UNITED STATES
VOLO PER VERITAS
Juliana Torchetti Coppick jutorchetti@yahoo.com.br
California Much More Than Hollywood When it comes to California, most people usually think of beaches, movie stars and Hollywood mansions. But there is much more to this land and what I have seen here fascinates me more than any movie. The state has about 200 different types of crops, some of which are grown almost exclusively here; almonds, apricots, dates, figs, kiwis, olives, pistachios, plums and walnuts. Where I am temporarily living in California’s Imperial Valley while flying this spring, we have a huge onion field next to us. Drive less than three miles and I can see large fields of alfalfa, broccoli, lettuce, cauliflower and many other crops. On all B 32 | agairupdate.com
sides, we also see huge ranches for beef and dairy cattle. The bureaucracy here is immense. To be able to deal with all the paperwork needed to dispatch an ag-plane, the office staff can be three or four times greater in number when compared to other states. In addition, all flights are accompanied to the field by a “human flagger”. Of course, they are not like the flags of old, because GPS is mandatory. But, they need to be at the application site to ensure the safety of the application (preventing people from approaching the site, verifying the product is only reaching the intended crop and maintaining constant communication with the pilot, informing
