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THE UC/AIC QUARTERLY
THE NEWSLETTER OF THE UC AGRICULTURAL
ISSUES CENTER |
VOLUME 13. NO. 3. 1999 |
Contents
Ag Personnel Management Program Joins the
Center
AIC Advisory Board
AIC Associate Directory
AIC Staff
CA Export Data
Ag Trend Forum
Water Book
Executive Seminar
FMD Book
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The long-standing UC program focusing on farm labor, productivity,
management, and policy is now part of the Agricultural Issues
Center.
The new arrival is the Agricultural Personnel Management Program
(APMP), one of several statewide units within the UC Division
of Agriculture and Natural Resources (DANR). ÒThrough this consolidation,
we expect to do a better job of focusing the UniversityÕs scarce
resources on the many farm labor issues facing California agriculture,Ó
said ANR Associate Vice President Henry J. Vaux, Jr.
AIC Director Daniel A. Sumner will oversee the UC Agricultural
Personnel Management Program as a unit within AIC. Agricultural
personnel and labor issues will be part of the CenterÕs overall
integrated program of research and outreach.
Farm labor is a crucial topic. At least 75 percent of farm work
in California is done by hired workers. About 25,000 agricultural
employers pay $5 billion yearly in wages.
The goal is to build on the APMPÕs achievements and extend its
reach through a network of campus researchers and county Cooperative
Extension advisors. Farm labor issues have never been more important,
or more controversial, for California agriculture. It is vitally
important for the University to be involved, providing objective
analysis and education programs.
The new home for APMP comes at the same time as a major reorganization
of DANR designed to make the University more responsive to its
diverse clientele groups. An important part of that reorganization
is the initiation or reconstitution of a number of workgroups
that focus research and extension expertise from various academic
sources onto specific topic areas. One important workgroup will
deal with farm labor and productivity. AIC Director Sumner is
a co-convener of that workgroup, along with James Meyers, School
of Public Health, Berkeley, and James Thompson, Biological and
Agricultural Engineering, Davis.
In analyzing the need for more research and extension attention
on farm labor, the workgroup points out that:
On average, farm labor costs in California are about
one-quarter of total operating costs, and can range as high
as three-quarters.
Topics such as worker health and safety, wages and hours
regulation and immigration policy are crucial, on-going public
policy issues.
Farm workers and their families, a significant part of CaliforniaÕs
rural population, are one of the lowest income groups in the
state.
Under the workgroup arrangement, expertise from a number of
disciplinesÑin particular, economics and agricultural engineeringÑwill
concentrate on farm labor and efficiency problems. The front
line of UC activity on farm personnel management will remain
with the APMP, with its new administrative link to AIC. The
APMP, which was established by a specific augmentation to the
University budget in 1981, produces research and extension publications,
conducts workshops and provides technical assistance to farm
managers on personnel management practices and factors in the
labor market and regulatory environment that affect them. Participants
include Daniel Sumner in Davis, Howard Rosenberg in Berkeley,
Gregory Billikopf in Modesto, Steve Sutter in Fresno and secretaries
Yolanda Murillo and Elizabeth Resendez.
AIC plans a number of major new farm labor and personnel activities
over the coming year. Already scheduled for June 2000 is a one-day
conference on assessing the Agricultural Labor Relations Act
after 25 years. We will announce more activities in the next
AIC Quarterly.
For more information about the APMP and a variety of other farm-labor
oriented information sources, contact the programÕs website
at http://are.berkeley.edu/APMP/ or through its link with the
AIC website at aic.ucdavis.edu.
WhoÕs Who in UC Ag Personnel Work
Gregory Encina Billikopf is the UC labor management farm
advisor for San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Merced counties. His
research and extension efforts are focused on such topics as
employee selection, compensation, performance appraisal, discipline
and termination, interpersonal relations, conflict resolution
and negotiation skills. He is the author of Labor Management
in Agriculture: Cultivating Personnel Productivity and maintains
an active website, Agricultural Labor Management, where the
book as well as popular and research articles and an electronic
forum, AG-HRnet, are available. A farm advisor since 1981, he
has been a guest speaker throughout the U.S. as well as foreign
countries, including his native Chile.
Steve Sutter has primary responsibility for the Agricultural
Personnel Management Program in Fresno, Kings, Madera and Tulare
counties. He is a veteran farm advisor, having worked as extension
farm management specialist from 1976 to 1989 in Raleigh, North
Carolina, and since 1990 in his current position. He is also
a veteran in the farm print and broadcast media and since joining
UC has given close to 70 talks per year across the state, most
of the recent ones on the U.S. EPA Worker Protection Standard
and other current regulatory developments. Sutter is a native
of northern Maine, the son of a potato farmer, and was raised
on a family farm that was truly dependent on seasonal farm workers.
Howard Rosenberg is Extension Labor management Specialist,
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
Dually serving as director of the APMP from 1988 to mid-1998,
he worked with a broad range of University staff and external
collaborators on dozens of projects supported by temporarily
allocable program funds. He is lead author of Labor Management
Laws in California Agriculture and survey studies on farm labor
contractors, seasonal farm workers, and farm business employment
practicers. His current research ranges from H-2A (the agricultural
work visa program, and proposals to reform it) to H20
(hydration to combat heat stress in the farm work). He keeps
the APMP website under continuous development.
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AIC Advisory Board
- William F. Allewelt, Jr., Chair
- President Emeritus, Tri/Valley Grower
- Karen Caplan President and CEO, Frieda's Inc.
- Dan Dooley, Vice Chair
- Attorney, Dooley & Herr
- Ralph Grossi
- President, American Farmland Trust
- Brenda Jahns Southwick
- Attorney
- California Farm Bureau Federation
- Betsy Marchand
- Special Program Coordinator
- Yolo County Flood Control and
- Water Conservation District
- Milenda G. Meders
- Friends of Extension
- Owner/Operator, Madera County Farm
- Jack Pandol
- President, Grapery, Fresno
- Henry Schacht
- Agriculture Consultant and Writer
- Terry Scranton
- Retired Executive Vice President
- Bank of America
- Dorcas Thille
- Hansen Trust Advisory Board
- Owner, J.K. Thille Ranches
- Richard Zacky
- Manager, Engineering & Development, Zacky Farms
AIC Associate Directors
- Science and Technology
- Julian M. Alston, Professor
- Agricultural & Resource Economics
- UC Davis
- International Trade
- Colin A. Carter, Professor
- Agricultural & Resource Economics
- UC Davis
- Resources and the Environment
- Keith C. Knapp, Professor
- Soil & Environmental Sciences
- UC Riverside
- Agribusiness Issues
- Jerome B. Siebert, Extension Specialist
- Agricultural & Resource Economics
- & Policy, UC Berkeley
- Rural-Urban Issues
- Alvin D. Sokolow, Extension Specialist
- Human & Community Development
- UC Davis
- Commodity Policy and Market Issues
- Daniel A. Sumner, Professor
- Agricultural & Resource Economics
- UC Davis
AIC Staff
Daniel A. Sumner, Director
Ray Coppock, Communications Specialist
Sandy Fisher, Administrative Specialist
Karen Jetter, Post Doctoral Researcher
Kathy Karg-Eichler, Office Assistant
Marcia Kreith, Program Analyst
Nick Kuminoff, Grad. Research Assistant
Laurie Treacher, Administrative Assistant
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CA Export Data
In June, the Center sent a questionnaire about winegrape contracting
practices to all 12,000 growers and wineries in California. Preliminary
findings from this survey were reported by Dale Heien, Rachael
Goodhue, and Hyunok Lee of the UC Department of Agricultural and
Resource Economics. Survey questions dealt with written versus
oral contracts, methods of determining price, bonus/penalties
and other aspects of winegrape contracts. A detailed report will
be published by the Center later this summer.
A few highlights of the preliminary analysis, based on about 2,000
responses:
- Statewide, 70% of responding growers use written contracts,
11% use oral only, 9% use both (with different wineries),
and 10% use neither. The highest percentage of written contracting
was in the southern San Joaquin Valley (74%) and the lowest
in the Central Coast (56%).
- Pricing procedures are almost evenly divided among "stated
in contract" (31%), "negotiated yearly" (27%) and "reference
price," tied to some more general level (35%).
- The average California grape grower has been in business
19 years, and with the same winery for nine years. The figures
were generally similar in all regions.
- Grape acreages reported by respondents reflected industry-wide
patterns (indicating that the survey returns are representative):
25% of the respondents, 10 acres or less; 22%, 11 to 25 acres;
15%, 26 to 49 acres; 11%, 50 to 99 acres; 11%, 100 to 199
acres; 8%, 200 to 499 acres; and 9%, 500 acres and more.
Contracts are one form of risk management. Lee described another:
federal crop insurance, a tool used by some growers to mitigate
the impact of substantial fluctuations in yield. Catastrophic
coverage is provided at no premium and $60 processing fee for
50% yield guarantee at 55% of the USDA price. Although multiple
peril crop insurance has been available since 1981, only about
7% of California grape growers are insured. Participation is higher
in the Central Valley than in coastal regions.
Another Year's Data Added to State Ag Export Estimates
The AIC has added 1998 data to update our new and more realistic
system of estimating California's agricultural exports, developed
last year in cooperation with the California Department of Food
and Agriculture. As reported in an AIC Issues Brief just off the
press, the new figures reveal a drop to $6.7 billion in total
agricultural exports during 1998, compared to a revised estimate
of $7 billion the year before. (Reflecting, among other forces,
the Asian economic crisis and El Ni–o.) Other major findings remained
virtually unchanged for recent years:
- Almonds, cotton and wine were the top exported commodities.
- Japan and Canada remained the largest export markets.
- California continued to export about 20% of its agricultural
production.
In 1999, with the help of feedback on our 1995-97 data from industry
and government sources, we refined our original methodology. We
continue to combine formal data collection and calculations with
informal adjustments on a commodity-by-commodity basis to generate
export statistics for California. Using more recent data and the
retooled methods, we developed export figures for 1998 and also
revised our 1997 estimates. Highlights of the results show that:
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- Wine had the most significant increase in export value
during 1998, up 35%. (Wine exports have gone up each year
since 1995 for a total increase of 141%.)
- Among the top 20 commodities, the only other one that increased
significantly over 1997 was milk and cream, up 28%.
- Exports of cotton, table grapes, lemons, and hay decreased
by 20% or more during 1998.
- Horticultural crops accounted for more than half of the
total export value.
Reflecting the leading role of vineyards in California agriculture,
the export value of all grape productsÑwine, raisins, table grapes
and grape juiceÑincreased to nearly $1 billion in 1998. If added
together in the data, they would have topped the list of exports.
The new AIC Issues Brief, Number 10, titled "Data on California's
Agricultural Exports, 1998," also reports on (1) the ratio of
farm quantity exported to farm quantity produced for leading commodities
and (2) international market destinations. It's available from
the Center. The new data are also on our website, and are available
from the California Department of Food and Agriculture. A detailed
description of the method of estimating exports is in an earlier
AIC Issues Brief. (No. 8, December, 1998).
The lead author of the new AIC Issues Brief is Nicolai
Kuminoff, a research assistant at AIC for the past 18 months,
who is now working toward a master's degree in the Agricultural
and Resource Economics Graduate Program at UC Davis. Kuminoff
grew up on the urban-rural boundary in west Marin County. His
interests include environmental and resource economics, and farm-urban
issues. At AIC, he has worked on various topics including the
agricultural export statistics project and more recently the issue
of conversion of farmland to urban uses. He presented preliminary
results from work he co-authored on farmland conversion to the
Commission on 21st Century Production Agriculture at its recent
Fresno hearings.
Sacramento Region Agricultural Forum Slated
In cooperation with the Green Valley Inititive, the Agricultural
Issues Center is sponsoring a forum on Agricultural Trends in
the Sacramento Region in late January. The forum will cover long
term land use, market, support industry, and technical trends
affecting the $1 billion farming industry in the six county regionÑSacramento,
Yolo, Sutter, Yuba and the western slopes of Placer and El Dorado
counties. The forum is scheduled for Friday, January 21, 1:30-4:30
P.M. at Putah Creek Lodge on the UC Davis campus.
As well as a panel of data presenters, the program will include
a reactor panel of growers in the region and audience discussion.
The AIC will prepare a data book for the program, with copies
to be distributed to forum participants and others. The co-sponsor,
the Green Valley Initiative, is an informational group that is
focused on open space preservation issues in the region. For further
information or to register, email: agissues@ucdavis.eduor
call Laurie Treacher at the AIC: 530-752-2320
Report Looks at Economics of Irrigation Water Losses
A new AIC publication analyzes potential impacts of a 25% reduction
in irrigation water supplies to eight Sacramento Valley countiesÑcuts
that are hypothetical but not unrealistic. ItÕs titled Economic
Impacts of Irrigation Water Cuts in the Sacramento Valley. Under
four alternative scenarios, the report examines in detail potential
changes in crop acreage and other on-farm responses, as well as
effects on local economies. The counties are Tehama, Glenn, Butte,
Colusa, Yolo, Yuba, Sacramento and Sutter.
An earlier AIC Issues Brief (No. 1, June, 1997) reported
briefly on one of those scenarios. The new publication, 62 pages
with numerous tables and charts, provides detailed results on
all four scenarios involving:
- Two base situations, a ÒnormalÓ rainfall year and a drought
year.
- Under each base, either no additional groundwater pumping,
or a maximum of a 10% increase.
The authors conclude that even though their economic model allows
substantial adjustments by farmers responding to changes in water
availability, significant farm revenue losses are likely. In all
the rural counties of the Sacramento valley, this translates into
significant losses of overall county income and employmentÑand
those counties with the least economic resources would be hardest
hit. The authors, all with the Department of Agricultural and
Resource Economics at UC Davis, are Hyunok Lee, research economist;
Daniel A. Sumner, professor and director of the AIC; and Richard
E. Howitt, professor. Economic Impacts of Irrigation Water Cuts
in the Sacramento Valley is available from the Center.
Executive Seminar Looks at Trend to Global Retailers
This yearÕs UC Executive Seminar on Agricultural Issues includes
our annual outlook for food and agriculture, and focuses on the
theme of marketing through the new global retailers. The one-day
event, on December 13 in Sacramento, is co-sponsored by the Agricultural
Issues Center and the Center for Cooperatives.
The program features CEOs and senior executives speaking on recent
developments in the food industry and their implications, including
discussions of fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables, and of
nuts and wines.
Speakers and moderators include:
- Dr. Mahlon Lang, director, UC Center for Cooperatives
- Dr. Jerome Siebert, Cooperative Extension economist,
UC Berkeley, and AIC associate director
- Michael Mendes, CEO, Diamond of California
- Dick Spezzano, consultant and retired vice- president,
Produce & Floral Division,Vons Markets
- Christine McGlasson, director, Food Services Marketing,
Blue Diamond Growers
- Don Schriver, executive vice-president, Dairy Farmers
of America
- Richard DeBurgh, food service director, Glendale
School District
- Al Vangelos, Novelle Consulting, Inc.
- Russ Hanlin, CEO emeritus, Sunkist Growers
- Dennis Mullen, CEO, Agrilink Foods
- Marco Dimare, The Dimare Company
- Bill Allewelt, chair, AIC advisory board
- Walt Payne, CEO, Blue Diamond Growers
- Tom Shelton, president, Joseph Phelps Vineyards.
New Publication Highlights FMD Threat
A new AIC report describes a potential economic nightmare for
CaliforniaÕs livestock industryÑthe possible sudden appearance
of foot-and-mouth disease. A detailed study of the industry and
the results of economic modeling reported by Javier M. Ekboir
in the 120-page volume emphasize the crucial importance of quick
detection and immediate control of an outbreak of the disease.
EkboirÕs results indicate that a few days could make a difference
of billions of dollars in control costs and quarantined markets.
Ekboir, now with CIMMYT in Mexico City, was formerly a post-doctoral
fellow in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics
at UC Davis. He conducted his project in cooperation with the
UC School of Veterinary Medicine and with the support of the California
Department of Food and Agriculture. His report is titled Potential
Impact of Foot-and-Mouth Disease in California: The Role and Contribution
of Animal Health Surveillance and Monitoring Services.
EkboirÕs foot-and-mouth disease study preceded and contributed
to the AICÕs on-going Exotic Pest and Disease Project, which includes
case studies of 14 invasive weeds and plant and animal diseases
and pests. A report on that projectÕs conference last May will
go to the printer before the end of the year.
Potential Impact of Foot-and-Mouth Disease in California
is available from the Center for $20. |
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