6/3/25 Sky-High Baggage Fees & Ground-Level Farm Economics with California's Almond Girl

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Tuesday, June 3rd BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Guys" podcast call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Manageme instagram: MoneywiseWealthManagement Guest: Jenny "Almond Girl" Holtermann, Almond Farmer, Executive Director at Water Association of Kern County & President of the Kern County Farm Bureau website instagram facebook

• 0:00Speaker 00

  From the Garo Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway, here is Money Wise. Call or text into the show 24/7 at 396-1000.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  Here is Money Wise.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  Money, money, money, money. Welcome to the Money Wise Show. We are live from the Garo Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway on ESPN Bakersfield, 1230 a.m., 101.1 FM, and always streaming at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can call or text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. Today, we're your hosts. I'm Sharad Wade and...

• 1:04Speaker 02

  Debbie Lewis.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Debbie Lewis.

• 1:06Speaker 02

  Sharad Wade.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Great seeing you.

• 1:08Speaker 02

  Good to see you as well.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  We are always getting messages and comments from listeners, and we've got one right now. I think it's a great way to start out the show. Do you want to read it?

• 1:18Speaker 02

  Yes, I did. I did, and now I don't.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  And now you lost it.

• 1:23Speaker 02

  Wait, here, well, come on now. Here we go. Here we go. I got it. Bear with me. Okay. Airlines claim they need baggage fees to cover rising costs, but they're making billions from these fees. Is this fair to us, especially in places like California where flights are already expensive? Made our first vacation plans in a decade and still upset.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Okay, so I love this question for a few different reasons. I'll start with kind of the negative side of this, because I hear this complaint frequently from...

• 1:59Speaker 01

  General audience or friends, family, where they say something to the effect of, it's usually around like pharmaceutical company or some sector, transportation sector, it could be telecommunications, could be whatever, they say, "How can the phone company continue to raise my bill when they're, or charge me so much, or charge me some fee for something, when they're making billions and billions of dollars, making a ton of money?" And usually what it comes down to is that there's a misunderstanding or disconnect from the increase in revenues and either the increase or decrease in profits.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  There's a very big difference between that. Because if you look at the companies or whatever sector, they have rising costs. They have costs that are going up that are, that they don't have any control over. And if they don't raise their prices or do something about it, then eventually they just go out of business. So they have to continue to keep up with inflation and keep up with those things. So it doesn't mean just because a company hits record revenues that they're being immoral because now they're charging more money on top of their increased revenues to the consumer.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Now, yes, that does happen sometime. And I think there's legitimate reasons for the general public to have distrust over big, big, name your industry. You know, big, big medicine or, or big whatever. You name your sector.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  All of the things.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, because, yeah, there are examples. Another, another example of this happening is when people see gas prices go up for their, when they're filling up their car. "Oh, my gosh, and you know, why are they, why are they paying so much? You know, why are they charging me so much when, you know, the oil companies are making so much money? And like, oh, are they conspiring and are they colluding and raising prices?" And no, no, that's not. I mean, maybe there are some one-off cases where that happens. But generally speaking, the company is just doing what it needs to do to, you know, to pass on costs. So, you know, in looking at, into airline costs and prices of airlines...

• 4:24Speaker 01

  They actually, if you go back over from the 50s and 60s, the cost of an airline ticket has come down. And it's come down pretty, pretty dramatically. Meaning, it is a lot cheaper to fly today than essentially it's ever been.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  That is interesting.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Right. You wouldn't think that, but-

• 4:47Speaker 02

  Is it because more people are flying?

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Yes. It's more people are flying, yeah, so you have more competition.

• 4:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Technology is better. We have more efficient airplanes. We have better infrastructure. We have more airports, you know, and uh, availability to be able to get from one place to another. For example, in 1941, the average flight from Los Angeles to Boston cost $4,500 in today's money. And it took 15 hours. And there were 12 stops.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  And now today, I'm guessing if you shop around, you could probably fly from LA to Boston for 200 bucks, maybe 300 bucks.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  You know, compared to 4,500 bucks and you would be non-stop. Um, you know, there, there, that's, that is maybe a dramatic example. But the cost of travel per mile has fallen 50% since 1980. Even when you include baggage fees and other charges, it's still half of what it was in 1980. So just 45 years ago.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Wild.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  It's just, it, it, it's easy from our perception to go, especially when you just bought a ticket, and to think, oh wow, this is ridiculous. This is so much. This is the issue with inflation, is that you don't, you, it's easy to feel like it's-

• 6:16Speaker 01

  It's too much.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  When you have to kind of keep it in in perspective of over, you know, long term history. Now, there have been significant price volatility in price in airline tickets, especially during COVID and during the recovery of COVID. The ticket prices spiked up about 25% in 2022. So therein lies where a lot of people still have a bad taste in their mouth because just overnight, almost just a couple of years ago, prices spiked up dramatically.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  Right.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  But since then, prices have moderated and they're historically low when you compare it or adjust it to inflation.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  It is interesting, though, the listener that texts in this topic or question, comment, observation, brought up California and like maybe the difference between California airport airfare prices compared to the rest of the country. And I've I've never thought about that. As California, we do have higher, higher costs for employee benefits. And and we were doing a little, some quick research before coming on the air. And with the baggage piece, you know, well, in California in general, the, the, I am blanking on my words, the wages for airport workers.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Like the minimum wage for them?

• 7:43Speaker 02

  Yes, that has gone up.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  So and then you take into account tariffs and and the cost of transportation and fuel and parts for the the airplanes.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  So that kind of checks out that California is a little more expensive to operate airlines out of the major airports.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  And then comparatively, California airports have different prices. So like the Bakersfield Airport is lovely, but it is one of the more expensive airports in California.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Right. Yes. That makes sense. That California would have higher prices because of our high cost of living and our high minimum wage. What did you say earlier? How much it's going up again? The minimum wage for airport workers in LA?

• 8:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. So the minimum wage for hotel and airport workers is scheduled to increase to $22.50 per hour effective July 1st of this year. And then annually, it will continue to rise until they hit $30 an hour in 2028, which is interesting.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  So they're getting, you know, a living wage and health benefits hourly.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  That's, that's hard to argue against. That's kind of the standard in California.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  But LAX is such a mess. Have you been there lately?

• 9:06Speaker 02

  Uh, I was there in February. Surprisingly, it wasn't too bad.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Oh, good for you.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  I am getting ready to fly out of Burbank this weekend.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  That's nice.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  We were talking off air. I'm going to Portland and I'm now curious what my baggage fee is going to be. My ticket was not cheap with Southwest.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Oh, so Southwest is the, is one of the airlines that recently changed their baggage policy?

• 9:31Speaker 02

  Right. And I did not see anything indicating.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  There'd be a charge for it?

• 9:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know what, what to expect. So I'm, I'm going into this with an open mind.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  I used a gift card for my flight, so I'm prepared to pay a little bit for my baggage.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  So you didn't pay for it? You didn't, you probably had the option to prepay maybe? Or are you checking a bag or are you just doing a carry on?

• 9:54Speaker 02

  I'm gonna do a carry on. I am prepared to pay a little bit for that.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  You should be okay with a carry on. I don't, I haven't experienced an airline out of, out of California that charges for a carry on, but maybe some of the discount airlines do.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  For some reason, I thought Southwest was changing.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, they might.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Or maybe they weren't charging for checked bags in the past and now they are charging for checked. I hope so.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that that's probably more likely the case, but here's a little, here's a little, take it for as advice if you want, but my experience in traveling and flying where they charge you for a checked bag is if you have the option to carry it on.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  And instead of checking it to avoid the charge, most of the time that the flights that I've been on have been almost fully booked. And so they almost always are looking for people to check their bags at the gate.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  And they're, and they'll, you know, because they're worried about overhead compartments getting full. And so then they look for checked bags and they won't charge you.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  You know, for that.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  So I've, I've done that so many times. I was like, oh, I'm so glad I didn't pay for a checked bag. Cause it's just, they're going to check it anyways if I wanted to. And then of course, I always like to just not check a bag if I don't have to. Cause I hate getting off the plane and then waiting at the baggage forever. So it's nice to just like have a small enough bag where you can just carry it on.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  It can be very helpful.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  To be nimble and you have a very short layover window.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Yes. Well, that's interesting. You have to report on how your Southwest flight goes. Cause that is one that I've seen in the news lately. Cause they, remember there were ads by Southwest that was always touting about how, how great they were. Cause they didn't charge for bags and other airlines were evil because they charged you for their bags.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Not anymore.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  They've come over to the dark side. It turns out that San Francisco International Airport has the second highest average fares in the country.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  $453. That the only airport that is more expensive in the country is Dulles International Airport in Virginia. At $490 is their average fare. So it's true that California does have some of the most expensive airports, but that is generally because California has major airports like LAX in San Francisco that have international hubs with high demand. And they're located in really expensive metropolitan areas that have higher costs, as you've mentioned.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  So.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  Another random fact that we discovered with the baggage fees specifically is that airlines can get some tax savings if they, they can save on their taxes by charging a separate baggage fee instead of including, kind of building that fee into your ticket price.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  So that could be. Another reason that the baggage fees seem to be a little higher. They also cite, again, kind of the rise in operational costs. It can help offset fuel and labor expenses. Add extra revenue and meeting shareholders' expectations because these airlines, they, you know, report to shareholders and the board of directors.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  And you know what that means. There's always that, like, how are we going to make more money?

• 13:26Speaker 01

  That's it. That's their mandate. That's the corporate mandate is maximize shareholder value.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  All right. Well, great. Good stuff. Thank you for the questions and comments, listeners. Keep them coming our way, 661-396-1000. We're going to take a break. When we come back, we're going to be joined by Jenny Halterman. She's the executive director for the Water Association of Kern County. And she is also the president of the Kern County Farm Bureau. And she's an almond farmer and entrepreneur. So we've got lots to talk about with Jenny. You're not going to want to miss it. We'll be right back.

• 13:59Speaker 00

  Have you been putting off your finances? Seize the day. Call the Money Wise office at 661-847-1000. Or email [email protected] for more information.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Thanks for tuning in. We're Money Wise. We're your hosts today. I'm Sharad Waite here with Debbie Lewis. We're excited right now to be joined by our guest, Jenny Halterman. She is the executive director for the Water Association of Kern County. And also the president of the Kern County Farm Bureau and an almond farmer and entrepreneur. Jenny, welcome to the show.

• 14:34Speaker 03

  Thanks for having me.

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Also known as Almond Girl.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Really?

• 14:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  You're the Almond Girl?

• 14:40Speaker 03

  I am.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  Gosh, we grow 90% of the world's almonds. Is that correct?

• 14:45Speaker 03

  In California.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  In California?

• 14:46Speaker 03

  Correct, yep.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  That is like amazing to me to think that a commodity like almonds, which is really a cool commodity, I think, is primarily just grown right here in the Central Valley.

• 14:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  In California. So let's start. You you wear a lot of hats in terms of of water. It's one of my favorite subjects is just agriculture in general.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  I love that.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  And and you know, we we grow nearly half of the country's food.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  In the in the Central Valley, which what I have always said on this show is we are the the world's we we live in the world's most productive agricultural valley.

• 15:28Speaker 03

  We do.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  In terms of dollar amount, you know, this is it.

• 15:32Speaker 03

  And soil.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  And soil, yeah. And it's because of our amazing geology that we have where this was just one massive inland ocean for millions, hundreds of millions of years. And when that evaporated, it left this amazing layer of soil that is really great to grow food in.

• 15:51Speaker 03

  Right. And our climate, we have a Mediterranean climate here. So there's only five places in the whole world that have that Mediterranean climate. So that's why we can grow a lot of the food here that you can't grow any other place.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Yes, but with that climate also, we're essentially a desert. And with the, you know, the the the minimal rainfall that we get in the valley, we rely on the snow and and the water that comes from the mountains. And my recollection is that two thirds of the water comes from one third, the top third of the state. So essentially, most of the water is in Northern California, which is why.

• 16:29Speaker 03

  About seventy five percent of our water comes from the top top part of the state.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Which is which is like insane to me.

• 16:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, we only get about five to six inches of rain in Kern County, well, in the valley floor part. Yeah, annually, five to six inches. Not very much. No, it's not.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  So before the Central Water Project or Central Valley.

• 16:50Speaker 03

  State Water Project.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  Water Project was was in the 50s?

• 16:53Speaker 03

  The it was official, yes, it started in the 50s and that's the aqueduct that we have along I five.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, which was a pretty incredible feat, engineering feat, because that's what one of the primary drivers of bringing that water down.

• 17:08Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  From from the north.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  And that is, a lot of people don't realize, but it was initially funded by. Farmers, so it was the farming community that got together and said, we need to bring water down here to the southern end of the Central Valley. And that was actually when the Water Association was established, was in fifty nineteen fifty five, for the sole purpose of educating people on the state water project and its building.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Oh, how about that?

• 17:31Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  So that brings us now to your to to one of your roles as the executive director for the uh, Water Association of Kern County. So that's where it came from is just educate the public.

• 17:42Speaker 03

  Just educate the public on why we needed to bring this giant aqueduct of water, why we needed to construct it and why we needed to bring that water down here. Um, and obviously the need has is evolved over time, but still the mission of the Water Association is just to educate and inform the community on on water issues. So obviously water issues change and some, some of them don't, but um, you know, just inform the community on what are the key water issues that we're tackling today.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  How many times a year are you going to Sacramento?

• 18:16Speaker 03

  So with my numerous different hats, um, multiple times. So the tricky thing, though, about the Water Association is it's a nonprofit, so I'm not allowed to be political.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:27Speaker 03

  But I have lots of other hats, as you've said, where I have political things that I I advocate on for my other functions. But through the Water Association, we can't be political and we have to be unbiased. So in our education events and our, you know, different workshops and things that we do, we have to represent all sides. Um, so I do have, you know, it gets tricky sometimes, but we have to bring in, you know, the alternate train of thought and we have to bring in people that we might not agree with. But it's our job to to educate people on all the different sides of water.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  So what are some of, what are the the major issues right now that that the Water Association would be, is talking about?

• 19:09Speaker 03

  Yeah. So a main one that we educate people on currently is SIGMA. So that's the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. It was passed in twenty fourteen and it's, um, you know, essentially monitoring and controlling our groundwater um, throughout. Around the state. So and that affects every basin, every county differently. Um, and Kern County was deemed a high priority basin. So that means um that we were at the top of the list on how are we going to fix it. And uh we are in overdraft, meaning we are pumping more than we are putting back into the soil. Uh they look at water quality issues. They look at subsidence issues. There's a number of things. Um but that's how they grade us.

• 19:50Speaker 03

  And um that's a big one right now. We just are in the process of submitting the fourth plan to the state. Um so we've submitted three other plans and amended those plans a couple of times as well. Um and we're at the um the realm of the state water board right now. So initially, stigma was held through the Department of Water Resources. And uh we failed going through them um twice. And they then deemed us over to the state water board. When you fail too many times at DWR, they send you to somebody else.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  What's what? What are the failures? Why? Why? Why is it keep getting kicked back?

• 20:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. So it's those different qualities that they're looking at, the subsidence, the water quality, overdraft, and a couple of other ones. And uh when what our plan and how we are going about things doesn't mesh with what the state thinks we should be doing, then that's where the failure comes in. Uh we had some little rocky leadership issues for a while. So it was um where we didn't seem coordinated. Our basin is very large. Kern County is is very large. Um they say there's of the approved basins that the state has already done, you could fit forty of those approved basins within Kern County.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 21:08Speaker 03

  So we are very, very large. Um we have about a million acres here on the valley floor that are part of that um plan. And you know, twenty, over twenty different water districts that have to coordinate. So that's extremely challenging. I mean, we have counties, you know, in North County that have different needs than South County. And the West Side is extremely different than the East Side. So getting all those to agree on different measurements. Of of land and different measurements of water quality, water levels is is very challenging. So we weren't all coordinated at the beginning. The state didn't like that, obviously, but we've come a long way. And we are very cohesive right now and are getting along very well.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Well, that's

• 21:52Speaker 03

  That's amazing.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Here again, we're joined by Jenny Halterman. She's the executive director of the Water Association of Kern County and president of the Kern County Farm Bureau. So my my my very limited knowledge of the history of California's water is is that. I mean, we're similar to other Western states where the way that that people migrated out here, especially like, you know, during or just after the gold rush. It was just like anything goes like people were just homesteading, making water claims.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  And that caused a lot of conflicts and a lot of infighting within like you said now that that eventually evolved into, you know, fighting within with from agency, different agencies, fighting each other. And just like I'm sure you still have farmers fighting against each other because, you know, one's claiming somebody's stealing or doing something with the water that they shouldn't be doing. So I imagine this is just this is like kind of baked into our our history of California.

• 22:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, there's different water rights than different times where people established water rights. And that's kind of the makeup of our water here in Kern County was a stop different water districts, different areas of the valley were established at different times. So they started farming at different times. And that's where water districts performed over the course of, you know, 50 years. And they have different water rights because of that. We have a unique makeup in Kern County where some water districts get water from the state water project like we talked about along I five. Then we also receive water from the Central Valley Project, which is federal water. And that's along the Frank Kern Canal, more on the eastern side.

• 23:40Speaker 03

  We also have the Kern River, which is a great resource. Of water, very sought after and political right now, but it has lots of different uses for water as well, from urban to agriculture. And then we have groundwater and and other local streams as well. So there's a different, all those different sources of water can be used throughout the county, where some districts depend on multiple different sources. So some districts might have state water project and groundwater, some might have federal water, water project water, and some might also have the Kern River, all within that scope. So it makes it very complicated where some districts, you know, have have every district has a very unique makeup of where their water is coming from.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  I'm just visualizing the craziest dry erase board in the conference room of like circles and lines overlapping and like, how do you keep track of all this?

• 24:35Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  Like all of you, when you sit down for a meeting.

• 24:39Speaker 03

  Yes, I mean, it's very crazy. All the different water districts and their different combination of water, but it makes it so like everybody. There's every, throughout the county, we will have water. It's just different counties have a different reliance of water, right? So some count, some districts are in better shape than others because of their makeup and the different combinations of water they have. Some are in worse shape than others because of that combination.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you you bring up, you know, one of the, one of the big issues, which is sigma. And it sounds like they're still working towards complying to the state's requirements. It, it, is it, how, my understanding is about a fifth of the, of, of ag land is up, up to be, to be just fallowed, basically, because of these, because of sigma.

• 25:36Speaker 03

  Yes, there's lots of studies that have done, they've done to see on the impacts and try and project the impacts of sigma. The best one or the most accurate that we use is about a million acres will come out of production in the Central Valley. And they gauge that about two hundred. To 250,000 of that is going to be in Kern County alone. Um, that we're going to have to pull out of production. So that's going to be followed, find alternative uses, come up with something else other than farming.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. What is being done about that? I mean, we have, you have the loss of these jobs, not only their jobs, but it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a cultural, it's, it's part of their culture. It's part of their, it's generational in many cases. And now it's just, literally it's going to evaporate.

• 26:22Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, towns and cities and neighborhoods. And I mean, there's a small little rural towns all across this valley that are based on agriculture.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:32Speaker 03

  And it's, you know, everything. And it's not, people think of it just being the farmers and the farm workers, but you know, it's the parts stores, it's the, you know, gas stations, it's the, you know, tractor dealerships, dealerships, it's the truck dealerships. Um, all of these things, even like, you know, sponsoring kids little league teams.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:52Speaker 03

  And all of those things will be impacted dramatically, um, from, from Sigma.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Property tax revenues.

• 26:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  We hear about the crackdown that Sacramento is having on, on the carbon fuel industry. And we also hear about some of the innovations that are happening to replace some of those energy jobs. But I don't hear much about what's going to happen to replace the, the economic impacts of losing the ag jobs.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  So there's not anything happening?

• 27:24Speaker 03

  I mean, people, people say, you know, we, there is a lot of solar going in. Um, when you take out orchards, they are putting in large solar farms. So people say, well, maybe those people can go work for some of those solar contractors and, and put in those. It's a different skill of work. Um, so it's, it's hard. I'm, I, I don't know. I mean, when a farm goes out of business, uh, yeah, it's not just the farmer who owns it or their family, but it's, you know, has that trickle down impact on everybody else as well.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. So let's talk about farming now as your, you know, your role, one of your roles.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Take off that water hat. Or they have to be half and half, right? It's just one hat.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  But as the president of the Kern County Farm Bureau, why don't you just explain what the Farm Bureau does?

• 28:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, so Farm Bureau is a grassroots advocacy organization that serves to, you know, protect the agriculture community and the farmers and ranchers within it. So I am a farmer myself. I'm a fourth generation farmer. My family started farming in Northern California in about the early 1900s. And then I married a fourth generation farmer from Kern County. So my husband's family's been farming here as well since the early 1900s. And we farm almonds in the Shafter and Wasco area. And I, you know, felt a need very on in my life and my career to be involved in advocacy and how, you know, to keep that progress going on.

• 28:57Speaker 03

  As, you know, I grew up and working along, you know, our family farmed almonds and walnuts up north. And it was something I have a passion for and love for the land and, you know, having the ability to, you know, go to work with my dad and see him bond with his brothers and his father and just really be the caretaker for the soil. I just love that. So when we started having children and wanting to carry that on, I definitely wanted to keep advocacy as a part of what I do to further promote the agriculture community. So I've been on the Kern County Farm Bureau Board for about 14 years. I've been president for the last two years of that.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  So obviously I was vice president and first vice before that as well. So I've served in various different leadership capacities. I'm also on the California Farm Bureau Board at the state level. So lots of trips to Sacramento in those capacities and trying to, you know, educate our lawmakers and our elected officials on, you know, what they are doing and how those consequences can affect the agriculture community.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  And how is that advocacy going? From our perspective, it seems like the challenges facing farmers are almost insurmountable.

• 30:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's hard to gauge your progress because a lot of it is just stopping things from happening. So a lot of like what we see is well is having less and less of those burdens. Obviously, we see a lot of burdens, but it's well, we stopped five from happening and instead now it's only two bad things are happening to us, you know? So it's hard to to kind of gauge your successes off of what you prevented from happening. But that's that's kind of what Farm Bureau does. In the last two, three weeks or so, we've we saved the local FSA office here in Kern County. Was it the Doge and leadership were trying to close that?

• 31:01Speaker 03

  And we did a very large advocacy campaign, wrote lots of letters, phone calls, TV, news interviews to save that.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  Did you do any TikToks?

• 31:11Speaker 03

  No, I don't do TikToks. No, I'm too old for that. So that was a huge success.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  That's a win.

• 31:19Speaker 03

  Now, you know, that's not closing, but you know, it's things like that, that, you know, if we can prevent things from happening, that's how we gauge our successes.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  This is what I love about farmers is they they seem to be a breed that is so good at rolling with the punches.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  Stoicism.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it has to come from generations of being every once in a while just disappointed because your crops just got wiped out for whatever reason, or a drought, or commodity prices, whatever, you're just used to like facing.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  Adversity.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Huge adversity.

• 31:50Speaker 03

  I say we're hard headed and we don't like to give up, so we're just eternally like persistent and I always say farmers are optimistic to a fault because we can never like be, you know, content or sad with something, we'll just, we'll make it work and we're going to figure out the solution rather than, you know, just be down in the dumps and not happy with what's going to happen.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  It is, I feel like a pretty consistent like character trait of all of the farm farming families and farmers that I grew up around and and or are still currently very good friends with. That seems to be a pretty accurate personality.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Even keeled, they don't get worked up too much about, I mean, they care about.

• 32:33Speaker 03

  Depends what it is.

• 32:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  But you know, when when an event happens, or you know, something, something major happens, it sure it's felt, but it seems like they're just keep on going. You know, I I've I've equated it to like stock trading. It's very stressful when you if you're like a day trader and you're really it's all you know, my other people's money's on the line and you're doing this year in and year out. You've got to, you've got to figure out a way to like not get too caught up in moments.

• 33:02Speaker 03

  Well, in farming, a lot of it is just out of our control. We can't, so there's no, I mean, I worry enough, but there's no use like worrying about things that I can't control. I mean, we have mother nature does whatever she wants and our crops are obviously outside dealing with whatever is happening in mother nature. And you just have to roll with it. We're, we're always price takers. We never are price setters. We buy everything at retail and sell everything at wholesale. So we, you know, deal with whatever prices are at that point and whatever those brokers and salesmen are willing, you know, to to sell our product for. And we, we have to just go with it. We, we don't, we can't argue, we can't change it and that's just how we go, we keep going.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  Good life lesson right there.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. Oh, for sure.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  Hey, we have two, we have two questions, comments.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:54Speaker 02

  Um, the first one, are they still pushing sigma to be set for 2040?

• 33:58Speaker 03

  Yes, that is when the state deemed that we have to be sustainable is by 2040. So 2020 was when Kern County as a high priority basin had to be our first plan. And as we discussed, that first plan didn't go through effectively. But we have to keep following that and keep modifying that as we go. And every five years you get a check in, even if you did get approved. And 2040 is when you have to be that sustainable measurement that they set forward.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Or there'll be deeper penalties or costs?

• 34:34Speaker 03

  So if we can never pass our plan and we continue and you fail, then you go into probation. And when you're in probation, that is when the state steps in and they will. Say you're you have never been able to set a correct plan. We're going to do it for you instead. And that's when the state will then set the rules and guidelines of how our water is going to be. Monitored and how our water is going to be controlled and the state will do it instead of us locally.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Is there any? I'm sure there are some farmers that say we should never have sigma.

• 35:07Speaker 03

  Oh, lots, yeah.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  So that's a real common thing, but at the same time, is there? Is there? An acceptance that something needs to happen like there needs to be some monitoring or regulation of how much water we can? Pull out of the ground?

• 35:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, if you look at kind of the history of how we got to where we are. We did, we are in overdraft because we're pumping more than we're putting back into the soil. But the reason we are doing that is because the state stopped supplying us with our contracted allotments of water. So we have the state and those federal contracts of water that flow along those aqueducts. And about year 2000 is when the endangered species acts really went into full force. And that's when we stopped receiving our full allocations of water. So I like to equate it to you pay your electricity bill on your house. And you expect to like you expect the lights to turn on, right? And all the rooms. Well, imagine that only the lights turned on in your kitchen. And the rest of your room is empty.

• 36:07Speaker 03

  Well, that's what happened to farmers when we no longer are getting our full allocations of water. We've gotten anywhere between five to an average of about 60% of water over the last 25 years. We still have to pay our full bill because we are still paying for the maintenance. You're still paying for the operations, the overhead of those. Services, we're just not receiving our full amount of water. So when that happens, farmers went to groundwater and then they started pumping groundwater. And then the state got mad at us for doing that.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Gosh, that that is such a great explanation. That's one of the best explanations I've heard.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  Cleanest I've I've ever that now I kind of understand what's happening.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  Because this also probably ties into in 2000 when when the endangered species act happened. That affected the delta water. And so now we had we've had since then this. Very confusing battle over the water in the Delta and

• 37:01Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  How to get that water without killing smelts and whatever else?

• 37:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  So is that, is that, that's how that ties in?

• 37:07Speaker 03

  I could talk for like hours on the Delta, so I'm not sure.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Well, where, where do we stand with that? We're building a tunnel? Who's building a tunnel?

• 37:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, the state is moving forward with building a single tunnel. A lot of people don't realize too, some history on that. The tunnels were, were originally part of the California Okdeut Plan. So back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, those tunnels were part of the original plan to put forward. And it got scratched because they didn't have enough money to do it at the time. So people don't realize that that was all part of the plan to work in it. But now it's taken obviously this long to, to get that through. I don't know, there's gonna be so many lawsuits and, and everything in place that I don't know if we'll ever actually see it.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  What will we get first? The high speed rail or the tunnels?

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Is it kind of like that? Is it fair to say it's a similar kind of pie in the sky dream?

• 38:06Speaker 03

  Probably.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  So then you just, that is really frustrating. That is so, I don't know where you stand. Would you, it sounds like you would want a tunnel?

• 38:17Speaker 03

  If you, if, if the state got out of its own way, we could get a lot of things accomplished. But there are so many like red tapes and then we have, you know, environmental justice groups and, and all of those things that just will continually put a lawsuit on top of a lawsuit to try and prevent things from happening. So unless, you know, we get federal and state funding and, you know, don't allow any, you know, sequoia documents to stop anything, then, you know, things would be much easier. But that's not the world we live in today.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  No, it's not, unfortunately. Yeah, we've got a couple of messages. You want to read it?

• 38:53Speaker 02

  Sure. Okay, so somebody texted in, have they gone with micro irrigation? Wondering if that helps with cost? Also, I'm going to apologize on behalf of the listener. Did she meet her husband on farmersonly.com? Sorry, that was my attempt of a bad joke, lol.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  I think it's a fair question. You married a farmer, you had, you're a farmer.

• 39:17Speaker 03

  We actually met at Cal Poly. My husband and I both went to Cal Poly and to be totally cliche, we both worked on the school farm.

• 39:25Speaker 02

  That's basically farmersonly.com for Central Valley folk.

• 39:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, go to college, meet your spouse and yeah, that's what happened.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Cal Poly has a good ag program.

• 39:35Speaker 03

  They do, yeah, yeah. It's one of the best.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:38Speaker 03

  Yep. We both studied agriculture business and then ended up here. But I will address the, so we do, most of the farms here use drip irrigation. So back in the day, even, I mean, 20 years ago, there was a lot of flood irrigation happening here. And we've switched over to that. To most, most of farms, you will see drip irrigation. Depending upon the crop that's being farmed, you know, there is still some overhead sprinklers that have to be utilized for that, but we are utilizing irrigation the most efficient way. And as we said, you know, water's expensive and we're not getting very much of it. So it's in our best interest to use it efficiently. Or else we won't have water to utilize.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and, and can, is there more room to grow in that area? Or, or are farmers in general already being as efficient as they can?

• 40:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, yes, we are being very efficient. But I mean, technology helps with that as well. You know, we have the ability to turn on and off irrigation by, you know, a cell phone nowadays. We have, you know, moisture probes and, and things in the soil that help measure, you know, the water levels and, and when the soil is saturated, when we need to turn off. And all of that is at the tip of our fingers by our cell phones. So, you know, we can literally see, okay, you know, one more hour and, you know, we'll reach saturation, we need to turn it off by just a cell phone rather than, you know, going down, you know, back in the day, you'd have to get your shovel out and dig a hole and see, has the water gone down far enough? What's the percolation and then turn it off. So we're much more efficient. Technology has helped a lot with that.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:13Speaker 02

  And we, two of our colleagues here at Money Wise and myself, we met out at the World Ag Expo a couple of months ago and Chris Weston and I were just floored, walking around and seeing

• 41:27Speaker 03

  All the technology.

• 41:28Speaker 02

  examples of the farming technology. It was overwhelming.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Lots of drones, didn't you say?

• 41:33Speaker 02

  Tons of drones.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, people use drones for applying, you know, things now.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Oh, pesticides.

• 41:40Speaker 03

  And you can do it via a drone and even like fertilizers. There's so many things you can do, but you don't even need people

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 41:48Speaker 03

  in the fields to do these things. It's great.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  It's amazing. It's a whole new world.

• 41:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  And speaking of, we had another listener send in a really lovely text. She sounds like she's, she has a good head on her shoulders. My grandparents were farmers and they shut down in 2002 as they were just not ready for all of the changes. The farm that they had was out past Taft Highway and it's really great to hear her. She reminds me of my grandpa. Always thinking on the positive side. Are her almonds available in town or at the farmer's market?

• 42:19Speaker 03

  Oh, good question. Yes. So it was touched on before that most people refer to me as Almond Girl. And that's our brand. So I do have a website and e-commerce. We can order Almond Girl almonds. It's almondgirl.com.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 42:36Speaker 03

  And you can also buy them at Sully's. There's a couple of little bakeries in town that have them too. But you can go to almondgirl.com and buy our almonds.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  That's really cool. Yeah, I had, I seen your bio. You're also an entrepreneur. So that's, that's prob, it sounds like it's part of it.

• 42:52Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  How is it that, you know, almond girl is predominantly male dominated industry, right? How is it being a female?

• 43:03Speaker 03

  But, you know, I would say it is, but it isn't. Like there's still, there's quite a bit of women involved in agriculture nowadays. Um, you know, back, you know, long time ago, you'd think that women would just, you know, their role is just the finances or something like that. But I think as, you know, as farms have expanded, as technology has helped in that, there's so many more roles in agriculture. Um, than, you know, just the traditional farmer ones. I mean, there's, there's so much. There's sales. There's, you know, pest control.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Marketing.

• 43:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, marketing, the agronomy side, there's so many different facets to it.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  Engineering now?

• 43:41Speaker 03

  Yes, I mean, we need water engineers to help with all of that. And there is, there's a lot of women involved in agriculture now. This, the nation has some great statistics. The American Farm Bureau says, I think it's like thirty percent of farms are owned by women nowadays, or have a primary owner of a woman. So it is cool and it is a unique opportunity that it's not an abnormal thing to see.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's not, is it, for lack of a better word, chauvinist?

• 44:15Speaker 02

  Good old boys.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, good old boy.

• 44:18Speaker 03

  No, I mean, you know, when I first got on some of these boards and was involved in things, I was the only woman in the room. And it, you know, was a little challenging sometimes, but I've always said, you know, I don't want to be the only woman in the room just because you need to meet your quota. I want to earn that spot in the room because of who I am, you know, what I've accomplished, and not just because I'm a woman. So I, I think that is pretty, that's happened.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Again, very positive of you, because me, I would say, well, that kind of sucks that you have to prove yourself. I don't have to prove myself because I'm just, I'm a guy.

• 44:51Speaker 03

  Right. I was raised by some pretty strong individuals and actually my mom and my sister run our family farm today up north. My father passed away about seven years ago and my mom and sister were like, we're going to keep it going. So that's a hundred percent woman owned farm now today. So we have some great roots.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Very cool. Would you recommend somebody get into agriculture or farming?

• 45:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it's not for the faint of heart. You definitely have to have like a thick skin to be able to do it. But there is so much opportunity, I think. And if you are an innovative thinker, a creative thinker, have an open mind, there is so much possibility that can come with agriculture. You know, my number one recommendation to people right now is to get into water, because that is where it's at, you know, I mean, water law. If you're a water lawyer right now, you could be making big bucks. That's what we need is people who specialize water law, water rights, you know, water engineering to be able to, you know,

• 45:52Speaker 03

  do that. That's what we need in the future is experts on water. So that's my number one suggestion right now. If you're interested to get involved in things, get involved in water.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Get involved in water. No kidding.

• 46:03Speaker 02

  You will not be out of a job.

• 46:05Speaker 03

  You will not. Job security right now.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Talk, talk real quick about almonds, because there, there's been a lot of, there's a lot of headwinds, a lot of challenges for almonds. It seems like there's been perhaps an over, oversupply or an over planting of almond. Maybe I'm, I'm wrong in that, but you know, what, what's the state of the almond?

• 46:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, about 10, 15 years ago, the price of almonds was like $4 a pound returned back to the grower. And there was a huge planting, right? Everybody wanted to like make money off of that. So they started to come in and as, you know, production came in, then the market, you know, starts to fall, supply and demand. And, you know, during COVID or so, since then, it was about a dollar 50 a pound returned back to the grower. So we went from four to a dollar 50. Now we don't make money on a farm unless it's about a dollar 75. So we lost money for a couple of years because it was just, there was too much. And we've seen that and the sigma is actually going to correct that in itself because you're, we're pulling out acres.

• 47:13Speaker 03

  And there is, and there will be probably less acres of almonds in the state of California because we just don't have the water for it. You know, there was big, there was a push in the last several years to get out of permanent crops altogether. And we saw that. I mean, you can see that just driving up and down I five. There's less permanent crops and people are going back to field crops and things that you can plant in a year that you have water and in a year that you don't have water, you don't plant where, when you have a permanent crop, you have no choice but to water it, or you're going to kill a tree that's supposed to be alive for 30 years. So it, it gets challenging and I think we saw that. I think the market will stabilize. I'm, I'm sure. We will see less acres still in almonds. It's the, you know, the strongest will survive.

• 47:58Speaker 03

  And if you're willing to ride the wave and see what's going to happen. It'll be different, though. We will probably have less. And, you know, we were probably over saturated and there was probably too much acres. And now it has to correct itself.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I've seen some of that correction in some of the listings of properties.

• 48:17Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  That's been like, they seem like steals. If you're willing to be brave enough to jump into it.

• 48:24Speaker 03

  If it has water.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  If it, yeah, I'm sure water has a big part of it.

• 48:27Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  But you also, you alluded to the rising other challenges. We have rising labor costs.

• 48:33Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  And now with interest rates going up and maybe you can speak for the Farm Bureau. You have challenges for farmers to be able to just finance their, their production.

• 48:48Speaker 03

  Right.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  You know, and, and.

• 48:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, finding a bank or finding an organizations that, that's willing to, you know, take a risk in you can be hard right now. And if you don't have that collateral, then you lose your, you could lose your land. Farmers are, you know, land rich and cash poor. So, you know, for us to sometimes make it through, you have to sell land, which is not, you know, the, what we want to do. And then you have nothing to rely on. So it's a, you know, it's a catch 22 or a hard situation to, to, to be in. But you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  And it's, it's unfortunate, but you know, in a, in a free market, you're just gonna have some times where people just don't have enough capital or, or reserves to be able to keep business going. And that's just an unfortunate part of business.

• 49:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  I guess.

• 49:36Speaker 03

  And we've seen it in Kern County. There's not very many of the smaller family farmers left. There's a lot of the, you know, invested, investors, the corporate farms. And the smaller family farms, you know, and throughout the state will probably be fewer and far between.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:53Speaker 02

  I just lost a, a friend who was an almond farmer last week, Jacob Samarin. I think he was just an individual almond farmer for years. And he was so, also an amazing DJ. Like this guy knows hip hop and electronic music like crazy. But during the daytime, passionate almond farmer and an advocate for, for the farming industry and the almond farmers locally.

• 50:21Speaker 02

  So one down. Rest in peace, Jacob.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. The, um, the, how has the, um, immigration crackdown impacted farmers?

• 50:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, workforce is, is challenging because we need that skilled labor and we're very reliant on labor. Um, I mean, our crops are pretty mechanized mechanized and you're, we, like you said, are going to see a lot more of that with innovation and technology. But we still have a lot of crops that do rely on a lot of skilled hand labor. Um, and it's challenging. We don't fit in the same box as the rest of the other states do when it comes to workforce and immigration. So it can be even more challenging. Um, a lot of states use the H2A program, California, that doesn't really work great here. Cause we have to supply housing and, and year round, um, we have year round employment, which doesn't always fall within those scopes.

• 51:17Speaker 03

  So it is hard. Um, you know, we, we also want, you know, how our laws say that we have to, we have to employ legal people here. So you can't employ people if they don't have proper documentation either. Um, so it's, it's challenging. Um, but we, we don't have people in our own state that want to do these jobs. So we have to bring in people that are willing and able to do, uh, the work that we have here.

• 51:45Speaker 02

  It's so complicated in this area, just on, on the outside, the, the political stuff mixed in with the reality of what actually happens. Um, that, that's a whole other show. Do you want to come back and do that show?

• 51:59Speaker 03

  There's a lot. Yes.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  You've covered so much.

• 52:02Speaker 02

  You're amazing. Thank you for joining us, Jenny.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Jenny, thank you so much. Really, it was covered so much. Great, great information. Again, it's Ginny Holtermann. She, Holtermann, she is Executive Director of Water Association of Kern County. This almond girl. Almond girl. Go to almondgirl.com. Buy, buy those nuts. Sounds really good. And thanks again, Jenny.

• 52:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, thank you.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Uh, I want to remind all of our listeners, if you missed this or any of our previous podcasts, you can find us wherever you stream your podcasts, on whatever platform or format. And also as we leave, remember these three things. Be smart, be safe, and always be money wise.

• 52:39Speaker 04

  Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.