National Garlic Festival in Fresno and Ag Credit Conditions

**Now that the famed Gilroy Garlic Festival has closed its doors, Fresno County is reminding people where America’s true garlic capital resides.

Fresno just played host to the May 13-15 National Garlic Festival, which hopes to be the featured garlic event going forward.

Fresno has always grown substantially more of the stinky vegetable than Gilroy, with 77% of all the garlic grown in the U.S.

**Agricultural credit conditions improved in the first quarter of 2022, and farm real estate values continued to increase alongside strength in the American farm economy.

Following a year of accelerating increases, the value of non-irrigated cropland across much of the country has soared through March of this year.

The sharp growth in land values persisted despite a slight increase in farm loan interest rates.

Farm loan repayment rates continued to increase, and credit conditions remained strong.

**The House Ag Committee voted to approve the Meat and Poultry Special Investigator Act, and the North American Meat Institute called it “redundant, wasteful, and costly.”

NAMI CEO Julianna Potts says, “The committee voted to approve the bill despite our opposition, along with the opposition from the country’s largest livestock producer organizations.”

She also says USDA and the Justice Department already have the authorities the bill would grant, making this expansion of government bureaucracy with its required staff and offices “duplicative.”