgoing president of the farm bureau.
Hain believes those years of making decisions on the run have left Bonacich, 76, well prepared to take the helm of the bureau.
“When a question comes up, he’s thinking about it right then,” Hain said.
Bonacich began learning agriculture as a 16-year-old, when his father designated him an acre of apricots to tend for an entire year and he was allowed to keep the profits of his first harvest.
He continued at the University of California Davis, where he obtained a degree in pomology, or the study of fruit trees. Bonacich also starred as quarterback of the school’s football team.
“I had all the passing records for 15 years,” Bonacich said. “We were a running team.”
After serving for the U.S. Army in post-war Korea, Bonacich returned to help his father grow prunes in Healdsburg and apricots in Stanislaus County and eventually Hollister.
Bonacich remembers the days of labor-intensive farming in the 1940s. Spraying several acres of an orchard with a one-cylinder, 200-gallon pump would take days, Bonacich said.
“Nowadays everything gets done so quickly,” he said.
In addition to the changes in farming techniques, Bonacich has seen changes in apricot varieties. In fact, he has been active in developing new varieties himself. Bonacich has tested more than 100 varieties of apricots, searching for an alternative to the delicious but delicate Bleinheim variety.
“It’s a very delicate fruit,” Bonacich said. “It’s excellent for drying, but there are problems getting it perfect and good enough in size.”
Besides developing new varieties of apricots, Bonacich hopes to increase the SBC Farm Bureau’s membership and become more active in county politics.
The SBC Farm Bureau acts mainly as a political action group and a resource for services and information for local farmers. As president, Bonacich be the spokesman for the organization and run its meetings.
Hain mentioned the possibility of starting an agricultural advisory committee to advise the county on proposed ordinances. Food safety will also be foremost on the minds of Bonacich and other farm bureau officials, said Hain, including assuring the public. Consumer confidence in the spinach crop dropped drastically after an E. coli breakout in September and has yet to rebound fully.
“That’s still the 800-pound gorilla,” Hain said.
And for San Benito, whose top industry is agriculture and relies heavily on its spinach and lettuce crops, agricultural leaders hope consumer confidence will soon.
In 2005, San Benito ranked 29th out of the 58 California counties in agricultural production, producing $268 million worth of agricultural products, according to the California Farm Bureau Federation.
Michael Van Cassell covers public safety for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 335 or
mv*********@fr***********.com
.
