Agricultural Advancement  2000 - 2020

California’s 2012 election ballot featured Proposition 37, which—if passed—would require genetically engineered food to be labeled as such and prohibit the use of the word “natural” in labeling. The proposition brought up consumer concerns regarding genetic engineering and resulted in an abundance of reports and research on the positives and negatives of genetic modification. 

Opponents of the proposition argued that the measure would increase government bureaucracy in the agriculture sector while raising food costs and taxes. Opponents also pointed out that many respected scientific and medical organizations claim genetically modified foods are safe.

Meanwhile, supporters of the proposition argued that consumers had the right to know what was in their food. Supporters also pointed to the requirement for labeling genetically engineered foods in foreign countries, including most of Europe and Japan, claiming that American companies should be required to provide the same information for goods consumed within the U.S.

While Proposition 37 was defeated in the election, consumer concerns and debates over genetically engineered food continued throughout the decade.

Califronia Proposition 37, Mandatory Labeling of Genetically Engineered Food Initiative (2012) ballotpedia.org

University of California Television released a video describing Genetic Engineering in California Agriculture in 2008 summarizing the benefits and advances made by genetic engineering. Watch this video to understand the science, and consumer concerns, regarding genetic engineering in the first decade of the twenty-first century. 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzh5TVXaAr4

University of California TV

California’s organic agriculture is overseen by the California Department of Food and Agriculture State Organic Program (SOP) which collects registration information and tracks commodities, sales value, acreage, and area. This information is updated yearly, as it is a part of the requirements for organic production. 

Over the last two decades, the demand and availability of organic foods has increased. Many grocery stores have entire organic sections or offer a multitude of options. 

Based on SOP data collected between 2013 and 2016: 

• The top organic commodities by sales value included: Milk (cow milk), strawberries, carrots, wine and table grapes, and sweet potatoes. 

• The number of organic agricultural operations increased by 1,000 from 2013 to 2016. There were 3,109 unique operations in 2016.

Another report, released by the SOP in 2020, provided more information: 

• Organic production has increased 44% from approximately 1,796,080 acres in 2014 to 2,590,328 acres in 2019. 

• Sales of organic products in 2019 totaled over $10.4 billion.

Based on the data provided in both reports, trends indicate that organic agriculture will continue to flourish in California. Visit www.cdfa.ca.gov/is/organicprogram/reports to read more.

CDFA

The idea of the driverless tractor first appeared as early as 1940, but in the last two decades the concept has evolved into a future reality. In an automated tractor, the machinery uses GPS and other wireless technologies to farm land without requiring a driver.

As the technology for autonomous equipment continues to advance and become more readily available, market reports predict that the demand for autonomous agriculture equipment will be particularly high in the U.S., Germany, China, Japan and a few other markets over the next 10 years. 

The agricultural equipment industry has often been at the forefront of advanced technologies—farmers rely on productivity and efficiency to maximize profits. Automated tractors have the potential for more precise planting, spraying and harvesting which can lead to larger crop yields.

This timeline of tractor history illustrates how far tractors have come, and helps readers imagine where they’re headed.

SodGod

Although scientists have been cloning livestock since 1996, the Food and Drug Administration got involved in 2001 when cloning became a commercial venture. Cloning is an advanced form of assisted reproductive technology (other assistive reproductive technologies include artificial insemination and embryo transfer) in which an immature embryo is taken from a female animal and the nucleus of the embryo is replaced with the nucleus from a cell of the donor animal. That embryo is then implanted in a surrogate female, who then gives birth to the clone like any other animal. 

The main intention behind using agricultural clones is to produce quality breeding stock by creating more copies of the best animals in the herd, which could then be used for reproducing and continued breeding. According to the FDA, food from cloned livestock is safe to eat, though most cloned animals are used for breeding not eating. However, cloning is not a low-cost option, and many producers choose other assisted reproductive technology over cloning for this reason. 

To read more about cloning technology, visit www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/animal-cloning/primer-cloning-and-its-use-livestock-operations.

Food and Drug Administration

Much of California’s produce, and some livestock, is still transported via trains. These train cars must be refrigerated in order to preserve the consumable items being moved across the country. Union Pacific, the dominant railroad company on the West Coast of the U.S., produced this video, demonstrating the types of technology used in their railroad cars. Nationally, freight railroads moved 1.7 million carloads of food products and 1.7 million carloads of grain and other products in 2020.

California Governor's Office of Business and Admin Logistics and Infrastructure - business.ca.gov ; Union Pacific

According to a 2017 report by the UC Davis Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety, approximately half of California’s 650,000 farm workers were without health coverage, while the rest received seasonal coverage from their employers or relied on Medi-Cal or Covered California health insurance. The report states, “Part of this challenge is that almost all of California’s farmworkers are foreign born (primarily from Mexico), and approximately 56% do not have work authorization.” 

Although the Affordable Care Act requires large agriculture employers, with 50 or more workers, to offer full time employees health coverage, this does not apply for short-term workers. As many farmworkers rotate between employers to follow seasonal crops, they do not qualify for health insurance. Additional issues include the high rate of cost for coverage, which is prohibitive for many farmworker families who have relatively low incomes. 

https://aghealth.ucdavis.edu/news/bleak-outlook-california-farmworker-health-coverage-prospects

Suzette Smiley-Jewell, "Bleak Outlook for California Farmworker Health Coverage Prospects," 2017, UC Davis Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety

Agricultural jobs are a vital part of California’s economy. A 2003 report published by the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research stated that seven percent of employment in California, and over 25% in the Central Valley, is directly or indirectly related to agriculture. An estimated 800,000 farm laborers were employed during harvest season. 

Visit this link for additional farm labor statistics.

Governor's Office of Planning and Research, California

Peter Menzel, a California photographer,  and  writer Faith D'Aluisio traveled to 24 countries to interview and photograph families to discover what they ate, as well as the weekly cost of their food. In 2005, they published their findings in a book titled Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. Among the photographs featured at this link are two U.S. families, one from California and one from North Carolina. 

TIME Magazine ; Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats (2005)

From December 2011 to March 2017, California experienced a significant drought. The driest period in California history occurred from late 2011 through 2014. The impacts to California agriculture were severe and widespread, and included the loss of millions of trees (including orchard trees), loss of livestock due to excessive heat and lack of water, and additional losses in the food processing and transport industries.

Climate Signals

In September 2016, Governor Brown signed Senate Bill 1383 into law, which allows the state of California to regulate the release of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) including methane, black carbon, and fluorinated gases. Livestock produce significant amounts of methane as part of their normal digestive processes.

Although livestock manure has already been subject to various regulations, SB 1383 will be enacted in January 2024 after a series of regulatory steps. The bill specifically targets a 40% reduction of methane emissions by California livestock manure by 2030. Because the dairy industry is the main contributor of methane emissions from livestock animals and manure, SB 1383 could have a serious impact on the dairy industry.

Senate Bill No. 1383, California Legislative Information

The past twenty years have resulted in California’s hottest, most destructive, and most deadly wildfires. In addition to damaged property, such as dairy farms, citrus groves, orchards, and vineyards, wildfires have a long lasting impact on soil health. Unlike a prescribed burn—a healthy burn often utilized by farmers to eradicate weeds or by forest rangers to manage forests from forest fires—a wildfire can yield heat levels above 400 degrees. These temperatures can cause irreversible harm to the land. 

Negative impacts are extensive and include destruction of shipping and processing plants, livestock illness or death due to smoke inhalation, and smoke taint to wine and wine grapes. The sum total of the impacts of wildfires on California’s agriculture industry is impossible to calculate, but some of the damages are listed below: 

• Butte County’s 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest fire in California’s history, caused rangeland losses of 30,000-40,000 acres. 

• In Ventura County, the 2017 Thomas Fire burned thousands of acres of avocado and citrus trees, in addition to 7,000 acres of rangeland. 

This video shows images from NASA of what wildfires (the 2018 Camp Fire, Woolsey Fire, and Hill Fire) look like from space. 

This link demonstrates the history of California wildfires across the last 70 years, showing the locations and sizes of wildfires.

Hayley Philip, "California Megafires and the Effects on Agriculture", 2019, dirt-to-dinner.com ; Sara Chodosh, "See how much of California has burned in the last five years," 2018, Popular Science popsci.com

Over the course of the twenty-first century, livestock production has generally been less economically important in California than in the rest of the country. Nationally, the market value of livestock and livestock products is greater than one-half of total agricultural sales. However, in California, livestock and livestock product sales only make up one-third of total agricultural sales.

CDFA

In 2015, California, still the nation’s top milk producer, produced 41 billion pounds of milk, while Wisconsin, the secondary producer, totalled approximately 29 billion pounds, and the next closest states neared 15 billion pounds. A combination of breeding, feeding, maintenance and care processes created the increase in production and associated income for milk producers and dairy farmers.

CDFA

Water is one of our most precious natural resources. Hydrology is the science that encompasses the occurrence, distribution, movement, and properties of water on Earth. Hydrologists apply scientific knowledge and mathematical principles in order to try to solve water-related issues such as quantity, quality, and availability. Agricultural hydrology specifically focuses on water balance components (surface, root zone, and aquifer water balance), especially in irrigation and drainage. 

While hydrology has been practiced in some senses for hundreds of years, the 1950s marked a new era in the field as advancements in technology, especially GIS systems, advanced scientific thinking regarding the connections between the structure of the Earth and its water resources. 

This field is specifically important to California considering increasing needs for water across the state and concerns regarding water availability for agriculture.

U.S. Geological Survey