A REFLECTION ON WESTERN GROWERS’ LEGACY OF ADVOCACY By Matthew Allen, Vice President, State Government Affairs
have served, and others were struggling with the loss of family and friends. Yet they were at the annual meeting in 1946 to be with each other and to advocate for agriculture. While I don’t know their names, I have come to know their faces. Occasionally, I do my best to decipher what the menu was for lunch that day as the plates on the tables are a bit grainy. I am pretty sure that steak was the main fare. What each of these participants could not have known then was the impact that their participation at that meeting, and their sitting for this photo would mean to a lobbyist who started working at Western Growers in December 2011. They celebrated with me and the state government affairs team on our big and small wins, and have been there as a pick-me-up when we have suffered losses that have consequences for our industry and growers. They have been my personal reminder to remain steadfast for our industry and that no challenge is too big to resolve. Three words come to my mind whenever I glance over at the photo: patience, resilience and passion. These are the menu ingredients that stand out to me from that luncheon in 1946. Western Growers is an organization that fully embraces new endeavors, yet we stay true to our past ideals and acknowledge with great gratitude those stewards of the association that came long before us. As someone who comes from a family with a long farming history, I am blessed and extraordinarily proud to be a part of the Western Growers family. It is an honor to represent all that you do.
Honestly, I have been grappling for quite some time about what to write about for this article given we are celebrating Western Growers' 100-year anniversary. Just a little bit of pressure! Should I expound on an important bill that we are opposed to in the California Legislature? No. How about a regulation that would increase costs on our growers? No, that doesn’t seem right either. I have felt like a student again, over- thinking and engaging in unnecessary hand-wringing when the answer to my woes has been in front of my face, literally, this entire time. There is a framed photo by the entrance door to the Sacramento office that greets me every morning when I arrive and wishes me a temporary farewell when I leave after a long day. It serves as a tangible reminder to me about the history of Western Growers, and how it’s a dynamic organization composed of individuals who are passionate about both the organization itself and agriculture as a whole. Back to the photo on the wall. It is a photo of the Western Growers Annual Meeting Luncheon at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles on Nov. 20, 1946. It is a room full of growers undoubtedly with hopes and dreams for their farms. Many of them look very serious while others have broad smiles on their faces. I wonder what issues and challenges they were discussing at that meeting in 1946. Labor, water and transportation of produce to market have always been perennial issues for our growers, but I also find it to be a profound image since the photo was taken not long after World War II (which ended on Sept. 2, 1945). Many might
10 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com April – June 2026
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