GROWER MEETING
"Challenges & Opportunities for Tree Crops - A Risk Management Seminar & Field Day for Coastal California Growers"
A day-long meeting, entitled "Challenges and Opportunities for Tree Crops - A Risk Management Seminar and Field Day for Coastal California Growers," is planned for February 28, 2002, in Ventura. The meeting is scheduled from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and includes visits to blueberry and lychee experimental plantings in the Ventura area from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. The morning program will be held at the UC Cooperative Extension office, 669 County Square Drive #100, Ventura, and includes the following topics:
The planned program will cover issues related to new crop research, production costs and returns for prospective crops, marketing, labor laws and labor supply, and crop insurance as risk management tools.
- Blueberries, Lychee and Longan: New Crops for Coastal California—Ben Faber, UCCE, Ventura.
- New Mandarin Varieties: Overview and Potential - Thomas Chou, UC Riverside
- Production Costs and Returns: New Crop Prospects - Eta Takele, UCCE, Riverside
- Marketing Minor Tree Crops Opportunities and Challenge - —Mark Gaskell, UCCE, Santa Maria.
- Farming for Profit: Strategies for Growers - Ramiro E. Lobo, UCCE, San Diego
- Tree Crop Insuranc - Wayne Shortes, Barkley Insurance
- Labor Issues and their Impact on Tree Crop Production - Steve Sutter, UCCE, Fresno County.
For more information about the meeting, contact Ben Faber in Ventura County at 805/645-1462, or Eta Takele in Riverside County at 909/683-6491, extension 243.
The following summary articles are reprinted from USDA's Agricultural Outlook, January/February 2002, AGO-288.
HOW U.S. FARM POLICY MESHES WITH WORLD TRADE COMMITMENTS
The U.S. and other countries made commitments in 1994 under the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA) to reduce the total amount of trade-distorting domestic subsidies provided to producers, to reduce export subsidies, and to increase import access to domestic markets. Thus far, the U.S. has been able to comply with its URAA commitments and still provide significant income support to producers. But surges in direct payments to producers after 1997 in response to low market prices have caused domestic subsidy levels to approach the U.S. ceiling commitment. U.S. support is expected to remain below its ceiling under current farm programs, but increases in support under new programs, if not carefully crafted to utilize exemptions, could present a problem for compliance with the URAA commitments. For more information contact:
Frederick J. Nelson, 202/694-5326;
fjnelson@ers.usda.gov
PUBLIC SECTOR PLANT BREEDING IN A PRIVATIZING WORLD
Since 1970, the balance between public and private plant breeding activity in industrialized countries has shifted from the public to the private sector. Traditionally, the private sector has relied on public sector research results. Today this is no longer the case. Presently the public sector instead may utilize private sector research results in some areas of biotechnology. Funding mechanisms, as well as institutional cooperation and competition in plant breeding, are often quite complex. This has led to considerable discussion of the appropriate roles for public and private sector activity. However, it is clear that public sector plant breeding will yield the largest social returns if it continues to focus on research directed at carefully identified problem areas, with clear public goods components. For more information contact: Paul W. Heisey, 202/693-5526; Pheisey@ers.usda.gov
SLOW WORLD GROWTH & U.S. RECESSION LEAVE MIXED PICTURE FOR FARM & RURAL ECONOMY
By November 2001 it was official. The U.S. economy was in recession and had been since March. The recession ended a decade-long expansion, the most durable on record. World economic growth - both in 2001 and 2002 - is expected to be sluggish, posting the lowest back-to-back growth rates since the world debt crisis of 1981-82. For more information contact: David Torgerson, 202/694-5334; dtorg@ers.usda.gov
TRACEABILITY FOR FOOD MARKETING & SAFETY: WHAT'S THE NEXT STEP?
Traceability systems are recordkeeping systems that are primarily used to help keep foods with different attributes separate from one another. When information about a particular attribute of a food product is systematically recorded from creation through marketing, traceability for that attribute is established. Food suppliers and government have several motives for documenting the flow of food and food products through production and distribution channels—and a number of reasons for differentiating types of foods by characteristics and source. However, the area where traceability seems to be getting the most attention lately - government-mandated tracking of genetically-engineered crops and food - is not among the practical or efficient uses of traceability. Recently, the European Union (EU) proposed government-mandated traceability for genetically-engineered crops and foods to help distinguish them from their conventional counterparts. For more information contact: Elise Golan, 202/694-5424; egolan@ers.usda.gov
PRESSURES FOR CHANGE IN EASTERN EUROPE'S LIVESTOCK SECTORS
Twelve years after the fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the meat- and dairy-processing sectors of the CEE countries are undergoing a rapid process of concentration and modernization. The process is most evident in Poland and Hungary, but similar trends can be observed in all the CEE countries. This restructuring has been accelerated by the pending CEE accession to the European Union (EU), both because of pressure to meet EU sanitary standards and because of assistance provided by the EU to the food processing industry. For more information contact Nancy Cochrane, 202/694-5143; Cochrane@ers.usda.gov
|
BACK TO SMALL FARMS PAGE
|
