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November 18, 2016
California
Almond growers plant 14.5M
California FFA raising
funds for members’ jackets new trees despite price slide
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
GALT, Calif. — The Cali-
fornia FFA Foundation is rais-
ing money to buy the iconic
blue corduroy jackets for stu-
dents who can’t afford them.
This year’s fundraiser is
Nov. 29, and the FFA foun-
dation wants to raise at least
$6,500 — enough to give a
jacket with a tie or scarf to
100 students.
Katie Otto, the founda-
tion’s development director,
said many students have to
borrow jackets from their
chapter for competitions and
events.
“A lot of them didn’t have
the means to have their own
jackets,” she said. “Definitely
for me it illustrated the need
(to help) all of our students
who don’t have the opportuni-
ty to have a jacket with their
name on it that fits comfort-
ably.”
The push started during
the run-up to the Sacramento
area’s Big Day of Giving on
May 4, during which local
residents and businesses do-
Capital Press File
Orland, Calif., members wear their emblematic blue FFA jackets at
a competition.
nated more than $22,000 to
support FFA and agricultural
education.
The foundation sent emails
to members and supporters,
and many of them told emo-
tional stories about what their
jackets meant to them, Otto
said.
“It kind of becomes their
identity,” she said, adding
that some members still have
their parents’ or grandparents’
jackets.
“After we did the Big Day
of Giving, we talked about
online giving,” Otto said. “I
had heard of Giving Tues-
day in the past but I didn’t
know much about it. ... With
Thanksgiving being an oppor-
tunity to be thankful and give
back, it made sense.”
Giving Tuesday is a Unit-
ed Nations Foundation-spon-
sored movement to encourage
philanthropy at the beginning
of the holiday season.
SACRAMENTO — A
nursery survey reporting at
least 14.5 million new almond
trees have been planted since
June 2015 shows the contin-
ued vibrancy of the industry,
experts say.
Based on an average of 135
trees per acre, the new pur-
chases equate to 108,000 acres
of almonds planted, according
to the National Agricultural
Statistics Service.
A little more than 71 per-
cent of the trees sold — or
77,000 acres — are new al-
mond orchards while the rest
were used to replace existing
trees or orchards that were tak-
en out, the agency explains.
The estimate is consistent
with an April acreage report
that found there are 220,000
non-bearing acres of almonds
yet to come online, said Rich-
ard Waycott, president and
chief executive officer of the
Almond Board of California.
“Those trees are between 1
and 3 years of age,” said Way-
cott, noting that if one-third of
them are new, that would be
close to 77,000 acres. “It’s in
keeping with where we are in
terms of new orchard expan-
sion.”
The growth continues as
prices have fallen by nearly
half in the past year from the
more than $4 a pound that was
paid for some almonds during
the 2014 crop year. The re-
duced prices and development
of new products using almonds
revived demand, leading to re-
cord shipments this summer,
industry officials said.
“It’s still a good invest-
ment,” University of Califor-
nia Cooperative Extension
farm advisor Roger Duncan
said of almonds. “It still makes
sense. Farmers are still making
money. It’s still profitable. If
you’re a farmer and you own
land, you have to farm some-
thing, and you look at all your
options.”
Several factors have fed the
continued growth in acreage
even amid lower prices, experts
said.
For one, some of the trees
may have been ordered from
nurseries while prices were
still booming, as there was a
waiting list of a year or two for
some varieties.
Moreover, the lower prices
were an incentive for growers
to replace older orchards that
had lost productivity, Duncan
said.
“An almond orchard’s life-
span is somewhere around 25
years,” he said. “A lot of or-
chards have been artificially ...
kept on life support. In previous
times they would have been re-
moved, but because prices were
so high, even the fairly poorly
producing orchards were mak-
ing money.”
Satellite imagery used by
the Almond Board has found
that 96 percent of new almond
orchards have gone into exist-
ing irrigated land, replacing
other crops, Waycott said. Only
4 percent went onto grazing
land or other land that wasn’t
irrigated, he said.
“I think it’s just a shift go-
ing on between what (crops)
are more profitable as foreseen
by growers and more essential
in the California environment
than certain crops that can be
grown elsewhere,” Waycott
said.
In anticipation of a 25 per-
cent increase in production over
the next three years as the new
trees come on line, the Almond
Board is seeking the USDA’s
permission to raise its grower
assessment from 3 cents to 4
cents per pound, which would
increase its income from about
$60 million to $80 million an-
nually, Waycott said.
Officials:
California
salmon avoid
catastrophic
year
By SCOTT SMITH
Associated Press
47-4/#4N
FRESNO, Calif. — Cali-
fornia’s native salmon, which
has been hard hit by historic
drought and high tempera-
tures, has avoided a third di-
sastrous year, federal officials
said Thursday.
The number of juvenile
winter-run chinook salmon
spawning on the Sacramento
River in Northern California
and swimming out to sea has
doubled from 2015, and it’s
significantly up from the prior
year, officials said.
California has experienced
five years of drought. The
fishing industry and farmers
in California’s fertile Central
Valley are in a constant strug-
gle over the same river water
to sustain their livelihoods.
The fish — federally pro-
tected as an endangered spe-
cies — were bolstered by
heavy rainstorms in March,
said Maria Rea of the Nation-
al Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration
Fisheries’
Central Valley Office.
Storms filled Shasta Lake
so officials could hold back
cold water behind the dam
and release it through the hot
months, when young salmon
need it to survive in the river
below, she said.
Officials note, however,
that this year’s run so far is
made up of less than half of
the 1.1 million counted in
2010 — a sign that they are
still struggling.
“It’s too early to declare a
huge success,” said Garwin
Yip, branch chief for water
operations at NOAA’s Fisher-
ies California Central Valley
Office.
John McManus, executive
director of the Golden Gate
Salmon Association, said the
rebound this year is good
news.
The salmon industry in
California is valued at $1.4
billion annually. It supports
23,000 jobs in California, he
said.
Yet McManus said he
worries about coming years,
when salmon that spawned
before in low numbers at the
height of drought return.
“What happens next sum-
mer?” he said. “We don’t
know.”