Families line up for sweet corn at Fresno State
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- It's the sweetest time of the year at Fresno State because sweet corn is officially for sale at the Gibson Farm Market.
On Friday morning dozens of customers lined up waiting to fill their bags. Betsy Juergens was the first in line, getting there at 4:30 in the morning.
"You can't beat the first batch of the season. It's the sweetest and best corn. So might as well come out and get it while you can," Juergens said.
Fresno State started selling the corn in 1982. An ear of corn is priced at 50 cents. Customers can choose from either white or yellow sweet corn. It's grown on the campus farm by the students.
Juan Hernandez, a student, explained this was his first sweet corn season.
"It's definitely a lot of work whether it would be land prep or installing irrigation lines and even repairs of irrigation lines," he said. "But in the end, it's a lot of fun and a lot of hard work, that's for sure".
Jeremy Lewis, the store manager said he expects to see around 1,000 customers walk through their doors.
"We love seeing folks come out and support Fresno State and our ag college and just seeing a lot of faces come through the market and folks we haven't seen before. It's just great to introduce them to all the great things we make here on our Fresno State campus," he said.
However, some people on social media are being vocal about boycotting the sweet corn following the controversy surrounding Fresno State instructor Randa Jarrar.
Jarrar drew criticism on the day former first lady Barbara Bush died. She tweeted that Mrs. Bush was a racist who along with her husband raised a "war criminal", referring to former president George W. Bush.
"I just think it's unfortunate," Lewis said. "The ag students are the ones that benefit from all our sales here at the Farm Market. The money spent here goes directly back to the Jordan College. So we just encourage everyone to come out and support those students".
Lewis said he's hopeful people will continue to buy the sweet corn and they expect to sell thousands of ears of corn. He added there's no limit at this time for how much corn a customer can buy.
"We have a lot of corn coming out of the field so we want to open it up and let folks come in and fill their bags, carry out as much as you can and have a great weekend," he explained.
In 2017 during the opening weekend shoppers bought 38,586 ears but more than 800,000 ears were sold in the year.
The Gibson Farm Market will be open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday from and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday
