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CapitalPress.com
June 10, 2016
Farm groups relieved as ag
overtime bill dies in Assembly
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
SACRAMENTO — Ag-
ricultural leaders are relieved
that legislation that would do
away with agricultural excep-
tions to California’s overtime
laws failed to make it out of
the Assembly.
The bill by Assembly-
woman Lorena Sanchez,
D-San Diego, would have
phased in a requirement that
ag employers observe the
same eight-hour work day
and 40-hour work week as
other employers. State law
now requires overtime to be
paid to farmworkers who ex-
ceed 10 hours in a day or 60
hours in a week.
The bill needed 41 votes
to pass in the Assembly be-
fore a June 2 deadline to move
legislation out of its originat-
ing chamber. It was favored
by only a 37-34 vote.
Its defeat offers a bit of a
reprieve to growers who are
still reeling from this year’s
passage of legislation grad-
ually increasing the state’s
minimum wage to $15 an
hour, noted Justin Oldfield,
the California Cattlemen’s
Association’s vice president
of government relations.
But he said the proposal
could be added to another bill
later in the year or reintro-
duced next year.
“As we get later in the
year, there absolutely could be
a play to try to do that,” Old-
field said. “We definitely do
expect this issue to resurface
again, whether it’s in this leg-
islative session or next year.
“It’s definitely a good vic-
tory for the day and we just
can’t be complacent,” he said.
“We have to continue to work
to address the issue and move
forward.”
California Farm Bureau
Federation President Paul
Wenger said on the organi-
zation’s website the bill’s
demise “shows what farmers
and ranchers can do when
they work together.” He noted
that California is one of only
five states to offer premium
pay for farm work under rules
established in 1976.
The CFBF and CCA op-
posed the bill, asserting that
imposing the standard work
week on agriculture could
bring drastic cost increases
and could prompt some grow-
ers to leave the state.
A bill similar to Gon-
zales’ failed in the Califor-
nia Assembly in 2012, two
years after then-Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger vetoed an-
other such proposal. The lat-
est attempt comes as lawmak-
ers quickly approved a bill
this spring that will take the
state’s minimum wage to $15
an hour by 2020.
“I think the action that
was taken earlier in the year
caught everyone off guard,
including many in the Leg-
islature,” Oldfield said. He
added the proposed overtime
changes would “certainly be
a double whammy and one
that would just be piling
on impacts to farmers and
ranchers.”
In other legislative activ-
ity, the Assembly did pass
a bill by Assemblyman Jim
Wood, D-Healdsburg, that
would tax the sale and distri-
bution of medical marijuana
to pay for law enforcement
efforts to crack down on ille-
gal grows and for cleanup of
illegal cultivation sites. Farm
groups support the legisla-
tion, which now moves to the
Senate.
University of Idaho ag dean
‘fully committed’ to Parma station
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
PARMA, Idaho — Since
being slated for closure in
2009 and on its last breaths,
the University of Idaho’s Par-
ma Research and Extension
Center has made a comeback
and is now targeted for a re-
vival.
On June 2, Michael Parrel-
la, the new dean of UI’s Col-
lege of Agricultural and Life
Sciences, told researchers and
industry members the univer-
sity solidly backs the Parma
station.
Parma and the university’s
other eight research stations
are integral parts of CALS,
Parrella said.
“Investing here is a prior-
ity. I am fully committed to
that,” he told members of the
Treasure Valley Ag Coalition,
which formed in 2009 to save
the station.
Parrella assured TVAC
members that he understands
“having these research centers
is very important to you as an
industry” and added that UI is
“partners in moving your in-
dustry and the state of Idaho
forward (because) ag is a tre-
mendous part of Idaho’s econ-
omy.”
TVAC co-chairman Jon
Watson, who represents onions
and other row crops on the
committee, told Parrella that
his words were well received.
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
Michael Parrella, dean of the University of Idaho’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, second
from right, tours a new cold storage facility at the Parma research station June 2, along with research-
ers and industry members.
“We like what we hear,” he
said. “That’s very good to our
ears.”
The 200-acre Parma sta-
tion houses nine faculty mem-
bers who conduct research on
many of the crops grown in
the region, including vegeta-
bles, forages, cereals, hops,
mint and fruit and seed crops.
The station has entomol-
ogy, soils, horticulture, crop
management, pomology, viti-
culture, nematology and plant
pathology programs.
After CALS lost nearly $5
million in state funding for
research and extension efforts
during the recession, Parma
was slated for closure.
Entomologist Jim Barbour,
the station’s superintendent,
said the center was closed
on paper at one point but the
intervention of the quickly
formed TVAC began a series
of events that saved it.
TVAC members provided
temporary funding to keep it
operational and then an agree-
ment between UI and Simplot
that provided the Parma sta-
tion $300,000 a year for five
years assured its survival.
The fruit industry also pro-
vides $30,000 a year to help
keep the pomology program
afloat.
A new $500,000 state-of-
the-art cold storage facility at
the Parma station that was fin-
ished last month is proof that
the university is solidly be-
hind the center, Barbour said.
“It’s evidence of that com-
mitment to the station,” he
said. “People here really feel
that the ... college is behind
them.”
Parrella thanked TVAC
members for “stepping up and
supporting the station when
times were very difficult” and
told them the station would
soon be fully funded by the
state, aside from the Simplot
dollars.
After storms, 2016 prune crop could be smallest on record
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
RED BLUFF, Calif. —
Prune production in California
this season will be less than
half of what it was last year be-
cause storms in March disrupt-
ed the bloom, leaving growers
with perhaps the state’s small-
est prune crop in nearly a cen-
tury of record-keeping.
This year’s crop is expect-
ed to weigh in at about 45,000
tons, down 58 percent from the
107,000 tons that came out of
dryers in 2015, according to
the National Agricultural Sta-
tistics Service.
If the prediction comes
true, this year’s crop would be
the smallest on record since of-
ficial estimates began in 1920,
NASS officials said.
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
Plums develop in an orchard
near Red Bluff, Calif., on June 6.
The forecast, which is
based on surveys returned by
217 growers statewide, follows
cold, wet and windy weather
that created adverse conditions
for bees during the height of
the pollination period.
The prediction wasn’t a
surprise to growers, including
Michael Vasey, general man-
ager of Lindauer River Ranch
in Red Bluff.
“I’m down that much or
a little more,” Vasey said. “I
think the impact was greater
… between Yuba City and Red
Bluff, where it’s a very light
crop — we think about a third
of the normal crop. People in
the San Joaquin Valley got a
good crop because the weather
wasn’t quite like ours.”
The severity of disruption
varied greatly among regions,
agreed Donn Zea, the Califor-
nia Dried Plum Board’s execu-
tive director.
“I think everyone was pro-
viding educated guesses of
between 40 and 60 percent of
last year’s crop” statewide,
Zea said. “It came out to be
just where we thought it would
be. The quality looks good;
when there are less prunes on
the tree, the prunes that are
there are a little larger, which
is good for our customers.”
While the March storms
filled reservoirs, they caused
spotty, uneven pollination of
plum trees which resulted in
a much heavier-than-normal
shed of the developing fruit in
subsequent weeks, the Prune
Bargaining Association report-
ed.
The PBA was warning
growers in the fall that a warm
and wet winter could threaten
the 2016 crop, although indus-
try insiders were more con-
cerned about disease problems
in trees.
California’s prune produc-
tion has already dropped con-
siderably since nearly 200,000
dry tons came out of dryers in
2006, according to NASS. Just
four years ago, producers put
out 138,000 tons.
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