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Show Raisin rustlers raising trouble By Waiiam J.O"Neffl Nat Geo. News Service Rustlers still plague the West. But instead of riding off into the sunset, they drive off into the sunrise. The latest targets for fast trucks running without lights are vineyards, rather than cattle ranches. And their prize is not beef but raisins, whose price has been rising faster than beef. Tons of grapes spread on the ground to be shriveled into raisins by the sun disappeared last November, as thieves scoured California's rich San Joaquin Valley. Rain Cut Crops The mountain-ringed valley, val-ley, about 50 miles wide by 240 miles long, produces more raisins than anyplace else in the world, the National Geographic Geo-graphic Society says. But untimely rainfall sharply reduced re-duced the 1977 crop, causing raisin prices to soar in the commodity market- and making mak-ing them juicy picking for criminals. Rustlers who steal off with up to 12 tons of picked grapes in a single night hit hard at growers already suffering from two straight years of poor crops that have reduced yields to less than half of what they normally would be. Police say the raisins are sold to packing houses or smuggled into Mexico. Catching Catch-ing the thieves is difficult because, as one lawman noted: "Raisins all look pretty much alike." Raisins have been a prized commodity for centuries. Light and easy to carry, tasty, nutritious, and requiring minimal min-imal care to keep from spoiling, spoil-ing, they nourished travelers and armies on the march in the ancient world. Persians and Egyptians considered them a delicacy more than 4,000 years ago, and Israel's King David accepted ac-cepted them as payment for taxes in 1000 B.C. Today, raisins are important impor-tant crops in Australia, Iran, and Turkey, but the United States produces more than all three countries combined. Nearly 97 per cent of America's Ameri-ca's raisins come from California Cali-fornia and the rest are grown in Arizona. Wasteland Transformed Raisin production in the San Joaquin Valley began by accident 100 years ago. Although Al-though the King and San Joaquin Rivers bisect the west side of the valley, it was "a barren and worthless waste" when explorer John C. Fremont first saw it in 1844. Later, farmers cut canals across the valley Door, despite strong opposition from cattlemen, cattle-men, and were cultivating grapes by the 1860's. In 1878, scorching sun withered with-ered grapes on the vines. But one well-traveled settler who had savored raisins in the Mediterranean shipped clusters clus-ters of dried grapes to San Francisco. Advertised as "Peruvian Delicacies," they sold out in two days. The present problem may be harder to solve. Some raisins damaged by rainfall when they were set out to dry may be salvaged by mechanically mechanic-ally dehydrating them, a costly cost-ly process. But one observer, quoting a breakfast food company's promise of "raisins in every spoonful," speculates that this year consumers may need larger spoons. |
