Action Items Podcast

California fig farmers, who grow nearly all the figs produced in the U.S., harvested about 30,000 tons of fruit worth $22 million in 2015, according to the latest crop report from the California Department of Food and Agriculture. But of all those figs, there were just a handful of genetically distinct varieties — mostly black mission, Kadota, Adriatic and brown Turkey. Meanwhile, almost uncountable heirloom varieties have fallen to the wayside or even disappeared. Harvey Correia, a Rio Vista resident, has one of the most diverse collections of the common fig in the world.    Written by Alastair Bland; read by Robin Epley