orchards

Acres of orchards in western Fresno County, which has long been dominated by agriculture and now is at the forefront of California’s clean energy transition.

Shasta and the Sierra Nevada, rivers course down to the valley floor, to vast fields of rice, endless orchards of peaches and golden, rolling grassland full of more cows than people.

Olive groves, orchards and vineyards owned by Palestinian farmers along the road network are often overgrown, sometimes dotted with piles of rubble left from buildings Israel has demolished.

Eventually, they were overtaken, falling silent to the noisy ambitions of foreigners and settlers who set about transforming this vast floodplain with imported water and orchards and homes.

Rodents also damage irrigation equipment and other infrastructure in the orchards.