The decision to return to the family business was made easier by something his father told him and his brothers while they were in college. Their father was, in his own words, a demanding taskmaster. But he also gave Camp and his brothers something Camp considers particularly important: a choice. If they wanted to return to farming, that was fine. If they wanted to do something else, that was fine, too. “I had a lot of friends who were forced, or they were expected to come back to the farm,” Camp said. “But when you make your own decision, that’s completely different.” Camp chose farming. He officially began working full-time at D.M. Camp & Sons in 1979 after college, although his wife, Kaye, would argue that his career began much earlier. Today, D.M. Camp & Sons is celebrating its 90th year. Almonds are the mainstay of the family’s farming operation, while the business also includes four John Deere dealerships in Kern and Los Angeles counties and a John Deere engine distributorship covering five Western states. The Water Job For a Kern County farmer, water is impossible to separate from agriculture, Camp explained. “I always said I had two jobs,” he said. “I had my farming job, and I had my water job.” Camp’s farming operation was exposed to several different sources of water—state, federal and Kern River water—giving him an early education in the complicated systems, contracts and politics that determine where water goes and who gets it. He became involved in water district leadership, including at the Arvin-Edison Water Storage District, and eventually served on the Friant Water Authority Board. He recently retired after 38 years as President of the Arvin- Edison Water Storage District Board and 13 years on the Friant Water Authority Board. He remains involved in water policy as a delegate to the Great Valley Farm Water Partnership.
Camp was initially drawn to the complexity of water. “It was fascinating to me,” he said. “The water world is endless.” But fascination alone doesn’t explain why he stayed with it for so long. Camp understood that serving on a water board meant representing farmers and landowners whose businesses and livelihoods could be directly affected by decisions made around a table. At Arvin-Edison, the mantra was simple: “Connections, connections, connections,” he said. The district worked to establish connections between water systems, including the California Aqueduct, Cross Valley Canal, Friant-Kern Canal and Kern River. “Those connections created options. Water could be moved. It could be stored. Partnerships could be developed,” Camp said. And he believes California still suffers from not having enough of those connections. “We’re missing connections,” he said. “We never completed the connections we should have had to be able to move things around to their most needed or proper places.”
27 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com October – December 2026
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