CA Grown has been using social media and retail campaigns to promote October as California Farmer and Farmworker Month.
Promotions include Raley’s highlighting crops produced by California growers and ranchers.
“Raley’s is proud to sell more than 4,000 items that are either grown in or produced right here in California!” said Chelsea Minor, Raley’s corporate director of public affairs, in a news release. “We have been supporting local farmers and producers since our inception.”
The retailer is promoting California food and wine pairings.
“This month was born out of the desire to thank our farmers and farmworkers for working tirelessly through the pandemic to keep food on the grocery store shelves,” said Cherie Watte Angulo, executive director for CA Grown. “As communities sheltered-in-place, the industry quickly regrouped, supplying the proper (personal protective equipment) to the workforce and shifting food headed toward foodservice to retail outlets and food banks where need was the greatest.”
Agriculture supports 1.2 million jobs with $263 billion in total generated revenue for the state, according to the release.
“It takes many hands to bring food from the farm to the table,” California Secretary of Agriculture Karen Ross said in the release. “I salute the hardworking farmers, ranchers and farmworkers for what they do every day — but especially this year — to make California the country’s top milk producing state and the supplier of one-third of the vegetables and two-thirds of the fruits and nuts in the U.S.”
Californians are encouraged to use the hashtag #CAGROWN on social media post to support farmers. For each public social media post using the hashtag, the CA Grown program will donate a pound of food to food banks.
