San Joaquin Valley

The eight-county San Joaquin Valley is the part of the Central Valley of California that lies south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in Stockton. Much of it is rural, but it does contain the cities of Fresno, Bakersfield, Stockton, Modesto, and Visalia.

Economy

The San Joaquin Valley is one of the least affluent areas of California: per-capita income is well below the national average, and poverty, in both urban and rural areas, is a significant problem. Most of the valley's economic output comes from agriculture and from petroleum extraction and refining.

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Agriculture

Historian Kevin Starr has referred to the San Joaquin Valley as "the most productive unnatural environment on Earth." By some estimates, fully 25% of the United States' agricultural production (as measured by dollar value) comes from California, and the vast majority of that is in the San Joaquin Valley. Grapes--table, raisin, and to a lesser extent wine--are perhaps the valley's highest-profile product, but equally (if not more) important are cotton, nuts (especially almonds and pistachios), citrus, and vegetables. The Boswell farm in Kings County is the largest single cotton farm in the world, occupying over 40,000 acres (162 km²). Certain places are identified quite strongly with a given crop: Stockton produces the majority of the asparagus consumed in the United States, and Fresno is credited as the birthplace of the raisin.

Related Topics:
Kevin Starr - Grapes - Raisin - Cotton - Almond - Pistachio - Citrus - Asparagus

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Cattle and sheep ranching are also vitally important to the valley's economy. In recent years, dairy farming has greatly expanded in importance. As areas such as Chino and Corona have become absorbed into the suburban sprawl of Los Angeles, many dairy farmers have cashed out and moved their herds to Kings, Tulare, and Kern counties. Since dairy farms emit considerable quantities of methane and other noxious gases, this has exacerbated the region's air quality problems. In addition, several high-profile incidents in which farmhands have drowned or suffocated in manure pits have led to calls to slow the proliferation of dairies in the region, with Kern County going so far as to declare a moratorium on new dairies in 2004.

Related Topics:
Chino - Corona - Urban sprawl

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Petroleum

California has long been one of the nation's most important oil-producing states, and the San Joaquin Valley has long since eclipsed the Los Angeles Basin as the state's primary oil production region. Small oil wells are found throughout the region, and several enormous extraction facilities--most notably near Lost Hills and Taft--are veritable forests of pumps and derricks. Shell operates a major refinery in Bakersfield; it is currently (summer 2005) in the process of being sold to Flying J, a Salt Lake-based firm that operates truck stops and refineries. The oil and gas fields in Kern County are considered to be in decline, and no major discoveries have been made in the region for quite some time.

Related Topics:
Los Angeles Basin - Lost Hills - Taft - Shell - Flying J - Salt Lake

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Other major industries and employers

The isolation and vastness of the San Joaquin Valley, as well as its poverty and need for jobs, have led the state to build numerous prisons in the area. The most notable of these is at Corcoran, where a special celebrity unit holds Charles Manson and other notorious inmates who would likely be murdered if placed into a prison's general population. Other correctional facilities in the valley are at Avenal, Chowchilla, Tracy, Delano, Coalinga, and Wasco.

Related Topics:
Prison - Corcoran - Charles Manson - Avenal - Chowchilla - Tracy - Delano - Coalinga - Wasco

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The only significant military base in the region is Naval Air Station Lemoore, a vast airbase near Hanford. Unlike many of California's other military installations, NAS Lemoore's operational importance has increased in the 1990s and 2000s.

Related Topics:
Naval Air Station Lemoore - Hanford

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