The last time Jeff Shaw spoke to this many tomato growers, he was breaking the news to them that Tri Valley Growers was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Bankruptcy is a process where nobody wins.
Certainly not the hundreds of growers who gathered for the association's annual meeting. Shaw told them that Tri Valley's troubles were a result of bad planning. It is the result of a lack of discipline. Many of the growers in the room paid a heavy price for that lack of discipline. Some were forced to watch their plump, red tomatoes rot in their fields during the fall.