The USA Pavilion included a 7,200-sq.-ft. vertical farm. (Photo by Saverio Lombardi Vallauri)
Rick Pickering has something to say. The California Exposition and State Fair CEO recently traveled to Milan, Italy, to speak at World Food Week, part of Expo Milano 2015: Feeding the Planet, Energy For Life.
He was one of 22 million people who went to Expo Milano 2015, May 1–Oct. 31, in Milan, Italy, to continue the global conversation about food.
“It was very much a world’s fair with a theme of food,” said Pickering, who served as a key speaker Oct. 12 during World Food Week. The International Exhibitions Bureau (BIE) announced Milan as the host for this Universal Exposition.
More than 145 countries participated in the Expo with their own pavilions. The 42,000-sq.-ft. USA Pavilion (one section of the 3.6 million-sq.-ft. Expo Milano footprint) provided a multilevel experience including a 7,200-sq.-ft. vertical farm.
About 6.2 million people walked through the USA Pavilion alone, making it the busiest national facility within the Expo. “Our objective for the USA Pavilion at Expo Milano 2015 was to represent the many faces and voices of food in America, from the famous chefs to farmers to food companies that feed us and the world,” said Mitchell Davis, Exec.VP of the James Beard Foundation, which spearheaded the nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization Friends of the USA Pavilion Milan 2015, along with the International Culinary Center. “Farm to table, or farm to fork, is an important and growing part of that.”
Rick Pickering speaks at World Food Week. (Photo by USA Pavilion at Expo Milano 2015)
From a food standpoint, it is important for countries to learn from each other’s strengths. Due in part to California’s severe drought, Pickering was intrigued by the expos from the Middle East highlighting how they farm in dry, water-restricted environments.
The experience also reshaped his view of food waste as more than just industrialized nations throwing away spoiled food. “The other component that we don’t hear as much is in underdeveloped areas of the world where there is significant food waste due to lack of technology. Crops will partially waste away in the field because they don’t have high-tech harvesting equipment, fields will become bug or fungus- infected or diseased because they don’t have access to technology for plowing, irrigation or disease eradication,” he said.
USA Pavilion prioritized California’s involvement in World Food Week due to the state’s large agricultural national and international impact.
Pickering’s presentation, Farm to Fork: How California Moves Food Locally, Nationally, Globally, extended the Sacramento CVB’s message to an international audience. Even those who live — and eat — in California may not realize the extent that California and the Sacramento region in particular is America’s Agricultural Center. The nearly 78,000 farms and ranches in the state produce more agriculture than Texas and Iowa combined, representing 14.7 percent of total US Agricultural exports. From a national perspective, California provides more than 50 percent of all fruits, vegetables and nuts in America, as well as producing 90 percent of America’s total wine.
From an international perspective, California’s rice production provides an interesting example. The state produces 5 billion pounds of rice annually, with Japan consuming more Sacramento area-grown rice than its own domestic-grown rice.
In October 2012, the CVB declared Sacramento the Farm-to-Fork Capital of America.
“It’s what the region has always been,” said Nicole Rogers, director, Farm-to-Fork, at Sacramento CVB. “People may have been going on the hunt for gold and not everyone found gold but everyone is hungry.”
The region’s rich soil nourishes more than 120 crop varieties during its 12-month growing season, whereas other regions around the country with an agricultural identity may have around five main varieties. In the Sacramento six-county region, only 2 percent of the food that is produced is consumed locally, the other 98 percent is shipped around the world. Since its inception, Sacramento Farm to Fork has become more than just a resolution passed at the Capitol. The CVB began by focusing on the conversation with the local community to create a sense of understanding and pride.
“Because Farm to Fork is a regional identity, it would only really have merit and show acceptance if locals understood it and knew how to talk about it,” said Rogers. “If we had started that story outside of the market, it would lose its meaning.”
The CVB tells the Farm-to-Fork story through media outlets and partners, social networks, and key events in September. The third Farm-to-Fork Festival in September 2015 took over four city blocks and featured 150 vendors welcoming 55,000 people. “It’s bringing agriculture to everyone for free, where they can eat good food, have a good time, and also learn in a really approachable, normal way about what the Co-Op is doing, about rice harvesters, and about crops. There are booths where people are learning about compost or other Ag skills.” A keystone of the festival is a fundraising event the day after with a dinner on the iconic Tower Bridge. “Through sponsorship and that fundraising dinner, we’re able to develop a comprehensive year-round program.”
Rogers said that the key to a successful message is that it comes from a place of integrity. “We didn’t have to sit down and manufacture what this identity is,” she said. “There’s nothing more communal than sharing a meal. Food is really one of the most unifying components of life. Food and agriculture is just who we were and how we share that message to an international audience shows how warm and welcoming and truly communal the region is.”
The time is ripe for the Sacramento Farm-to-Fork message to spread and draw more people to the region.
Sacramento Tourism Marketing District, which controls funding raised by the hospitality industry, covered transportation and lodging for Pickering, so no state funds were used. This highlights the importance of the relationships that exist between fairgrounds and their local communities. “It goes hand in hand with partnerships that fairs have in that we provide hundreds of thousands of people in local hotel rooms generating hotel and bed taxes that support tourism and convention business,” Pickering said.
Steve Hammond, President and CEO at Sacramento Convention & Visitors Bureau, said that the company has a great relationship with Cal Expo in part because of the fairgrounds’ infrastructure that allows for more events in the city.
“With the farm-to-fork initiative, although the CVB has been given the large responsibility of managing it, we couldn’t do it the way that it needs to be done without the help of many partners,” he said. “Cal Expo, especially with a lot of the things that they’re doing on-site about sustainability and agriculture, is a natural fit for the Farm-to-Fork movement and one of the larger partners in this initiative.”
When the opportunity to have Pickering represent the movement internationally presented itself, Hammond didn’t hesitate.
“To have somebody like Rick Pickering and the status of California State Fair to go internationally and talk about what’s going on in Sacramento gives us great credibility,” he added.
On a community level, Pickering emphasized the importance of fairgrounds in providing agricultural education. “I would certainly put forward the concept that most fairs in America were the original Farm-to-Fork movement in their local community, from showcasing the best and brightest in ag and animal husbandry to reproducing recipes and competitions, it’s all done to build a stronger local community and network.”
To best spread the message to this generation, California State Fair is “reinventing agriculture into a really cool four-letter ‘F’-word known as Food,” said Pickering. “When we look at Food Network and the Food Channel, as much as I love agriculture, in order to connect with an ever-changing population and demographic, it’s important to realize they are very much in tune with the word ‘food.’”
Part of the programming at the 2016 California State Fair, July 8-24, will focus on the concept of transportation and moving food. It’s an idea that was in the works before Pickering’s experience in Milan, but has expanded and transformed due to his overseas inspiration.
Another aspect of USA Pavilion that he dreams of incorporating not only with his fairgrounds, but also others across the nation, is the educational videos shown within the pavilion. “They had numerous videos on agriculture, ag education, sustainable farming, and how we produce stronger seeds, crops and animals. We’ve reached out to see if those could be made available, distributed to local fairs, and somehow incorporated into the educational material available at fairs,” he said. “The videos were extremely educational even for me and I’m in the business. America's fairgrounds are a great educational network for something like that.”
Interviewed for this story: Mitchell Davis, (212) 675-4984; Steve Hammond and Nicole Rogers, (916) 808-7777; Rick Pickering, (916) 263-3000