FAIRFIELD -- A 4-year-old John Vasquez was particularly excited one morning - not so much at the prospect of going to his grandfather's farm to pick up prunes for drying, though that was OK - but because of the breakfast awaiting him.
"I love Rice Krispies," the 74-year-old Vasquez, the District 4 supervisor and senior member of the county board, said in a phone interview on Friday.
In those days, his mother cracked open the wax-paper-lined, single-serving box and it was up to young John to determine how much milk and sugar went into it.
What could go wrong?
It was a different time, and farming in Solano County was different, too.
For example, Suisun Valley was not a wine region, and was decades away from being one. The valley, instead, was home to a variety of fruit trees and some nuts; where families cut and processed their own fruit.
That is what Vasquez loves about the 2024 Crop & Livestock Report - the 75th year the county has produced one.
Except now, a week after it had gone public, Vasquez does not think the description as a Crop & Livestock Report does it justice.
"It's a document," said Vasquez, not its historical significance. "They did a great job with it."
Six pages are a dedicated timeline of the county's agricultural past. The section on 1949 to 1958 may be the most important history page in the, well, history of the county.
It is then that leaders in Solano County brought to fruition the Solano Project concept, what became the construction of the Monticello Dam and ultimately one of the most reliable sources of water in California - Lake Berryessa.
It has quenched agricultural, urban and industrial thirsts ever since.
Vasquez cannot say enough about the vision those leaders had for Solano.
The groundbreaking was in 1953. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in 1956, named the reservoir after original Berryessa Valley landowners, Sisto Antonio and Jose de Jesus Berryessa. The dam was completed in 1957, and the first delivery of Solano Project water comes in 1957.
That first page also notes that in 1949 - the first year of the ag report - there were 1,298 farms in Solano County, representing 434,150 acres. The total crop production value was $22 million, with cattle the top commodity at $2.6 million. There were 47,000 head.
"You don't think of Solano as a cattle county," said Vasquez, adding that the county has always raised cattle, and it is still important to the county today. In fact, Cattle and Calves, at a gross value of $48.86 million, in 2024 was the second largest commodity in the county - second only to almonds ($55.8 million).
The total value of gross agriculture production in 2024 was $437.938 million, the second highest total ever despite a decline of more than $22 million.
"So I saw a lot of the farming practices in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s," said Vasquez, who still watches agriculture closer than most in the county.
"We are asking farmers to do more with less: less water, less land," Vasquez said.
He knows there are modern operations that can produce 100 acres worth of produce in a 100,000-square-foot facility, but farming will always need land.
Vasquez said that is why the general plan update the county is starting must identify and protect the best of those lands.
"I don't know where agriculture will go. You listen to some of the podcasts and they say ag has reached a tipping point - and that is scary," the supervisor said.
Over the years, Berryessa has made headlines for a number of water matters, not the least of which in the historical anals, is the Putah Creek Accord, which redefined water use responsibility and paved the way for the return of salmon and a variety of birds and wildlife to the creek.
Now Berryessa is at the center of water news again.
This time, it is the state waving its constitutional rights to control all water in the state - and making a grab for Berryessa water. A decision on the Bay-Delta Water Quality Plan is expected later this year.
Vasquez has a difficult time understanding why the state thinks it can - or even should - take water it did not develop and did not put a single dime toward. The federal loans that helped the project along were paid off decades ago.
He said it would be a different matter if Solano County had wasted the resource, but that has not been the case.
"We've been very provincial about our water - and we say it that way. That dam was paid for on the backs of taxpayers - no one else wanted to be part of it," Vasquez said.
Some water officials are at least pleased the state has moved away from its original plan, which they asserted would have devastated the county.
The newer Healthy Rivers and Landscapes Program is designed around voluntary agreements with the state, rather than directed compliance.
"The inclusion of voluntary agreements in the development of this plan will be a big win for California, and will help provide more opportunities for our partners across the state to support California's irreplaceable fish populations and habitats," California Department Fish and Wildlife Director Charlton H. Bonham said. "By focusing on the science of restoration, and prioritizing additional flows to support healthy habitats, we can ensure the best possible outcomes for California's precious natural resources, now and in years to come."
Local officials are more hopeful, but said the plan is complex and still has a number of red flag issues for the county.
Anything, they said, that means less Berryessa water for Solano County has consequences. Vasquez wants a plan that balances the uses of the water, and stewardship.
It also makes Vasquez wonder what the next page in the crop report will read like.
"It makes me think about my family's life in agriculture. Now, we go out in the mid-1970s, but I never did, really," Vasquez said.