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THE UC/AIC QUARTERLY
THE NEWSLETTER OF THE UC AGRICULTURAL ISSUES
CENTER |
VOLUME 12. NO. 1. 1998 |
Contents
Director's Message
Harold O. Carter Endowment Update
Exotic Pest Project Underway
Export Project Continues
Three New Issues Briefs
1998 Executive Seminar
Announced
Good Response To AIC
Survey of Internet Use
AIC Publication List
AIC Video List
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BY DANIEL A. SUMNER
California agriculture is known for its diversity. We often think
of this in the context of the more than 250 commodities produced on
the state's farms and ranches. But California agriculture is also diverse
in the range of issues it faces. The issues are like crops in that some
are "annuals"---the cycle from when the idea is planted to when the
research results are "harvested" is within a single year. Of course,
some of the annuals also appear in the rotation again in a few years.
However, many issues are perennials. We harvest useful results periodically,
but the issue remains.
This diversity of issues is a continuing challenge here at the Center.
We must allocate our efforts among important new issues and long-standing
issues that continue to demand attention.
A first principle of economics is that with limited resources one must
choose among competing potential activities. Our strategy at AIC is
to try to make the most effective use of our resources developing useful
research-based information. This Quarterly describes a number of current
activities and highlights some recent publications. In addition to these,
we are pursuing a number of topics that have been mentioned in previous
issues by our associate directors. It would, of course, be valuable
to be able to undertake even more projects, but AIC has limits, too.
Among the topic areas we plan to pursue more fully in the near future
is an analysis of science policy for California agriculture. In recent
years, the University of California's Office of the Vice President of
the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources has organized and
led a major effort to consider Divisionwide organization, priorities,
and program evaluation. I have been participating in this effort as
chair of the Program Planning Advisory Committee for Agricultural Resources.
The role of the University of California in agricultural research and
outreach, the process of priority setting and the evaluation of the
contributions are all issues of vital importance to California. AIC
can play a role in this process by helping to bring to bear economic
analysis and other information from the field of agricultural science
policy. This effort will build on the well-received AIC report Valuing
UC Agricultural Research and Extension and the recent AIC Issues
Brief, Science and Technology in California Agriculture. Agricultural
science policy is a topic of major global importance. It is an area
where AIC has unique resources and it is particularly vital to California
agriculture.
We are enthusiastic about pursuing these issues. Priority setting and
evaluation is at the heart of economics and management. This is something
AIC faces in its own program, and it is an area where the Center can
bring expertise and experience to help contribute to productivity, growth
and other improvements in California agriculture.
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A reception and dinner honoring AIC Founding Director Harold
O. Carter highlighted a recent AIC Advisory Board meeting. The event
also marked the official beginning of the fund-raising campaign for
the Harold O. Carter Endowment.
Carter's contributions to the University and to California agriculture
were noted and praised by, among others, Barbara Schneeman, dean of
the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; W.R. Gomes,
UC vice-president for the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources;
and Ann Veneman, California's secretary of Food and Agriculture. A letter
from Governor Pete Wilson commended Carter's career as a UC faculty
member and as founding director of the Agricultural Issues Center. AIC
Board chair Bill Allewelt presented him with an engraved silver tray
from the Center board and staff.
It was announced that lead gifts to the Carter Endowment totalled more
than $200,000. This excellent start will be followed by personal solicitation
visits to prospective donors from Rick Swantz, development officer for
the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; Daniel A. Sumner,
current Center director, and Bill Allewelt. Advisory Board members and
campaign steering committee members were encourged to help identify
individuals and corporations who might contribute to the Endowment.
The campaign is being led by AIC Board members and the following co-chairs:
Howard Marguleas, chairman emeritus, Sun World International, Inc.;
Graydon Nichols, president, Nichols Farms, Inc.; and Ann Veneman, secretary,
California Department of Food and Agriculture. The steering committee
includes: Robert Egerton, senior vice president, CoBank; Michael Fitch,
agriculture consultant and Wells Fargo Bank, retired; John Kautz, owner,
John Kautz Farms and Ironstone Winery; Bill McFarlane, McFarlane and
McFarlane Farms; Terry Scranton, executive vice president, Bank of America;
and Ron Schuler, president, California Canning Peach Association.
Materials outlining the varied ways to make charitable contributions
are available from the co-chairs, from AIC and from Rick Swantz.
An advisory committee and multidisciplinary research teams are being
organized for the Center's new major project on exotic pest and disease
policy in California---an issue that has even greater importance with
the state's increasing role in a globalized food system. The project
will be broad in scope and expertise, involving university researchers,
and Extension specialists, state and federal agency staff, and agricultural
and other public-sector representatives.
The goal is to create a stronger scientific basis for decision-making
related to non-indigenous pests in California, including assessment
of both costs and benefits of public policies and programs. Criteria
for the systematic selection of case studies are now under discussion.
AIC associate directors Jerry Siebert and Keith Knapp join AIC director
Sumner in assuming lead roles on this project. Also providing important
guidance are veterinarian James MacLachlan, chair of the Department
of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology in the UC Davis School of
Veterinary Medicine; Joseph Morse, a professor in the Department of
Entomology at UC Riverside and director of the UC Center for Exotic
Pest Research; and Deborah Golino, director of the UC Davis Foundation
Plant Materials Service and a Cooperative Extension specialist in plant
pathology. Policy leaders and scientists at CDFA and USDA Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) will also be collaborating.
Overall project coordination will be provided by Center analyst Marcia
Kreith.
Economic models will be combined with appropriate scientific data and
analysis to evaluate current and potential effects of exotic pests and
of exclusion or control programs on (1) costs of California plant and
animal commodity production, (2) demand (especially international) for
California food and fiber products, (3) import of goods and national
or international travel, and (4) the environment and urban communities.
Integral to the evaluation is consideration of the "public good" nature
of exotic pest and disease exclusion and control.
During the next year, several research teams, of four to eight members
each, will undertake investigative and analytical work. Participants
have expertise in an array of disciplines from biology to law, from
epidemiology to economics, and many others.
Discussion of preliminary results is expected in spring of 1999, with
a major conference scheduled for the fall of that year. Results will
be disseminated through publications and workshops.
The Center's agricultural export data project is well under way. Most
recently we surveyed state departments of agriculture in the United
States to assess current and potential methodologies used to report
their agricultural export statistics.
The response to the survey has been positive, generating great interest
and support for the project outside of California. We continue to get
information daily.
In late March we held a panel discussion at the California Department
of Food and Agriculture in Sacramento to discuss the uses and expectations
of state agricultural export data. Fourteen participants represented
government, banking, academia, and industry. Export data, they said,
is primarily used for public relations, policy-making, funding decisions,
and research. The panelists stressed the need for accurate information
that does not lead to public misconceptions, research errors or incorrect
decisions.
They also made it clear that they have an interest in high quality data
for California agriculture, and expressed enthusiasm for working with
the AIC effort to improve the information available.
The information from the survey and the panel discussion will enable
us, by this summer, to propose a methodology for more accurate estimates
as well as produce improved export statistics for California.
Three upcoming AIC Issues Briefs demonstrate the diversity of this
Center publication series. The wide-ranging topics are (1) grower reactions
to the federal Farm Act, (2) potential impacts of groundwater market
transfers, and (3) a statistical study of organic agriculture in California.
Each in its own way involves important public policy issues.
Last year was the first growing season in which farm operators and
land managers could fully respond to the federal Farm Act. Two researchers,
Warren Johnston of UC, Davis, and Lyle Schertz of US Department of Agriculture
(both retired), set out to learn how farm decision-makers were responding
or planning to respond to the new rules. They organized a series of
eight focus-group panels of farmers and farm managers in five regions
of the US, including the Sacramento Valley. This Issues Brief focuses
on the Sacramento Valley panelists, and places their responses in context
with those elsewhere in the nation.
All groups believed that the new law creates need to shift acreage among
different crops, and to pay more attention to marketing. The Sacramento
Valley panelists, mostly rice growers, were less likely than those elsewhere
to respond by adopting new technology---and were more concerned with
price volatility. The study also asked what forces were considered most
likely to influence future management decisions. The California growers
focused on environmental concerns and regulations, and on higher input
prices.
This Issues Brief is titled Management Changes and Impacts of the
1966 Farm Act: A National Study and a California Viewpoint.
The groundwater study looks at Kern County, where water marketing
proposals are relatively advanced. It considers this question: Suppose
either 10 or 20 percent of the region's yearly water supply is transferred
to Southern California (with offsetting imports during wet years). What
would be the effects on the water table? On crop revenues? Would there
be potential benefits of groundwater management, as distinct from an
unregulated "common-property" scenario? Answers, hypothetical but based
on real-world measurements, are provided by an economic model. As might
be expected, the projected difference in impact between transferring
10 and 20 percent of the water supply is substantial.
This Issues Brief, titled Water Transfers and Groundwater Management:
An Economic Analysis, is in the final editing stages. The authors
are Marca Weinberg, UC Davis; Keith C. Knapp, UC Riverside; Richard
Howitt, UC Davis; and Judith Posnikoff, Collins Associates, Newport
Beach.
What is the overall size, value and growth potential of organic agriculture
in California? Two UC researchers have gone to the only public source
of information to provide at least some answers to that question. Laura
Tourte and Karen Klonsky of the Department of Agricultural and Resource
Economics at UC Davis studied thousands of registration forms supplied
by growers, processors and handlers during the first three years of
the California Organic Foods Act program (1992-95).
They have prepared the results as an 80-page statistical description
of the state's organic agriculture industry. Their report, being readied
for publication by the Center, is summarized in an AIC Issues Brief.
Organic agriculture accounts for less than 1 percent of crop production
in California, but the industry is growing faster than agriculture in
general. In 1994-95, the third year studied, there were 1,372 registered
organic farms in California, reporting $95.1 million in sales from more
than 70 commodities grown on 45,070 acres. The AIC Issues Brief, titled
Organic Agriculture in California: A Statistical Review, describes
regional patterns of production, growth trends, and farm size and income
statistics. Among the significant findings: In 1994-95, over half of
the revenues from organic agriculture in California went to only 2 percent
of the growers.
The AIC Executive Seminar will once again be held in December in Sacramento
at the Hyatt Regency. This year's theme is Risks and Opportunities for
California Agriculture. Topics to be covered include: food safety regulations,
environmental regulations including pesticide, trade rules and regulations,
federal farm programs, farm labor and policy risks. The organizing committe
is AIC director Sumner, associate director Jerry Siebert, Bees Butler
and Roberta Cook, extension specialists, Department of Agricultural
& Resource Economics, UC Davis. If you have suggestions for specific
themes, speakers or panelists, please contact one of the committee members.
AIC's internet survey is proceeding well. As discussed in the last
AIC Quarterly, the questionnaire is intended to gather the information
needed to guide improvements in the AIC web site. It will also provide
a baseline on computer and internet use for an important segment of
California agriculture. We believe that this information will be of
broad interest and we will provide a summary as soon as the data is
available. We thank those of you who have already returned your questionnaire
and we would be delighted to receive additional responses. If you have
not yet returned the questionnaire, please send it in. We want the results
of the survey to be fully representative of our readership, even those
of you who do not use the internet regularly. If anyone needs a copy
of the questionnaire, please contact the AIC office.
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