April 2018
By the time I’m done with my term as a blog ambassador for OGAPS, anyone who has kept up with my entries is going to wonder when I work given how much I get to travel. Over spring break I was able to visit friends from graduate school in Chico, California in the extreme northern part of the state. If you’ve never had the opportunity to be in that part of the country, I highly recommend it. Not only is that part of California completely different from Texas, it’s completely different from the rest of California.
One of the advantages about graduate school that we sometimes miss is the opportunity to make and stay in touch with friends from all over the world. Since I’ve stayed in contact with these peers I was able to see and experience some things I’d never been a part of before. One of the most interesting parts of my trip was experiencing walnut processing for the first time. In Texas we’re used to row crops and livestock production, but getting to see the logistics and processing that go into getting walnut “bits and pieces” on a salad was extraordinary.
The sorting and packaging line was more high tech than anything anyone would expect. The walnuts may be grown within 100 feet of the processing facility and depending on their grade or size could end up being eaten right down the road or as far away as the Europe. In addition to walnuts the area is a hotbed of growth for rice, oranges, pistachios and other nuts. Being from the panhandle of Texas seeing that many trees felt like seeing an alien planet.
The trip was made even better by my hosts’ family. We were able to do a little fishing on the Sacramento River, which you can see from the picture below is beautiful. They gave me every opportunity to get out of the office and relax, which at the end of a five years in graduate school has become something very important to me when I have the chance to do it. As I said in the first part of this post, maintaining the relationships you develop in graduate school provide you with awesome opportunities to follow your successful peers for travel and play, but also for guidance, friendship, and help whenever you begin entering the ‘real world’ yourself.
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Justin Benavidez
Justin is a Ph.D. student in the Agricultural Economics department.
One of the advantages about graduate school that we sometimes miss is the opportunity to make and stay in touch with friends from all over the world. Since I’ve stayed in contact with these peers I was able to see and experience some things I’d never been a part of before. One of the most interesting parts of my trip was experiencing walnut processing for the first time. In Texas we’re used to row crops and livestock production, but getting to see the logistics and processing that go into getting walnut “bits and pieces” on a salad was extraordinary.
The sorting and packaging line was more high tech than anything anyone would expect. The walnuts may be grown within 100 feet of the processing facility and depending on their grade or size could end up being eaten right down the road or as far away as the Europe. In addition to walnuts the area is a hotbed of growth for rice, oranges, pistachios and other nuts. Being from the panhandle of Texas seeing that many trees felt like seeing an alien planet.
The trip was made even better by my hosts’ family. We were able to do a little fishing on the Sacramento River, which you can see from the picture below is beautiful. They gave me every opportunity to get out of the office and relax, which at the end of a five years in graduate school has become something very important to me when I have the chance to do it. As I said in the first part of this post, maintaining the relationships you develop in graduate school provide you with awesome opportunities to follow your successful peers for travel and play, but also for guidance, friendship, and help whenever you begin entering the ‘real world’ yourself.
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Justin Benavidez
Justin is a Ph.D. student in the Agricultural Economics department.