County seizes walnuts under new anti-theft rules

Officials seized about 12,000 pounds of walnuts in southwest Modesto last month under new rules aimed at preventing theft of the valuable crop.

The nuts appear to have been stolen during harvest, said Milton O’Haire, agriculture commissioner for Stanislaus County. No suspects have been named or arrested.

The Oct. 19 seizure was the largest by far since the county Board of Supervisors enacted the ordinance last year, O’Haire said. It expanded on existing requirements for buying and selling walnuts, including detailed documentation of a load’s origin.

Growers say thieves can use sacks and pickup trucks to steal walnuts while they lie on the ground shortly after being shaken from the trees. Violators of the rules can be fined up to $500 for a first offense and up to $1,000 for a repeat. They are not aimed at people who have permission to glean walnuts for noncommercial use.

Walnuts were worth an average of $2.01 a pound and brought a total of $299 million in gross income to the county last year, O’Haire’s office reported.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture projected that the California walnut harvest will be a record 575,000 tons this year, up from 570,000 last year and 355,000 a decade ago. The industry has boomed thanks in part to research on the nuts’ health benefits, something that has happened as well with the much larger almond business.

Elsewhere on the Farm Beat:

Spray Safe, an annual gathering on pesticide use, will happen Nov. 20 at the Modesto Junior College West Campus.

Experts will talk about proper spray coverage, reducing drift, pesticide mixing, respiratory safeguards and other topics. Translation into Spanish will be provided.

The event will run from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Agriculture Center for Education Pavilion, just northwest of the Highway 99/Carpenter Road interchange. It will include a trade show at 11:30 a.m., followed by lunch.

To reserve a space, call 209-525-4730 by Tuesday.

The USDA has honored farm labor leader Cesar Chavez with a plaque in the Hall of Heroes at its Washington, D.C., headquarters.

Chavez, who died in 1993, co-founded the United Farm Workers union and sometimes came through the Northern San Joaquin Valley.

This story was originally published November 6, 2015 at 3:30 PM with the headline "County seizes walnuts under new anti-theft rules."