The Central Sacramento Valley Story

About the Book

After describing the Central Valley of California the book focuses on the flood plain of the Sacramento River where most of the lands adjoining the river were a series of Mexican Land Grants. These grants were broken into private holdings after statehood and the challenging effort to reclaim the overflow lands began. The book covers the political and natural challenges in reclaiming these lands together with the introduction of a new crop, rice, and the development of new machines, primarily the Caterpillar tractor, that aided significantly in making the reclamation efforts successful.

About the Author

Howard R Plank was born in Woodland, Yolo County, California to a rice farming family that farmed many years on the Conaway Ranch between Woodland and Sacramento. The farm was along the flood plain of the Sacramento River and the planting and harvesting of the rice utilized Caterpillar tractors extensively as well as airplanes to seed the rice. Howard’s father, R.E “Ike” Plank, during the 1920’s, had worked on the Conaway Ranch where he operated a Holt 75 during summers and observed the building of the weirs and by-passes that control the flooding of the Sacramento River. Prior to his passing in 1987 he schooled Howard in the irrigation, drainage and farming up and down the valley. The family marketed the rice through the Rice Grower’s Association, Farmer’s Rice Cooperative and Pacific International Rice Mills (PIRMI). When RGA purchased PIRMI Howard built and operated Williams Rice Milling Company with partners from Japan. Since 1974 Howard has participated in consulting projects throughout Asia and Central America relating to rice, is active in Rotary and provides agribusiness management services.