Informative Signs Cropping Up in Fields

“What are they growing out there?”

Drivers often ask that question as they roar down the open road past fields of crops they cannot quite identify.

It’s not that hard to figure out in places such as the Midwest, where the crops of choice are usually wheat or corn.

But California’s 83,000 farms grow more than 200 types of fruits, nuts and other produce--the San Joaquin Valley region produced more than $11 billion worth of crops in 1990--and not all are readily recognizable to drivers as the fields and orchards whiz by.

To satisfy curious tourists, a service club has placed signs alongside major highways in the valley, telling people what’s being grown in the adjacent field or orchard.

“We’re kind of proud of this heritage,” says William Weber, who heads the project for the Fresno Kiwanis Club. “When people drive through on the highways, we like to point out that this is part of our culture here, the agriculture.”

Thanks mainly to Weber and Harold Gustafson, a Kiwanian in Kern County, more than 160 signs have been erected along Interstate 5 and Highway 99.

The signs tell motorists that the field they are passing grows grapes or peaches or some other crop that helps make the valley the world’s richest agricultural region.

Fresno has been the nation’s leading farming county in terms of revenue since the 1940s, followed by Tulare and Kern counties.

“I guess it’s an educational thing, but it’s mainly a courtesy for the tourists,” Weber says. “We’ve gotten letters from all over the country thanking us, so the project has been gratifying.”

Paul Albert of Columbus, Ohio, wrote Gustafson that he and his wife “have often wondered about, but have not been able to identify, the various crops. . . . This service is appreciated more than the (local Kiwanis clubs) might realize.”

Gustafson credits his late wife, Bettie, with giving him the idea in the early 1970s. They were driving north toward the San Francisco Bay Area one day and she asked, “Wouldn’t you like to know what was growing in the fields?”

Even though he isn’t a farmer, Gustafson’s Kiwanis Club had just assigned him to come up with a project involving farming. He got approval from the club’s leadership and permission from various farmers to plant signs at the edge of their fields.

Wooden signs were used at first, but they have long since given way to longer-lasting aluminum.