California Ag Network

Category: Ag Economics

  • Samantha Dorsey, President of McEvoy Ranch, Celebrates 20 years of World-class Extra Virgin Olive Oil

    This year, Samantha Dorsey celebrates her 20th anniversary with McEvoy Ranch. Dorsey began her career on the Garden Team in 2001 before becoming Farming Manager in 2013. In 2016, she was promoted to General Manager, then became the company’s President in 2019. Given her tenure, Samantha is intimately familiar with every aspect of the property including its unique microclimates that provide a distinct terroir to our olive orchards and gardens.

    After receiving her BA in Environmental Studies from Oberlin College in 2001, Samantha began her career with McEvoy Ranch. She has managed the olive tree nursery, as well as the Ranch’s vineyards and orchards. Her focus has always centered on sustainable farming, creating a ranch environment that is environmentally, socially, and fiscally sustainable.

    Samantha adds, “We have built a solid team of talented employees here at McEvoy Ranch dedicated to making and sharing our world-class products, as well as supporting our local community and understanding our role in California agriculture. I love learning from our team and working with staff to improve and innovate in agriculture, product development, hospitality, finance, and operations. I love working with such ancient products (olive oil and wine) in such a modern setting. We have thousands of years of production knowledge to build upon, but we do so with all of our modern tools and sensibilities.”

    As President, Samantha is shepherding McEvoy Ranch into its next stage of growth. She continues to lead workshops on olive orchard management and shares her expertise regarding sustainable farming with other growers in many areas including California, Oregon, Arizona, Mexico, and New Zealand. In addition, Samantha sits on the Executive Committee for the Olive Oil Commission of California and is a board member of the Petaluma Gap Winegrowers Alliance.

    About McEvoy Ranch

    For over 30 years, McEvoy Ranch has made award-winning, estate olive oils, small lot wines, culinary, and olive oil beauty products. Located 30 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge in the rolling hills of Petaluma, McEvoy Ranch is a 550-acre working, organic ranch, committed to good land stewardship and sustainable farming practices.

  • Managing Vineyard Pests & Diseases in a Dry Year

    A dry winter and spring impacts more than just water availability for the season. Watch this brief interview with UCCE Viticulture Advisor Gabriel Torres as he shares expected vineyard pest and disease pressures in a dry year.  Read more about vineyard pest and disease management in American Vineyard Magazine.
     
    Please thank this video’s sponsor Vmech for their industry support.

  • Why Early-Stage Succession Planning Is Essential for Ag Businesses

    Farmers often have a great deal of wealth tied-up up in their business. It follows logically, then, that the most important step a business owner can take to protect that wealth they created for their family is to prepare their exit strategy far in advance of their anticipated exit date.  
     
    According to surveys by the Exit Planning Institute, 75% of business owners express regret one year after exiting their business. While there are many reasons for post-exit regret, these reasons often stem from one common cause: Business owners are not engaging in early-stage exit planning. Failure to plan early prevents them from thinking through how plans may go awry and take specific actions to ensure a successful exit. And family transitions only add more complications that need special attention, creating a greater need for early-stage exit planning. 
     
    For many business owners, exiting their business is an unpleasant idea, and burying their head in day-to-day operations is a convenient distraction. But life is full of surprises and an exit can occur much sooner than expected. Having a well-thought-out exit plan is essential to attaining the best outcome, while procrastination is the poison in all exit plans. 
     
    That Essential First Step 
    The first step the business owner must take is to start preparing their business as if they were going to sell it, even with family succession in mind. This process is best performed with the assistance of an exit planning professional, who will examine the business in detail, provide a value-range assessment, and create a detailed plan of action to optimize value and attain the highest sales price. Preparing the business for sale results in the owner developing the processes, systems and documentation necessary for a third-party buyer to step in and continue to run the business seamlessly, without the seller’s involvement. This is a vital for family succession plans because it provides the heirs with the greatest chance to of success. The best run companies — the most valuable business — are the ones that can run smoothly without the owner. 
     
    Ask Yourself the Right Questions 
    Owners need to think carefully about what they want to accomplish when deciding on the outcomes of their exit. There are essential questions the business owner needs to ask themselves, including: 
     
    ·              Will you hand the business over to your children? 
    ·              Do your children have sufficient skills to run the business?  
    ·              Do your children want to take over the business? 
    ·              What if key employees are more qualified to run the business than your heirs? 
    ·              Will you implement a training plan for your heirs? 
    ·              Will you develop incentives for key employees to stay and work for your heirs, instead of allowing resentment to cause them to abandon ship? 
    ·              Will key employees want to buy the business? 
    ·              Have you identified preferred third-party buyers, should the need to sell the business arise unexpectedly?  
     
    Early-stage exit planning includes open conversation about succession plans with all the stakeholders (family, key employees, advisors). This may lead to uncomfortable conversations, but it will also allow the owner to determine the most feasible and effective plan, and forestall potential conflicts arising among stakeholders after the owner exits from the business. 
     
    Pre-Empting Conflict  
    Conflict among heirs is the last thing an owner wants to occur after exiting the business. Unfortunately, there are numerous ways conflict can manifest. For instance: If the owner has more than one child, do they split the business evenly among the heirs? What if only one heir is an active participant in the operations? Heirs who actively work in the business may feel that their participation in the business gives them greater rights to ownership and profits. Heirs who do not participate in the business may feel that an equal share is their birthright. Resolving these potential conflicts should take place long before the owner exits from the business, and not be left for the heirs to resolve among themselves after the ownership transition takes place. 
     
    The Essential Question 
    Founders will often anticipate their heirs taking over their business as soon as they have children. It is a common and normal phenomenon. However, business owners must objectively assess their children’s ability to continue the run the business successfully, and ask themselves these questions: 
     
    ·              Do I want my heirs to inherit the business itself? 
     
    ·              Or do I want my heirs to inherit the wealth that I created in the business?  
     
    If your heirs are qualified to run the business without you, then pursing that succession plan may be your best option. Alternatively, if the children lack the skills or motivation to run the business, you should consider that a sale to employees or to a third party may be your best option. You can then transfer the wealth you created with your business to a diversified portfolio of assets, which can be professionally managed for the benefit of your heirs. There is no intrinsically right or wrong path here: The point is to make certain that you have carefully vetted the exit plan regardless which path you pursue, and that you have an equally vetted contingency plan. 
     
    What No One Tells You About Exit Planning 
    Surprisingly, the topic that gives owners the most difficulty in exiting their business is what they plan to do with their life after they have exited the business. Depression or melancholy in the first year after exiting the business is not uncommon. What will motivate you to get out of bed without a business to go run? After years of building the business, what will be your creative outlet? Did your social life revolve around a business you no longer own? Think about it this way: If you exit your business at age 60, and you live to age 95 (not uncommon), what is going to fulfill your sense of purpose for the next 35 years? Developing and testing your post-exit life plan while you still own your business is an essential step in exit planning. 
     
    The Time to Plan Is Now 
    Regardless of when or how the owner plans to exit their business, succession planning should start very early. Transitions without carefully developed plans can go horribly awry. Have a thoroughly vetted plan for the most desirable outcome in place — and have equally vetted alternative plans. And of course, make sure you include a professional exit planning professional in the process to ensure you remain objective and thorough in developing the most effective exit plan possible. — By Rich Gunn, CEPA
    Rich Gunn is a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) and a Partner in the Advisory practice at BPM, one of 50 largest accounting and advisory firms in the country. His newsletter, the Business Owners Special Series (B.O.S.S.), is distributed monthly and serves as the basis for his recently published e-book, Value-Focused Business Planning.

  • Wilbur-Ellis Marks 100th Anniversary with “Innovation Award” for Student Teams

    Today, Wilbur-Ellis marks its 100th anniversary. As the culmination of a year-long celebration, the company is launching the “Wilbur-Ellis Innovation Award,” a program that engages young people in finding innovative ways to feed a growing world population and offers a $25,000 award for the best idea.

    The Innovation Award invites student teams from U.S. colleges and universities to propose new and better approaches for providing food for more people – a critical imperative, since the world population is expected to increase by 2 billon people by 2050.

    “It’s very clear. A world where people have enough to eat is a safer, more secure world,” said John Buckley, Wilbur-Ellis President and Chief Executive Officer. “Since Wilbur-Ellis was founded 100 years ago, we’ve worked with our customers and suppliers to put food on tables around the world. So, it’s appropriate that as a legacy of our 100th anniversary, we’re engaging the next generation in this important work.”

    In discussing the purpose of the Innovation Award, Buckley said: “We hope the award encourages young people to think creatively and bring forward promising new ideas. With this focus on feeding a growing population, the teams could explore more efficient and sustainable ways to produce, distribute, prepare, or package food. Teams might look at alternative food ingredients, reducing food waste, or finding new ways to alleviate food insecurity. Whatever it is, we want to encourage out-of-the-box thinking.”

    At the end of the competition in 2022, a $25,000 USD award will be presented to the team that submits the best proposal, and $5,000 USD honorable mention awards may also be given. In the first year, the award competition is open to U.S.-based student teams (undergraduate or graduate), with a goal of expanding to other countries in the future. To learn more, please visit the Wilbur-Ellis Innovation Award web page and view CEO John Buckley’s video.

    “As a family-owned company, I’m proud that our celebration will make a lasting contribution with the Innovation Award,” said John Thacher, Executive Chairman of the Wilbur-Ellis Board of Directors, a former CEO, and grandson of company founder Brayton Wilbur Sr. “When my grandfather founded Wilbur-Ellis 100 years ago, he wanted to build something that would last … that would improve people’s lives. In our business, this is what we strive to do every day. The Innovation Award is one more way to make a positive difference.”

    100th Anniversary Benefits the Red Cross and Hunger Relief

    With the COVID-19 pandemic, Wilbur-Ellis had to pivot from its original plans to a virtual celebration. One part of the celebration was a 100th Anniversary Giving Program. Each month a new question was posed for employees and friends of Wilbur-Ellis, as well as for the children in employees’ families. For each response the company added to a donation for the Red Cross.

    Today, Wilbur-Ellis is announcing that $52,000 USD has been raised for the Red Cross through the Giving Program, building on the company’s $100,000 donation in 2020.

    Jennifer Adrio, CEO of the Northern California Coastal Region of the Red Cross, said: “On behalf of those we serve, we are deeply grateful that your Giving Program supports our mission. It is because of partners like Wilbur-Ellis that the Red Cross can deliver on our humanitarian mission 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Thank you for standing with us, and happy anniversary!”

    During the celebration, the company’s employees also contributed to the Wilbur-Ellis Fund Drive to Stop Hunger. A total of $30,000 was raised through employee contributions and company matching funds, benefitting Feeding America in the U.S., Second Harvest of Canada, and Action Against Hunger internationally.

    “Wilbur-Ellis and its employees have a long tradition of giving back,” said Executive Chairman John Thacher. “When the pandemic happened and the needs of our communities were so great, we increased the focus on helping people in need. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate our heritage and our future.”

    Founded in 1921, the Wilbur-Ellis companies are leading international marketers, distributors and manufacturers of agricultural products, animal nutrients and specialty chemicals and ingredients. By developing strong relationships, making strategic market investments and capitalizing on new opportunities, the Wilbur-Ellis companies have continued to grow the business with sales of over $3 billion. For more information, please visit www.wilburellis.com.

  • Land Trust Alliance Welcomes Reintroduction of Conservation Easement Legislation in Congress

    The Land Trust Alliance, a national land conservation organization working to save the places people need and love by strengthening land conservation across America, today welcomed reintroduction in Congress of the Charitable Conservation Easement Program Integrity Act. The following statement can be attributed to Andrew Bowman, president & CEO of the Land Trust Alliance:

    “On behalf of the Land Trust Alliance and its nearly 1,000 member land trusts, I thank Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Steve Daines of Montana, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Chuck Grassley of Iowa along with Reps. Mike Thompson of California and Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania for reintroducing the Charitable Conservation Easement Program Integrity Act. The time has come to safeguard taxpayers and ensure the continued viability and integrity of this successful program. Congress must pass the Charitable Conservation Easement Program Integrity Act this year.

    “Lobbyists working against the Charitable Conservation Easement Program Integrity Act claim it would hinder land conservation. But even a cursory examination of the facts shows this is patently false. Each year, approximately 2,000 to 2,500 conservation donations are made by landowners for truly charitable purposes. Such donations total about $1 billion in claimed deductions per year. That stands in sharp contrast with the $9.2 billion claimed by 296 entities – bad actors gaming the system through abusive transactions – in 2018 alone. If these bad actors are allowed to continue, their actions could destroy a longstanding and successful program. It is these bad actors, not this good legislation, that stand to hinder land conservation. Passing the Charitable Conservation Easement Program Integrity Act will safeguard the taxpaying public while ensuring the incentive for land conservation remains available for landowners acting with true charitable intent.

    “Additionally, lobbyists have claimed the effective date of the bill is retroactive. But that’s a disingenuous argument. The effective date of the legislation is the actual date the IRS placed these bad actors on notice and told them to halt their abusive transactions. Maintaining the effective date will ensure that funds taken from taxpayers and pocketed by these bad actors will be returned. Any attempts to shift the effective date are de facto attempts to protect the massive profiteering these bad actors have enjoyed.”

    More information about this issue is available at https://www.landtrustalliance.org/charitable-conservation-easement-program-integrity-act-advocate-toolkit.

    About the Land Trust Alliance

    Founded in 1982, the Land Trust Alliance is a national land conservation organization that works to save the places people need and love by strengthening land conservation across America. The Alliance represents nearly 1,000 member land trusts supported by more than 200,000 volunteers and 4.6 million members nationwide. The Alliance is based in Washington, D.C., and operates several regional offices. More information about the Alliance is available at www.landtrustalliance.org.

  • Market Fundamentals Drive the Beef & Cattle Market

    The North American Meat Institute (Meat Institute), the largest and oldest trade association for packers and processors of beef, pork, lamb, veal and turkey today said market fundamentals drive the beef and cattle market and additional government intervention will have unintended consequences for livestock producers, packers and consumers.

    “Long time critics of the meat and poultry industry are again proposing additional regulations and shortsighted market interventions that do not consider the basic laws of supply and demand. Many of these proposals have already failed in practice or before the courts,” said Meat Institute President and CEO Julie Anna Potts. “The beef market is dynamic, with recent challenges due to labor shortages and the COVID pandemic rather than problems with market structure.

    “The members of the Meat Institute – and their livestock suppliers – benefit from, and depend on, a fair, transparent and competitive market. The North American Meat Institute is prepared to discuss these issues and work with the Administration and the Congress on the issues facing the industry.” 

    The Meat Institute made these remarks in written testimony submitted to the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry for a hearing entitled, “Examining Markets, Transparency, and Prices from Cattle Producer to Consumer.”

    The testimony provides a comprehensive picture of the dynamic and growing beef industry and an analysis of rhetoric surrounding oversight of the market, antitrust issues and the market forces at play.

    Of particular interest is a new analysis (pages 8 and 9 of the testimony), using USDA data, of the profit margins of the three sectors of the fed cattle industry: cow-calf producers, feeders and packers. The data show that over the last 25 years, while the four-firm concentration ratio in the fed cattle market has remained relatively constant, it has not ensured packer profitability at the expense of producers. 

    “No sector – cow-calf, feedlot, nor packer – has realized positive margins every year,” Potts said. “For example, the four-firm ratio in 2014, when cow-calf and feedlot profit margins were at record highs, was the same as in 2017 when all three sectors showed positive margins. However, over this 25-year timeline, the cow-calf sector incurred negative margins the fewest number of years of the three.”

    In addressing calls for additional packer capacity as a solution to the challenges due to the COVID pandemic, the testimony demonstrates that packer capacity is already growing as a result of market forces, without government intervention.

    “These new entrants or company expansions were based on decisions to build or expand based on market conditions, not because of government intervention.  Government interference into the market could well undermine this industry growth,” said Potts.

    “During the pandemic, small and midsize beef slaughter and processing companies endured the same challenges large companies faced, perhaps more so. Artificially creating more, smaller regional harvest facilities will not prevent future market disruptions nor protect cattle producers from cyclical or volatile markets. The unintended outcome could be the opposite.”

    For additional information about beef markets see the Meat Institute’s Facts about Common Meat Market Myths and the Meat Institute’s comments submitted earlier this week in response to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack’s request for comments on efforts to improve supply chains for the production of agricultural commodities and food products. The Meat Institute has several resources about beef markets here. And for more on the pandemic and its effect on the meat and poultry industry, go here.

    About North American Meat Institute

    The North American Meat Institute is a leading voice for the meat and poultry industry. The Meat Institute’s members process the vast majority of U.S. beef, pork, lamb, and poultry, as well as manufactures the equipment and ingredients needed to produce safe, high quality meat and poultry products.

  • Ravens & Crows Wreak Havoc in Orchards, Vineyards & Dairies

    Do you suspect some big black birds are damaging your irrigation lines, pecking at your newborn calves or eating your developing crop? You may have a problem with crows or ravens. But how do you tell the two apart, and how can you legally control them? Watch this brief interview with Brian Popper from USDA-APHIS Wildlife Services to learn more (special thanks to Hardshell Labs for providing some of the video b-roll footage).

    Please thank this video’s sponsor Suterra for their industry support.

  • Drought Impact on Early Season Stage of SJV Wine Grapes

    Choosing when to irrigate this season with a very limited resource amidst the current drought can be quite a challenge, and the adverse effects of insufficient irrigation are already becoming manifest in the 2021 San Joaquin Valley wine grape crop.  Watch this brief interview with UCCE Viticulture Advisor Karl Lund and read more about it in American Vineyard Magazine.

    Please thank this video’s sponsor Vmech for their industry support.

  • California Raisin Outlook: Prices, Production & the RBA

    Watch this brief interview with Dwayne Cardoza from the Raisin Bargaining Association as he shared some key insights on the current state of the California raisin industry at their recent annual meeting.  Read more about it in American Vineyard Magazine.

    Please thank this video’s sponsor Vmech for their industry support.

  • California Raisin Marketing Board Gets Shut Down

    Just last month, a vote passed to shut down the California Raisin Marketing Board. But what of generic California raisin marketing and the iconic dancing raisins? Watch this brief interview with Dwayne Cardoza from the Raisin Bargaining Association and read more about it in American Vineyard Magazine.

    Please thank this video’s sponsor Vmech for their industry support.