August 3,2015-
The news that a 1500 acre”mega dairy” with 4000 cows was coming to Kern County caused quite a fuss at the time back in 2002. So when the George Borba dairy abruptly closed their doors in April of this year with a complete dispersal auction of cows, rolling stock and the land, the question arose – what’s next?
With tough times in the dairy business the rumor was the big dairy farm was likely to be replaced by someone who wanted to plant nut trees. But the buyer’s name has been hush hush.
Now comes word that the buyer is Singapore-based Olam International, a mega food company with $20 billion in worldwide sales, and 5 locations in the Valley already including divisions that plant and process tomatoes, spices, onions garlic, almonds and cotton here. The firm has regional offices in Fresno.
The crop here will be pistachios says a company representative Dave DeFrank, a better bet than milk these days. Olam is removing the remainder of the diary infrastructure this summer ready to plant thousands of nut trees on this open land probably next year.
Olam is the second largest almond farmer in the world and maintains 30,000 acres of almond orchards in Australia. In California, they farm 7,000 acres of almond orchards.
Olam International was established in 1989 with 1 product in 1 country, trading cashew from Nigeria into India. Today thye are a leading agri-business operating from seed to shelf in 65 countries, supplying food and industrial raw materials to over 13,800 customers worldwide. The international company has 23,000 employees. They came to the US in 2002.