Sarabjit (Sarb) Johl, is a walnut farmer who migrated with his parents to the US in the early 1960s when he was 13. Today, he presides over a 1,000-acre farm and a growers’ collective that recorded exports of $20 million last year. Earlier this year he was named Agriculturist of the Year by the California State Fair.
“My father came here with very little money in 1963 and he worked in the farms enough to buy himself a piece of land — and we haven’t stopped pretty much since then,” Johl, who founded the Sacramento Valley Walnut Growers LLC collective in 2006, said.
“Sacramento Valley Walnut Growers export not only across the US but also globally, including India, Japan, China, Australia, South Korea and Turkey,” he said.
The company exported about 4,500 tonnes of walnuts last year.
The harvesting is done by machines that shake the trees, sweep the fallen nuts and collect them for cleaning, after which they directly go into a modern processing facility which is the final step in a walnut’s journey from the orchard to the table — “farm to fork”, as the growers put it.
The facility processes about 20 million walnuts at a time and also takes care of packaging and distribution.
