Cover image of 2011 statistical report courtesy of istockphoto

From California Agricultural Statistics, 2011 Crop Year:

California agriculture experienced a 15 percent increase in the sales value of its products in 2011. The state’s 81,500 farms and ranches received a record $43.5 billion for their output last year, up from the $38 billion reached during 2010. California remained the number one state in cash farm receipts with 11.6 percent of the US total. The state accounted for 15 percent of national receipts for crops and 7.4 percent of the US revenue for livestock and livestock products.

California agricultural abundance includes more than 400 commodities. The state produces nearly half of  US-grown fruits, nuts and vegetables. Across the nation, US consumers regularly purchase several crops produced solely in California.

Detailed information is available by accessing the link at the top of this page.

http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2012/10/30/2621159/almonds-now-no-2-california-commodity.html

Almonds were the second-most valuable commodity in California in 2011, surpassing grapes for the first time ever, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

In 2011, almonds generated $3.87 billion of economic activity, according to agriculture department data, and grapes were valued at $3.86 billion.

That’s a switch from 2010 when California grapes were in second place with a value of about $3.2 billion and the state’s almond crop was third at about $2.84 billion.

The two commodities will likely duel for second place in years to come, said Steve Lyle, CDFA spokesman. “But both seem to be producing in robust fashion.”

Milk continues to be the top grossing commodity in California, valued at $7.6 billion last year, up from $5.93 billion in 2010.

In Merced County, where almonds have been the second leading commodity for some time, the industry last year generated $397 million, up from $287 million in 2010.

The California Almond Commodity Board has successfully marketed the nut to the world, said David Doll, a farm adviser with the UC Cooperative Extension in Merced.

“It’s one thing to be able to produce a big crop,” he said. “It’s another to be able to sell that crop and make money.”

And officials say there’s room to grow.

“Even with this record production, we have more demand than we have supply,” said Bob Curtis, associate director of agricultural affairs with the Almond Board. “The driver behind that is nutrition studies that show almonds are a healthy food and snack.”

California now produces about 80 percent of the global market, according to data from the Almond Board. And while demand has increased, so has production.

Valley farmers grow about 2 billion pounds of almonds a year on 760,000 acres, according to the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Forty years ago, the state produced about 100 million pounds of almonds on about 200,000 acres.

Technology has greatly improved yields and efficiency, Doll said.

“The thing that pushed production beyond any of our hopes and dreams was the ability to apply both water and fertilizer at the same time through an irrigation system,” he said. “We’re able to get these nutrients in the right place at the right time.”

The average yield in California last year was 2,670 pounds of shelled almonds per acre, according to the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Farmers 30 years ago would have been happy to get 1,400 pounds an acre.

As more people started growing almonds, a wide network of service providers developed, including nurseries, contract sprayers and harvesters, as well as haulers and shellers.

That gives California a huge competitive edge, Doll said.

In other places, “they may have the environmental conditions for almond production but they don’t have the infrastructure,” he said. “Just having Highway 99 is beyond what most people have in countries where they grow almonds.”

Reporter Joshua Emerson Smith can be reached at (209) 385-2486 or jsmith@mercedsunstar.com.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-1028-himi-craig-mcnamara-20121028,0,1752156.story

The gig: Craig McNamara is a sustainable farming expert, organic walnut farmer in the Sacramento Valley town of Winters, founder of the nonprofit Center for Land-Based Learning and the California Farm Academy, and president of the state Board of Food and Agriculture, which advises state officials on farming policies.

Organic food basket: At his Sierra Orchards, Craig McNamara makes extensive use of pro-environment and conservation techniques as he grows 450 acres of organic walnuts, presses organic olive oil from 150 trees that are more than a century old and helps his son raise hops for a local craft beer. The Center for Land-Based Learning and the California Farm Academy are based at his farm, on the bank of Putah Creek near the Solano-Yolo county line.

Techniques: “We try to incorporate sustainability into all our actions,” said McNamara, so that the farm supports “healthy people, a healthy planet and a healthy profit.” He relies on solar power to run water pumps, sediment traps to reduce fertilizer runoff into streams and the underground aquifer, “green” composting that doesn’t depend on animal manure and pollination with native bees.

Honors: His environmental work earned him the 2012 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award, the 2007 Leopold Conservation Award and other honors. He has served on the state Board of Food and Agriculture since 2002. Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown appointed him board president.

Politics and the farm: McNamara has managed to find a balance among making a living as a farmer, teaching about the importance of farming and, as a high-level appointee, helping bring experience and expertise to public policy on water, labor, exports and other issues in the country’s richest agricultural state.

Roots and upbringing: He grew up in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Washington, D.C., in the shadow of his late father, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, considered the architect of the Vietnam War. In high school, Craig McNamara broke with his father over the war. His mother, Margaret, was a literacy pioneer who started the Reading Is Fundamental program.

Latin America travels: McNamara’s interest in agriculture developed after he dropped out of Stanford University and traveled around Latin America for two years. On his way to Tierra del Fuego at the southernmost tip of South America, he worked on peasant farms and came to understand “the importance of sustainable agriculture and how political food is.”

Back to the land: McNamara came to the Sacramento Valley, where he fell in love with the flat, fertile soil and the farms, ranches and orchards. He received a degree in plant and soil science from UC Davis in 1976 and struggled for three years to run a 60-acre garden that supplied fresh produce to San Francisco restaurants. “It broke me financially and it broke me physically,” he said. He switched to walnuts, he said, because they are high value, harvested once a year, healthful and not highly perishable.

Nuclear family: McNamara has been married for 30 years to his wife, Julie, an entomologist he met at UC Davis. They have two sons — Graham, 28, who works for a software company in San Francisco, and Sean, 25, who returned to the farm 18 months ago to grow hops. A daughter, Emily, 20, is a student at Brown University.

Young farmers: The California Farm Academy just graduated its first class of 20 young farmers from its six-month program. The center and academy are busy places thanks to a growing interest among young people in organic farming, farmers markets and the slow-food movement, he said. “It’s a perfect wave, a wholesome wave,” McNamara said. “Millennials understand the importance of agriculture and food and this vital connection to nature.” California must attract more young farmers, he said, or risk losing valuable agricultural land from production.

Agricultural gold: As an educator, McNamara hopes that training will instill among students the same devotion to the land that the pioneers of the Sacramento Valley showed when they settled there after the Gold Rush. “People then were so dedicated, so courageous and so adaptable,” he said. “The same character exists today.”