This article, which appeared in today's Sacramento Bee, say's, "the Farm-to-Fork boast is all wrong for a town that yearns to be Silicon Valley East...It’s time to step away from the world-class provincialism that has long constrained Sacramento. Let go of the images of our agricultural past, lest our economic future be limited to farm-to-forklift jobs."
The article describes how Silicon Valley, "which once laid claim to being the world’s canning and dried-fruit packing capital, shrugged off its rich agricultural heritage. Along with neighboring San Mateo County, it embraced a new moniker: Silicon Valley."
Why do we want so badly to shrug off our rich agricultural heritage? We want the overcrowding, and sky high housing costs of Silicon Valley here?
I find it weird that a population that seems to thrive on the "idea" of local farming, and locally sourced food, would want to emulate Silicon Valley, a once wondrous farmland turned into sprawl. I have no desire to see our region turned into Silicon Valley East, though it's headed in that direction. Where shall we grow our food if all the best agricultural land is paved over? Sacramento needs to get over wanting to be "somewhere else" (Silicon Valley this time), and figure out how to be itself, in all its agricultural glory.