COVER STORY CONNECTIONS, CONNECTIONS, CONNECTIONS Celebrating Edwin Camp, the Western Growers 2026 Award of Honor Recipient By Michelle Rivera, Senior Communications Manager
Photography: Amy Marlan
Edwin Camp, Western Growers’ Award of Honor recipient, standing alongside his employees in the field.
When Edwin Camp learned he had been selected as Western Growers’ 2026 Award of Honor recipient, the news came from a familiar voice. Rob Yraceburu, a longtime friend and Western Growers Board Chair, called to deliver the good word. Camp explained that in typical Yraceburu fashion, he joked that it had taken about 12 votes to finally get him selected. “I’m surprised it didn’t take more,” Camp shot back. Although he had no particular desire to make a fuss about himself, Camp understood the significance of the honor. “I was honored but flabbergasted,” he said. It is a fitting reaction for a man who has spent much of his career doing the work rather than seeking recognition for it. For more than five decades, Camp has been part of California agriculture as a farmer, CEO, businessman, water leader and industry advocate. He served 30 years on the Western Growers Board, including as Chair, and spent decades working on some of the most complicated water issues facing farmers in the San Joaquin Valley.
But when asked about the accomplishment that means the most to him, Camp doesn’t start with a board position, a business milestone or a policy victory. He talks about people. “The most meaningful would be just the honor of working with all of the people I’ve been able to work with,” he said. That answer says a lot about Camp and the way he views agriculture. The issues may be water, labor, regulation, food safety or costs, but the work is ultimately about people and what happens to them when those issues are left unresolved. Choosing the Farm Camp’s path into agriculture wasn’t necessarily where he thought he was headed. He grew up in a farming family in the Shafter area and had worked in the family business from a young age. But as a young adult, he wanted to do something different. He enrolled at the University of Southern California as a pre-med student, thinking he might become a doctor. Then came a summer when he changed his mind and decided to get back into farming, so he enrolled at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, where he studied crop science.
26 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com October – December 2026
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