From the Fields: Ryan Indart, Fresno County almond and sheep farmer

By Ryan Indart
Fresno County almond and sheep farmer

We’re harvesting almonds. We’re done with the Nonpareil. There’s a little more production than last year, but still off. Everybody’s off. The Almond Board’s objective estimate was way too high, which is unfortunate because it drove prices down. Now that harvest started, everybody has realized, including the buyer market, that the objective estimate was woefully inaccurate. I think they need to self-correct so it doesn’t happen again. Prices are coming back up, which is good. 

On the sheep side, we’re wrapping up what has been a very intense, productive and effective vegetation management season in the solar projects that we graze across the state. We’re wrapping up a big portfolio in Lancaster, Antelope Valley. We’ll be bringing the sheep back to Kerman around the middle of September. We’re also wrapping up projects in Lemoore Naval Air Station. We graze the sheep, and we also mow these sites with zero-turn mowers to help clean up where the sheep don’t get all the vegetation. The mowers make it nice and uniform. We reduce the vegetation so our clients don’t have any fire hazard in their utility-scale solar projects.

We’re the most environmentally friendly vegetation management tool out there. Sheep have been doing this for eons. They’re Mother Nature’s best firefighters. They add organic matter back to the soil, and that in turn increases the biodiversity of the soil. You end up crowding out invasive weed species because you have a healthy pasture ecosystem. The sheep are sequestering carbon, reducing wildfire risk and making the soil ecology a lot more healthy.

Not only have our sheep been doing this invaluable work, but they’ve been breeding all summer, so once we get done with the solar projects, we bring them back to the valley and start lambing in the middle of October, and we start the whole cycle over again. When we start lambing, it’s just a beautiful time of year to see new life being born.

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