California Ag Network

Tag: MOU

  • CA and Denmark Sign MOU on Climate Smart Dairy Collaboration

    CDFA Secretary Karen Ross and Minister Rasmus Prehn of Denmark’s Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) focusing on dairy innovations and technologies addressing climate change.  The signing event, which was held virtually, included agricultural stakeholders from California and Denmark, and featured a presentation from the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment at Princeton University.

    “In California, we have invested more than $264 million in Climate Smart Agricultural programs focusing on the dairy sector over the last five years,” said CDFA Secretary Karen Ross “This has resulted in more than 236 projects that will achieve a reduction in CO2 emissions of more than 23 million metric tons of CO2 equivalents over 10 years.”

    “This partnership with Denmark on climate smart dairy collaboration will help to connect farmers, academia and government on the shared challenges related to methane emissions in the agricultural sector – providing the foundation for action and innovation in the future.”

    This MOU continues CDFA’s international collaboration on climate smart agriculture activities. Over the last few months, the department has conducted webinars with Portugal (Lisbon and Tagus Valley) and South Africa (Western Cape). This adds to the ongoing work over the last five years which has included more than 10 webinars on climate smart agricultural issues with a variety of international partners.

    Read the MOU here

  • Raisin Bargaining Association Makes New Raisin Price Offer

    As raisin growers begin to prepare for a new season, most are still uncertain as to what their returns will be for their labors in bringing in the 2020 raisin crop.  There is a lot of uncertainty during these unprecedented times, and with their livelihoods in limbo from year to year due to delayed price agreements between the the Raisin Bargaining Association RBA) and its signatory packers, raisin growers have been have been going through some tough times.

    The RBA continues to work on their growers’ behalf in negotiating a fixed price with the processors.  Over the summer their Board of Directors met and unanimously agreed to a sliding scale fixed price offer of $1,500-$1,900/ton (depending on crop size) for the 2020 raisin crop.  As the packers have still not come to agreement, on January 15th, the RBA Board of Directors wrote a letter to the packers withdrawing their sliding scale MOU offer, replacing it with a new MOU offer for consideration at a field price of $1,500/ton. Packers will need to respond by 5 PM on January 29, 2021, or the offer will become void.

    In this agreement, packers would make an “initial payment” of 60% of the said announced RBA field price for all deliveries within fifteen days of grower’s final delivery of meeting raisins; and a “second payment” of 20% of the field price for all deliveries would be paid by April 30, 2021. The “final payment” would need to be made by July 31, 2021.

    In the RBA letter to the packers, it also reads, “In the event you do not agree to the fixed price and payment terms of this offer, then RBA recommends that we meet and confer to discuss the logistics of moving the RBA 2020-2021 crop raisins now held in memorandum storage at your location to the RBA’s receiving and storage location.”

    As growers go about their trellising/irrigation repairs and winter pruning in the vineyard, they anxiously await news of a unified price agreement that has yet to be seen.