The recent announcement of table olive processing contracts being cancelled by Bell-Carter Foods on nearly 4,500 acres of olives grown in Tulare County has Tulare County Farm Bureau paying attention. Farm Bureau is asking state and federal officials to take action to assist those growers impacted by these contract cancellations.
Specifically the ask from growers is to help close a loophole that has allowed a foreign company to acquire ownership in a US based olive processor, and flood the market with cheap foreign olives while displacing California olive growers. What happens in this commodity can certainly happen in others.
In Tulare County approximately 4,500 acres of olives will be impacted by this action, prompted by the announcement that a European conglomerate, Dcoop, has acquired a 20% ownership interest in Bell-Carter Foods and will be shipping cheaper grown Spanish and Argentine olives into the US for processing under a loophole that will allow the company to avoid paying tariffs on their imported raw unprocessed olives.
The impacts to our local economy will be felt by many, including the olive growers who have lost their processing contracts, and the 1500 estimated farm workers who could find their annual income severely impacted by the loss of the harvest work that is traditionally done in September and October when olive picking occurs. “These are highly skilled workers that will lose some of their most lucrative earning opportunity with this acreage going out of production,” stated olive grower Bill Ferry.
Significant impacts that concern Farm Bureau and local growers are:
While there is one other major table olive processor in California, Musco Family Olive Co. is not able at this time to ensure that all of this contracted acreage could be processed in their facilities. Until it is known, the displaced growers face great financial uncertainty.
Olive growers also have less than one week to determine if they will renew their crop insurance for the 2019-20 growing season. It would be difficult to incur the expense for crop insurance for a crop they cannot sell.
Agricultural Council of California’s Annual Meeting, which was held March 4-5 in Monterey, marked a historic event this year as the organization celebrated 100 years of working on behalf of farmers and farmer-owned businesses. The event was held in conjunction with CoBank’s Pacific West Customer meeting.
“Reaching 100 years as an organization is a remarkable accomplishment,” said Carl Hoff, Ag Council chairman and president and CEO of Butte County Rice Growers, during his address. “Our founders had vision and foresight, and we are proud to have continued to fulfill their mission to provide our members a valuable service as they engage in the noble effort of feeding the world.”
Hoff took a retrospective look back at California’s agricultural industry in 1919 and compared it with the present environment. Vast changes in technology, farming methods and California’s population mean that many of the issues that Ag Council addresses on behalf of its members are different than they were in 1919, but the mission to ensure a better business environment for its members has not altered. During his address, Hoff also recognized the four cooperatives who have been members the entire 100 years-Blue Diamond, Sunkist, Sun-Maid and Sunsweet.”
Our steadfast commitment is to focus on the issues and ensure a sustainable future for our industry,” he added. “Agriculture has changed, our members’ businesses have changed, but we have made the hard choices and thrived through the years.”
In her annual address, Emily Rooney, president of Ag Council, also underscored the changes that have occurred since the founding of Ag Council, but also quoted the organization’s original charter mission, which has served as a roadmap for the last 100 years: An organization shall “be formed for the purpose of drafting beneficial legislation and guarding against vicious or dangerous laws which might affect agricultural interests.”
“While sometimes many of us feel like we are under attack in California, I believe it is not our principles, but our practices, that are under scrutiny. And, innovation can help us address those concerns,” she said. “As challenging as that can be, Ag Council has been successful in finding opportunities to address these issues while creating the change that optimizes our future.
“Rooney discussed Ag Council’s efforts in several policy areas, and a more detailed accounting of the organization’s advocacy work can be found in the Centennial Impact Report, which was released during the annual meeting. A full copy can be accessed at www.agcouncil.org.
This year’s Annual Meeting featured a Centennial Celebration on Monday evening. Gonzales FFA provided a presentation of the colors, and students Amy Aceves and Cynthia Ruiz spoke about their experiences with FFA and thanked Ag Council and its members for their support. The evening also included a presentation of a U.S. Senate Resolution by Shelly Abajian, director of Senator Dianne Feinstein’s Central California Office as well as the release of a video chronicling the history of Ag Council. Prior Ag Council Presidents Lee Ruth and Don Gordon were in attendance to help celebrate this historic event.
The General Session held the following day, and moderated by Jackson Gualco of The Gualco Group, featured Dr. Daniel Mountjoy, of Sustainable Conservation who spoke about the role of groundwater in California agriculture and his work to promote a sustainable future via various innovative methods; Dr. Joseph Castro, president of California State University, Fresno; and, Chuck Conner, president and CEO of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives.
The 100th Annual Meeting concluded with a luncheon that honored California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross as the recipient of the prestigious 2019 California Cultivator Award. As a Nebraska native and former staff person of Ag Council, Ross offered a heartfelt acceptance of the award. “Working at Ag Council was an important chapter in my career. The members and leadership opened my eyes to the miracle of California agriculture and that has become the best part of my job to reflect on how lucky we are to be involved in this industry.
“For more information about Ag Council’s Annual Meeting, visit www.agcouncil.org.
About Ag Council
Founded in 1919, Agricultural Council of California is a member-supported organization advocating for more than 15,000 farmers across California, ranging from farmer-owned businesses to the world’s best-known brands. Ag Council serves as the farmers’ voice in California government. Ag Council works tirelessly to keep its members productive and competitive, so that agriculture can remain California’s number-one industry and members can continue to produce the highest quality food for the entire world. For more information, visit www.agcouncil.org.
Under the new California Federal Milk Marketing Order, dairy processors now have the option of whether to pool their milk (outside of Class 1 milk). So what does this mean and how does it affect the industry? Watch this brief interview with Annie AcMoody from Western United Dairymen as she explains. Read more about it in California Dairy Magazine.
Biocontrol agents, beneficial microbes, entomopathogenic fungi and bacteria that can enhance crop production — these were all topics of discussion at the recent UC Cooperative Extension Ag Innovations Conference in Santa Maria, led by UCCE Entomology & Biologicals Advisor Surendra Dara. Watch this brief interview with Surendra as he shares more about what was discussed.
With the recent conversion to a Federal Milk Marketing Order in California, dairy producers may notice some changes in the way they are paid? Watch this brief interview with Annie Acmoody from Western United Dairymen as she explains some of the changes. Read more about it in California Dairy Magazine.
As the California Farmland Trust (CFT) works with more farmers and protects more farmland, the team is growing to meet the demand. The Elk Grove-based agricultural non-profit is pleased to announce Chelsea Molina as their new Conservation Project Coordinator.
Chelsea has a dynamic style and the experience needed to deeply connect farmers and CFT. A deep connection is paramount to building the trust and rapport required through the lengthy process of protecting farmland among agency funders, farmers and their family members, and CFT.
“Chelsea has in-depth knowledge of agriculture and the diversity of the participants involved in conservation work. This knowledge will contribute greatly to the overall success of the California Farmland Trust,” said Charlotte Mitchell, CFT executive director. Chelsea will be in charge of conservation easement coordination and helping the CFT project team and landowners with a clear, concise, and orderly transaction process.
Chelsea comes to CFT from the California Waterfowl Association as director of development and prior to that managed the Political Affairs Department of the California Farm Bureau Federation. Thanks to an internship in Washington DC where she worked on the Farm Bill and agricultural policy, Chelsea has a keen awareness that it takes many contributing parties to succeed in conservation. “For long-term and widespread farmland conservation across a diverse state like California, the future will require support and consideration of many stakeholders, such as environmentalists, agriculturalists, agencies, and the public,” said Chelsea.
“Here, we are all part of this mission and want to move it forward as a team – to protect ag land in CA,” continues Chelsea. “I am very detail oriented, enjoy working with people (especially farmers), and towards a common goal. Agricultural easement transactions take all three. I look forward to moving us forward to protect more of the best farmland in the world.”
Chelsea is a native of Elk Grove and a graduate of Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo where she majored in Agricultural Communications with a minor in Ag Business.
So how is the current global dairy market impacting California milk prices? What specific milk commodities are doing well, and what isn’t? Watch this brief interview with Annie Acmoody from Western United Dairymen to find out. Read more about it in California Dairy Magazine.
A team of researchers, including two from the University of California, Riverside, has identified the genes responsible for the hallmark sour taste of many citrus fruits. Published Tuesday, Feb. 25 in Nature Communications, the research could help plant breeders develop new, sweeter varieties.
Modern citrus varieties have been bred over thousands of years to generate a broad palette of sour and sweet-tasting fruits. Analyses of their pulp reveals that a single chemical element—hydrogen—is largely responsible for the difference between sour and sweet-tasting varieties, which usually have similar sugar content. The pulp from sour fruits contains more hydrogen ions, giving it a lower pH and a tangy taste that is recognized by acid-sensitive cells in our taste buds. Conversely, pulp from sweeter varieties contains fewer hydrogen ions and tastes less acidic.
Ronald Koes and colleagues at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands set out to untangle how some citrus varieties wind up with more acidic juice than others, a process that until now has remained a mystery. Their interest stemmed from a previous study showing that higher acidity in purple petunia flowers resulted in more petal pigmentation.
Intrigued by the Faris variety of lemon tree, which produces branches bearing both sweet and sour fruits, and white and purple-tinged flowers, Koes’ team turned to UCR plant scientists Mikeal Roose and Claire Federici. Using the university’s vast Citrus Variety Collection, which preserves over 1,000 living citrus and related fruit varieties, Roose and Federici selected the Faris lemon and 20 other citrus fruits ranging from wincingly sour to sugary sweet for Koes’ team to analyze.
By studying the expression of genes related to those controlling acidity in petunias, Koes’ team identified two citrus genes, CitPH1 and CitPH5, that are highly expressed in sour varieties and weakly expressed in sweet-tasting varieties. The CitPH1 and CitPH5 genes encode transporter proteins that pump hydrogen ions into the vacuole, a large storage compartment inside juice cells, thus increasing their overall acidity.
Next, the team turned its attention to genes that control the levels of CitPH1 and CitPH5 in juice cells. While down-regulation of CitPH1 and CitPH5 in sweeter tasting varieties arose multiple times independently in different varieties, the researchers found that mutations in genes for a handful of transcription factors (proteins that help turn specific genes on and off) were responsible for reduced expression of CitPH1 and CitPH5, and therefore a sweeter taste.
Roose, a professor of genetics in UCR’s College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, said the findings could help breeders develop better-tasting citrus fruits. However, he said breeding varieties with severe mutations in the transcription factors such as those studied in the “acidless” citrus would be “overkill,” producing sugary citrus fruits with none of their popular acidic kick. Instead, plant scientists should look to target mutations that have a less dramatic effect on the production and activity of transporter proteins.
“By understanding the mechanism acidification of fruit cells, we can now look for related genes that might reduce the expression of CitPH1 and CitPH5 just enough to engineer or select for new, sweeter varieties,” Roose said.
The title of the paper is “Hyperacidification of Citrus fruits by a vacuolar proton-pumping P-ATPase complex.” In addition to Koes, authors at the University of Amsterdam are Pamela Strazzer, Cornelis Spelt, Shuangjiang Li, Mattijs Bliek, and Francesca Quattrocchio. Roose and Federici’s work was supported by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
About UC Riverside: The University of California, Riverside (www.ucr.edu) is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California’s diverse culture, UCR’s enrollment is now nearly 23,000 students. The campus opened a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual statewide economic impact of more than $1 billion. To learn more, call (951) UCR-NEWS.