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January 20, 2017
California
Brown’s budget includes boosts for CDFA, ag education
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
SACRAMENTO — Gov.
Jerry Brown’s $122.5 billion
initial state spending plan for
2017-18 calls for a slight boost
for its main agriculture agen-
cy to fund efforts to regulate
marijuana, fight plant pests
and manage antibiotics in live-
stock.
Brown would provide
$284.4 million to the Califor-
nia Department of Food and
Agriculture, up from its $253.9
million in the current budget,
and add nearly 300 new po-
sitions for a total of 1,752.1
full-time-equivalent employ-
ees, according to his Jan. 10
proposal.
The CDFA’s overall budget
would be $411.5 million, down
slightly from the $414.5 million
allocated to the agency in the
2016-17 budget. Federal funds
and fee programs also contrib-
ute to the CDFA’s finances.
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
From left, farm manager B.J. Macfarlane puts a castration band
on a goat held by student Colton DeBerry as student Hunter Allen
stands ready with an inoculation Jan. 9 at Shasta College in Red-
ding, Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed budget includes a $23.6
million boost for community colleges statewide.
The governor’s proposal
would include nearly $22.4
million in new spending to
regulate cannabis production,
which voters legalized for
non-medical uses in November,
and about $2 million apiece to
implement the Produce Safety
Rule and new antibiotics con-
trols.
One key expenditure would
be $4.4 million for a pest and
disease prevention program,
which would devote about
190 employees to such tasks
as combating the spread of the
Asian citrus psyllid and huan-
glongbing, the deadly tree dis-
ease it can carry.
The budget devotes an ad-
ditional $1.75 million and 20
positions to an emergency ex-
otic pest response unit. Some
currently seasonal employees
would be switched to full-time
to address the citrus issue,
CDFA secretary Karen Ross
said.
“Not only have we seen the
spread of the agent itself (the
psyllid), but now we’re seeing
the disease,” which has been
found in 30 trees in Southern
California, Ross told reporters
in a conference call. “We need
to continue the program to beef
up our quarantine and work
with the citrus industry. ... It’s
more crucial now than ever.”
The citrus industry has been
trying for the past two years to
get state money for the psyllid
and HLB, for which the indus-
try has allocated $15 million
toward research and education
and received $11 million from
the federal government.
California is strengthening
its quarantine for the psyllid,
which now covers roughly one-
third of the state’s total land
mass.
The cannabis funding is
part of $57.2 million shared
by five agencies to license and
regulate the drug, which would
be funded by cultivation taxes
and license fees. The CDFA’s
role would include issuing the
licenses and developing a pro-
gram to track the movement of
medical marijuana through the
distribution chain, according to
a budget summary.
Among the other elements
of Brown’s spending plan that
could affect agriculture:
• The governor proposes
increases of $146.7 million for
the University of California,
$76.3 million for the Califor-
nia State University and $23.6
million for community colleges
statewide.
Some of the UC’s new mon-
ey would likely go to the Agri-
culture and Natural Resources
division, which runs Cooper-
ative Extension. The division
plans to add 26 positions to
extension, which now has 173
advisers and 115 specialists,
said Lucas Frerichs, UCANR’s
government and community af-
fairs manager.
“This new ... release contin-
ues our commitment for hiring
to exceed projected turnover,
thus achieving our goal of aca-
demic growth,” Frerichs said in
an email.
• The budget includes anoth-
er $178.7 million in one-time
funding for drought response,
including $91 million for en-
hanced fire protection, $52.7
million for disaster assistance,
$5.3 million for water rights
management and $5 million for
local assistance for small com-
munities.
Agencies tout progress on state’s Strawberry production stabilizes
blueprint for water efficiency
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
SACRAMENTO — Wa-
ter recycling, farm irrigation
efficiency projects and imple-
menting the new groundwater
regulations were among the
state’s accomplishments under
Gov. Jerry Brown’s Water Ac-
tion Plan in 2016, officials said.
Several California agen-
cies are reporting they made
“significant progress” in the
past year toward achieving the
goals set out in the five-year
plan that Brown initiated in
January 2014.
The plan’s major goals in-
clude making conservation “a
way of life,” increasing region-
al water self-reliance, prepar-
ing for droughts and providing
safe water for communities,
according to a summary. It is
also a blueprint for non-res-
ervoir spending under Propo-
sition 1, the
$7.5 billion
water bond
approved
by voters in
2014.
“We will
continue the
‘all of the
John Laird
above’ water
supply strat-
egy we have, which is embod-
ied in the Water Action Plan,”
Natural Resources Agency
Secretary John Laird told re-
porters in a conference call
to discuss Brown’s proposed
budget. “We’ve made major
progress in the 10 major tenets
that are there.
“Given this budget, it con-
templates making even more
progress in the coming year,”
Laird said.
The governor on Jan. 10
proposed spending $248 mil-
lion of Proposition 1 funding
on local projects, an increase
of $15 million to the Depart-
ment of Water Resources to
provide technical assistance
and $2.3 million to the State
Water Resources Control
Board to enforce diversion re-
cording requirements, he said.
Water officials believe they
have momentum going into
2017 based on their work of the
past year, according to a sum-
mary of accomplishments pre-
pared by the Natural Resources
Agency, the state Environmen-
tal Protection Agency and the
state Department of Food and
Agriculture.
“This plan is critically im-
portant beyond the year-to-year
fluctuations we experience in
precipitation,” CDFA Secretary
Karen Ross said in a statement.
“Looking ahead, we know
that we must work together
to make every drop of water
count for California.”
WATSONVILLE, Calif. —
After several years of modest
declines in acreage and produc-
tion, California’s strawberry in-
dustry appears to be stabilizing,
just as China opened its doors
to the berries.
Growers expect to plant
36,141 acres of strawberries
this year 2017, up slightly from
the 36,038 acres planted state-
wide last year, according to a
California Strawberry Com-
mission survey.
The survey comes as the
state’s production returned to
its record-setting ways in 2016,
as growers filled more than
196.4 million flats, the com-
mission reported. Production
vaulted over the nearly 194.8
million flats produced in 2013,
when growers enjoyed their
seventh record-breaking season
in the previous eight years.
Industry representatives see
the rebound as good news for
growers, as global demand for
strawberries is already increas-
ing and new market access to
China portends even more ex-
ports, said Chris Christian, the
strawberry commission’s se-
nior vice president.
“It’s kind of nice to see it
leveling off after a couple of
years of declining acreage,”
Christian said. “The varieties
we’re seeing now are much
higher yielding, and everyone
sees this as a good opportunity
to take advantage of the good
demand.”
Per-person
consumption
of strawberries in the U.S. has
been increasing over the last
two decades, reaching a record
at 7.9 pounds in 2013, accord-
ing to the USDA-funded Ag-
ricultural Marketing Resource
Center. California’s exports
have been decreasing with pro-
duction, as shipments totaled
279.2 million pounds in 2015
compared to nearly 331 million
pounds in 2013, according to
the commission’s latest annual
exports report.
But exports could ramp up
again with access to China, as
that nation’s General Adminis-
tration of Quality Supervision,
Inspection and Quarantine has
set up a pest-detection protocol
to begin accepting California
berries after 11 years of nego-
tiations with the USDA.
“Only a couple of very small
shipments have gone over so
far, but we expect within a cou-
ple of years the China market in
the summer months to be a sig-
nificant opportunity,” Christian
said. “In China, there aren’t any
domestically produced straw-
berries in the summer months.”
Strawberry acreage in Cali-
fornia had been on a downward
trend from 40,816 in 2013, and
production suffered a couple of
years of declines, to 192 mil-
lion 8-pound flats in 2014 and
190 million in 2015, the com-
mission reported.
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