Industrial earth-moving equipment clears a stretch of land across busy Highway 16 from the towering band of buildings that make up the Cache Creek Casino Resort.

There – in the golden agricultural fields of the Capay Valley – lies the future of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation.

The American Indian tribe discovered wealth from gambling but wants its legacy to be in the land where its ancestors once harvested acorns and wild blackberries.

"The products that come out of this land are symbolic," said the tribe's chairman, Marshall McKay. "We're connected to this land – my relatives lived here a long time and we feel the need to preserve and enhance our home."

The construction across the highway from the casino is making way for a state-of-the-art mill – being shipped from Florence, Italy – that will press oil from the tribe's 81 acres of newly planted high-density olive trees next year.

Wine from 15 acres of grapes is being sold at the casino and is expected to be on major grocery store shelves by spring 2012 under the label Séka Hills – Séka is Patwin for blue ridge.

There are 168 acres of walnuts, 50 of almonds, 82 of alfalfa, 400 of wheat, 90 of oat hay and 210 of safflower – plus plans for 60 acres of asparagus and 10 of blueberries and expanding the herd of 200 Angus-cross cattle to 350.
"It's moving back to an old traditional way," McKay said. "It's an investment in the land."

The federal government established the Rumsey Rancheria in 1907 on a barren plot of dirt where members had to haul water from a pump two miles away.
The tribe struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction. Welfare supplemented earnings from fruit picking and dishwashing.

A bingo hall – opened in 1985 – reversed the tribe's fortunes and led to a casino, the largest employer in Yolo County with 2,500 employees. The casino resort reportedly made $300 million a year before the economic downturn forced gamblers to clutch their cash tighter.

But the tribe's 85 members had already started expanding its portfolio. There are hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space in Sacramento and Springfield, Ill. There's a Ford dealership in Texas, that since has been sold.
And from 60 acres in 1994, the tribe now owns 7,700 acres of land in the Capay Valley, most of it purchased in the last decade.

"How do you diversify in an agriculture-based county?" asked McKay. "My vision was to buy back the land that was taken from us."

Beyond agriculture as a business venture is a dedication to do it right, said Yocha Dehe's director of land management, Jim Etters, who is not a tribal member.
"Our focus is on quality and not on volume," Etters said. "It's a testament to the tribe being a good grower and not cutting corners."

There are 250 acres certified organic. Sustainable grazing plans include solar-powered troughs spread out through the oak tree-dotted land. Retention ponds catch runoff, and native hedgerows attract beneficial insects and provide wildlife habitat.
Since the first 600 acres were planted in 2007, the cultivated land has grown to 1,300 acres in tidy rows on a smattering of plots scattered throughout the valley.
It's vastly different from the neglected land McKay remembers when he first came to work at the bingo hall, when the tribe's neighbors were flummoxed about how their interests coincided. "There is a respect level growing," he said.

Tom Frederick, whose Capay Valley Vineyards is located next to the casino, has had a bumpy relationship with the tribe, mostly because of what he calls a gambling monopoly with a lack of accountability. But he welcomes the tribe's agricultural pursuits and sees its potential for tribal members themselves.

"It gives them a connection to the land rather than just money," Frederick said.
Tim Mueller of Riverdog Farm, which leases 63 of the tribe's organic acres, sees more farming as helping everyone and welcomes the olive mill, which will be available for custom presses.

"The more people you have actively farming, the more likely you will have a neighbor you can go in on with for a sprayer or if you need a pipe fitting," Mueller said. "And having a little more agricultural infrastructure makes it easier for all of us."

The move into agriculture symbolizes the closing of a circle for the tribe that once subsisted along the Cache Creek watershed, said Paula Lorenzo Tackett, the tribe's former leader who now runs the Road Trip Bar & Grill in Capay.
It's also a way to reach out and create new relationships over steaks, a basket of blueberries or a glass of rosé – all raised or grown by the tribe.
"You don't sit around and smoke the peace pipe together anymore," Lorenzo said. "So now, we break bread together."