California farmers are known for growing some of the world's finest cotton. Even though, production has been on a steady downward decline since a high of 1.3 million acres in 1979. This year, only about 200,000 acres of California cotton are being cultivated.
The drop can be attributed to a number of factors, according to an article today in AgAlert about the repercussions for the cotton ginning industry. Nearly two-thirds of the cotton gins that operated in California 10 years ago have closed.
Severe water shortages, competition from other countries, high input costs, the worldwide economic crisis are undermining the throne of California's King Cotton.
AgAlert assistant editor Christine Souza spoke to UC Cooperative Extension cotton specialist Bob Hutmacher for the story.
"One of the things that has not helped in the last couple of years is some of the prime production areas for cotton are where we have had these tremendous water limitations," Hutmacher was quoted in the article. "That punched the daylights out of cotton acreage as much or more than anything else."
Hutmacher is director of UC's West Side Research and Extension Center, which sits in the heart of cotton country. Like neighboring farmers, the center received only 10 percent of its normal water allocation this summer and had to tap its deep wells and cut production during the summer to keep research projects on track.
California's long-fiber cottons allow manufacturers to make luxurious high-thread-count linens and soft yet strong t-shirts. But around the world, consumers are keeping their clothing longer and opting for lower-quality cotton products that don't depend so much on California's superior product.
"Part of it is the varieties and part of it is the climate, but one of the things that California still can do better than just about anybody is produce a world-class-quality cotton crop," Hutmacher said.
Third-generation cotton farmer Steve Wilbur of Tulare hasn't given up hope.
"There is a future, we just don't know what it looks like," he was quoted.
Cotton harvest.
A long excerpt from a recent UC online seminar for dairy operators on suicide prevention was used in a lengthy segment about the plight of California dairies on the California Report this morning. The story, by Fresno NPR reporter Sasha Khokha, noted that the Los Angeles Times reported in May that two dairymen have committed suicide as dairy industry profits crash. Currently, dairy operators earn about half what it costs them to produce milk.
Much of Khokha's story was pulled from an emotional interview with Point Reyes dairy operator Joey Mendoza, whose immigrant grandfather started the dairy nearly 100 years ago.
"It's sad, but it's something you have to do," Mendoza told the reporter, his voice cracking with despair. "There are guilt pains because of the heritage. Everybody worked so hard to build this thing and you're the one that has to terminate it and let it go. It's humiliating and you're not very proud of yourself to do something like this."
Mendoza has decided to participate in a herd retirement program that requires dairies to sell the entire herd for slaughter and stop milking cows for at least a year. The program is expected to take about 100,000 cows out of the national milking herd of 9 million, Khokha reported. Mendoza said he may try to open the dairy again one day as an organic operation.
The dire economic straits in which many California dairy operators find themselves have prompted UC Cooperative Extension to collaborate with other agencies to provide a suicide prevention online seminar, according to an article in Dairy Herd Management.
The webinar, held this morning, covered farmer stress, depression and suicide prevention. According to an article published in the Los Angeles Times late last month, two dairy operators have recently committed suicide. Low milk prices that have dairy farmers selling cows for hamburger meat and threatening to dump milk into sewers may be partly to blame.
Current milk prices are about half of what it costs California producers to feed and milk their herds, the Times article said. Every gallon sold in the supermarket represents a loss on the farm. The pain is being felt throughout the U.S., but it's especially severe in California, where1,800 dairies produce $7 billion worth of milk annually, more than one-fifth of the nation's supply.
The Dairy Herd Management article ends with links to additional resources, including a story in the May issue of the magazine, Recognize the Signs of Stress and Depression and a link to its Crisis Management Resource Center.
The farm price roller coaster isn't often reflected in the cost of produce at the retail level, according to a column by Fresno County freelance writer Don Curlee. His article, based on research reported in the UC Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics Update newsletter, appeared in Capital Press yesterday.
While retailers are mostly unresponsive to farm price changes, they are more apt to respond to increases than decreases, Curlee noted, adding wryly, "Not surprisingly."
The research report, written by Ph.D. candidate Richard Volpe, said food prices at the farm level shot upward in 2007 and early 2008, followed by a sharp decline in late 2008 and 2009. Economists are ruminating on the wide variety of possible causes - e.g., energy costs, emergence of biofuels, the weak dollar - but they haven't reached consensus.
Through it all, retail prices remain significantly more rigid, perhaps for consumer and grocery store chain convenience. Curlee seems to suggest that consumers are ready for - and may even be entertained by - grocery bills that reflect the ebbs and flows commodity prices.
"When consumers play farmers' market or roadside stand bingo they experience significant price upturns and downturns regularly," he wrote. "Supermarkets might be missing a bet by taking some of that exhilaration out of food shopping."
A New York Times opinion piece invited four prominent economists to explain why they believe food prices are rising. The paper had reported that food prices spiked in April, even as oil and gas prices were down.
One of the experts, UC Davis Cooperative Extension agricultural economist Roberta Cook, made the point that food prices are rising because consumers have signaled they are willing to pay more to get what they want.
For example, consider the tomato. "A tomato is no longer a tomato is no longer a tomato," Cook wrote. "American consumers complained for years that tomatoes no longer tasted like tomatoes. The market responded to give them more of what they want."
Getting what they want increased prices.
Cook wrote that specialty tomatoes cost more to produce and harvest; they have a shorter shelf life, so there's more spoilage. Traditional round, mature-green tomatoes are giving way to specialty tomatoes, such as Campari, on-the-vine, strawberry, romas-on-the-vine, and many others. Field grown fresh tomatoes now include grape tomatoes, mini-pear tomatoes of various colors, and extended shelf-life vine-ripe round tomatoes.
In general, she wrote, quality across all tomato types has improved. The better products are commanding higher prices.
tomatoes
