Released Feb. 8, 2008
DAVIS, Calif. -- The University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources serves every Californian with research on food production, nutrition, consumer sciences and youth development. Following is a sampling of efforts that have a direct impact on the money in California residents’ bank accounts.
- “Cost and return” studies help farmers make good decisions
- UC research helps farmers choose profitable marketing options
- ‘San Diego Saves’ helps people build personal wealth
- Market for quality California wine continues to expand
"Cost and return” studies help farmers make good decisions
“Cost and Return” studies are valuable decision-making tools the university has been providing to California farmers and ranchers for decades. These studies help growers decide what crops and production methods make financial sense for their region by comparing a commodity’s potential value against production costs for seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, water, labor, insurance, property taxes, land leases, land ownership, irrigation systems, farm machinery, office expenses and other items. The studies are created by the UC Davis Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics in collaboration with county-based UC Cooperative Extension farm advisors.
The studies are available for a wide range of tree fruit and nut crops such as walnuts, pistachios, cherries and peaches; field crops like alfalfa, cotton and dry beans; vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, peppers and tomatoes; and more than a dozen different wine and table grape scenarios for different growing areas. “The cost and return studies began in 1937 as a tool for farmers to provide basic information to justify production loans to bankers,” says Karen Klonsky, the UC Davis specialist in Cooperative Extension who has overseen the studies for more than 20 years. “In addition to growers and bankers, government agencies, researchers and others use them to compare the performance of actual operations with costs and revenues from our hypothetical farms.” Studies are also available for niche specialty crops like blueberries, Chinese long beans, Christmas trees, olive oil, dairy goats, grass-fed beef and wild rice. The full catalog of these free, downloadable documents is available on the department’s Web site at http://coststudies.ucdavis.edu/. For more information, contact Karen Klonsky at (530) 752-3563, klonsky@primal.ucdavis.edu.
UC research helps farmers choose profitable marketing options
While farmers markets have become increasingly popular with consumers, farmers themselves are beginning to ask how profitable selling at a farmers market actually is. UC Small Farm Program director Shermain Hardesty is finalizing a case study of three farms that each market their products three ways: farmers markets, wholesale and through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, in which subscribers regularly receive boxes of food from the farm.
Preliminary results of research found that farmers markets generated the lowest net revenue return for all three growers, while wholesale provided the highest net revenue return. The net rate of return for CSA revenues was in the middle. Hardesty emphasized that while producers can earn full retail prices through direct marketing, they need to remember that the price premiums are not pure profit. Hardesty noted the report was not meant to be an indictment of direct marketing. Farmers markets can provide an outlet for produce unmarketable to wholesale channels and can support new farmers developing new businesses.
To help growers determine the cost and return of their different marketing options, Hardesty and student researcher Penny Leff made a presentation to farmers Feb. 2 at the Placer Grown Conference in Lincoln. At the presentation, Hardesty and Leff offered use of their formulaic spreadsheets to workshop participants and walked them through tabulation of their costs and returns. “We want to show you how you can determine your actual marketing costs yourself,” Hardesty said. For more information, contact Shermain Hardesty at (530) 752-7774, sfpdirector@ucdavis.edu.
‘San Diego Saves’ helps people build personal wealth
Opt for coffee, instead of a latte. Eat at home, rather than going out. Collect loose change and deposit it into a bank account. These are some things San Diegans may wish to do Feb. 25 to March 4 to take a step toward building wealth, in place of debt. San Diego Saves, a locally organized campaign that’s part of the National American Saves program, helps residents identify money they can save and motivate them to put it away. “The most common reason people give for not saving is that they think they can’t afford it,” said Patti Wooten Swanson, the nutrition, family and consumer sciences advisor for UC Cooperative Extension in San Diego County and coordinator of San Diego Saves. “But there are a lot of small savings to be found in any budget, and we want to encourage people to set it aside for an emergency, a college education, a major purchase – like a house or a car – or their retirement.”
Saving is critical to personal financial stability and it helps the country overall. America Saves received a letter from Ben Bernanke, chair of the Federal Reserve System, endorsing the concept of encouraging savings. “Savings improves consumers’ flexibility, independence and choices in managing their personal finances,” the letter says. During San Diego Saves Week, Swanson offers a workshop for first-time home buyers, and seminars for small business owners interested in helping themselves and their employees save for retirement. The small-business seminar will be Feb. 27. The first-time home buyer workshop will be from 12 to 1:30 p.m. March 1 at the La Mesa Branch library, 8055 University Ave., in La Mesa. For more information, contact Patti Wooten Swanson at (858) 694-2850, pwswanson@ucdavis.edu.
Market for quality California wine continues to expand
The California wine industry is growing and changing amidst a global revolution in grape growing, wine production, wine marketing and consumer tastes. In a comprehensive overview of the California wine industry published in the University of California’s California Agriculture journal, UC researchers report that California accounted for roughly 90 percent of the value of U.S. wine production in 2006, while U.S. per capita wine consumption and the quality of wine consumed continued to rise. In 2007, U.S. wine revenue was an estimated $14.6 billion, up from $5.6 billion in 1995. At the same time, the proportion of ultra-premium wine (more than $14 per bottle) consumed in the United States increased from 11 percent in 1995 to 32 percent in 2006. California grape growers continue to receive a wide range of prices for their crop, from $300 per ton in the San Joaquin Valley (where half of California grapes are grown), to more than $3,000 per ton in the Napa Valley. U.S. wine exports have increased dramatically, from 144 million liters in 1995 to nearly 400 million liters in 2006; the top importing nations are the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan.
In California, the largest wineries have long accounted for most of the state’s wine shipments, and they continue to expand with respect to volume and number of labels. While small wineries sell most of their wine directly to end-users, many midsized California wineries face challenges in an increasingly crowded marketplace. To read the full article, go to http://californiaagriculture.ucop.edu/0801JFM/toc.html. For more information, contact UC Davis agricultural economist Rachael Goodhue at (530) 754-7812, goodhue@primal.ucdavis.edu.
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http://news.ucanr.org/newsstorymain.cfm?story=1062
Contact: Jeannette Warnert, (559) 241-7514, jwarnert@ucop.edu
