Ehud “Udi” Ariav, was born in Jerusalem, British Palestine, in 1926.  He officially answered his lifelong calling to grow things when, at age 15, he attended the prestigious Pardes Hanna Agricultural High School, one of the first such institutions in the Country.  After serving honorably in WWII, Udi took advantage of his veteran’s scholarship to enroll at UC Berkeley in California, later transferring to UCLA, the premiere agricultural school at the time specializing in subtropical horticulture.

Upon graduation, he returned to the newly minted state of Israel, where he married, started a family, and took on the crucial task of growing food, date palms and citrus groves, for the fledgling Jewish homeland.  In collaboration with Netafim, pioneers in the field of micro-irrigation, Udi helped implement the field experiments for the new water-conserving drip technology throughout much of the acreage he managed.  In 1967 he returned to America with his wife and children, and established his grove care business, Ehud Ariav Enterprises, in Yuma, Arizona.

Like many immigrant success stories, Udi’s hard work paid off.  His solid reputation as an agricultural wizard, who could coax fruit trees to grow in very unforgiving soil, preceded him.  Landowners small and large, including aerospace giant McDonnell Douglas, came calling.  Along with planting and managing the new groves, Udi introduced micro-irrigation to the arid regions of Arizona, and, as he had done in Israel, made another desert bloom.  

Bringing his expertise to numerous agricultural boards and the Sunkist growers co-op (entities often located in neighboring California), Udi learned to pilot a small plane to make his state-hopping commute more efficient.  While there, he acquired his own lemon groves in Somis, a small farming community in Ventura County.  When the California ranch house was ready for move-in, Udi gave his Arizona grove care business to his foreman and never looked back.  After a lifetime of managing groves for others, Udi was relishing a new challenge, again planting and caring for trees.  But these trees were his.

Three more decades of watching weather, conserving water, tending wind machines, and rising well before the sun, it was time to start handing over the reins.  Slowly at first.  Trading some citrus acres for premium pistachios, which would be tended by a grove care manager (just as Udi had done for so many clients over the years), the crop packed and distributed by Setton Farms, purveyors of fine dried fruit and specialty nut products.  

In the Fall of 2017, all but twenty acres of the Ariav citrus groves were sold to premium avocado grower, Rancho Guacamole of Santa Barbara, freeing up capital to invest in other agricultural and commercial enterprises.

Though now more diversified with investments, Ariav Investments is pleased to maintain longstanding relationships with California’s community of farmers, packing houses, and distributors.  They also look forward to making new friends and discovering new opportunities for the mutual benefit of all involved.