(Contributed photo)

WATSONVILLE — Local farmer Steve Bontadelli donated $25,000 to the organization, Agri-Culture, for the purpose of establishing the Ernest & Beverley Bontadelli Memorial Fund. 

The fund will support agricultural education programs in Santa Cruz County and the Pajaro Valley.

Ernie Bontadelli died peacefully at his home this summer. On the previous evening to his passing, he attended the 101st Annual Dinner of the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau, where his son, Steve, was honored as the 2018 “Farmer of the Year.” Ernie Bontadelli was honored with the same award in 1984. 

Bontadelli, and his brother Charles, were pioneers in the Brussels sprout industry on California’s central coast.  They were longtime members of both Western Growers Association (where he served on the Board of Directors) and Salinas Grower/Shipper Assn. 

Bontadelli was born in La Selva Beach, where he continued to reside for his entire life. He attended San Jose State University where he met and married his life-long spouse Beverley, who preceded him in death in 2016. Upon graduation, he joined his brother Charles who had been farming with their father Earnest in the Watsonville area. They formed Bontadelli Brothers and farmed many of the usual commodities grown in the area, from sugar beets to strawberries to cole crops and eventually specializing in the production of Brussels sprouts in the mid-1970s.

In the early 1980s, they partnered with Pfyffer Brothers and created Pfyffer Associates, a packing and shipping operation in Santa Cruz, which handled several area growers’ products in addition to their own. He learned and excelled at growing artichokes up in the Davenport area, north of Santa Cruz, for the next 20 years, but his primary focus was the production and promotion of Brussels sprouts. 

Tax-deductible contributions in memory of Ernest and Beverley Bontadelli can be made to this fund. Checks should be written to Agri-Culture, 141 Monte Vista Ave., Watsonville, CA 95076, with a note that says, “Bontadelli Memorial Fund.” Credit card donations can be made on the Agri-Culture website at www.agri-culture.us/funds or by calling the Agri-Culture office at 722-6622.

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