Working Early in the Pistachio Industry

An interview with someone who was working very early in the in the California pistachio industry. Bill Seaman farms nearly 7,000 acres of pistachios, mainly for absentee farmers. He also runs a nursery for the industry, and he began working in the industry at its infancy.

“You know, I've been in the industry for forever, ever they started planting pistachios down at Kettleman city area. These are the areas of McCarthy farms, Dudley Ridge, and Brenda Mesa, mainly Kern County areas. That actually helped me go through school budding trees,” noted Seaman

He was budding some of the original trees grown in the valley. And Seaman is managing a lot of acreage today.

“Currently we manage quite a few acres of pistachios in the Madera and Fresno Counties. And I I have the nursery, we kind of do a little bit of everything. and I'm out of the contracting business that I used to do. So I, I'm not up and down the state budding trees anymore, but I'm kind of staying more localized,” he said.

And he’s farming for investors, absentee farmers. “More or less. Yeah, absolutely. We farm a little over 7,000 acres around here. Some of all those are almonds and some are pistachios, we do a little bit of both.

We asked Seaman if he was surprised with the billion-pound pistachio pound crop after being in the pistachio business for so long. “No, I wasn't surprised. I knew it was coming. It was just an interesting year. This year, there were areas in the state that were really hurt by the lack of winter chill and lack of winter chill can hurt production,” he said.