Specific Objectives of the Project:
• To utilize administrative data to identify whether pesticide applications made by alfalfa and safflower growers reduce pesticide applications made to nearby cotton fields in the San Joaquin Valley
• To construct a bio-economic model of lygus bug population development and migration to estimate the magnitude of any positive externality identified.

Summary of Results:
• Pesticide applications made by other growers to nearby fields of alfalfa, safflower and other host crops reduce pesticide applications to cotton fields.
• Pesticide applications made by a grower to nearby host crop fields of their own sometimes increase pesticide applications made by that grower to a cotton field.
• While the data do not enable us to determine the reasons for the latter, one possibility may be that some growers are more likely to apply pesticides.

The bio-economic model is still in development.

Specific Objectives of the Project:
• Complete a report that presents statistics on California’s organic agricultural production and the structure of the organic industry at the farm level using CDFA organic registry data
• Analyze the evolution of the industry’s structure utilizing the registry data and other data on organic acreage in California

Project Report/Summary of Results:
California’s organic agricultural production generated over $3 billion in farmgate sales in 2016, the most recent year in which detailed production information was available. Milk, strawberries, carrots, winegrapes and table grapes had the highest sales. Over 3,100 organic operations registered with the state. Over half of these operations produced fruit and nut crops. A majority of organic operations are in coastal regions. Organic operations have grown larger over time.

Specific Objectives of the Project:
- Quantify the costs of collecting and maintaining the UC strawberry germplasm collection.
- Estimate the economic benefit of the collection as a function of its genetic diversity, and develop a summary of the determinants of the marginal value of a cultivar.
- Develop an approach that can be applied to other commodity breeding programs that utilize asexual propagation.

Project Report/Summary of Results:

Work under this project addressed disease management in organic and conventional strawberry production systems in California.

Michuda, Aleksandr, Rachael Goodhue, Karen Klonsky, Graeme Baird, Lucinda Toyama, Margherita Zavatta, Joji Muramoto and Carol Shennan. 2018. “The Economic Viability of Suppressive Crop Rotations for the Control of Verticillium Wilt in Organic Strawberry Production.” Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. DOI: 10.1080/21683565.2018.1552228.

Michuda, Aleksandr, Rachael Goodhue, Krishna Subbaro and Daniel Chellemi. “Evaluating a Systems Approach to Suppressive Crop Rotations in Strawberry Production.” Presented at the 2019 AAEA meetings by Ph.D. candidate Michuda.

Michuda, Aleksandr, Rachael Goodhue, Joji Muramoto and Carol Shennan. “The Economic Viability of Suppressive Crop Rotations for the Control of Verticillium Wilt in Organic Strawberry Production in California.” Presented at the 2017 AAEA meetings by Ph.D. student Michuda.

Michuda, Aleksandr, Rachael Goodhue, Krishna Subbaro and Daniel Chellemi. “Evaluating a Systems Approach to Suppressive Crop Rotations in Strawberry Production.” Working paper.

Specific Objectives of the Project

The project has three specific objectives:
• Develop an analytical model of trade in the market for a perishable commodity where producers are differentiated by their harvest season (market window) to derive testable hypotheses regarding the price, quantity and welfare effects of free trade agreements and of the effects of a change in the market window for one producer.
• Test predictions of the theoretical model in an international market with two producers with differentiated market windows and a third-country consumer: U.S., Chile and South Korea in the tablegrape market. U.S. tablegrapes are produced in California.
• Test predictions of the theoretical model in a domestic market with seasonally differentiated production regions: U.S. fresh strawberries, which are primarily produced in California.

Summary of Results

We have developed a model to explain the impacts of seasonality on production, consumption, prices, and trade flows. The extent of overlap between harvest seasons is a key determinant of the welfare effects of trade. Initial empirical results were weak, and we are pursuing additional data.

Specific Objectives of the Project

1. To identify the key uses of marketing orders in California agriculture.
2. To identify the key characteristics which determine producer demand for marketing orders in California agriculture.
3. To explore how changes in producer characteristics affect producer surplus and producer demand for these marketing orders.
4. To explore how changes in market characteristics affect producer surplus and producer demand for marketing orders.

Summary of Results

The initial step in the project was a literature review of past work on marketing orders in California. It was complemented by research regarding recent changes in marketing order status including cases of termination, establishment, and changes in activities. This project component was reported in an ARE Update article in 2013. We focus on the question of how the structure of the agricultural production sector affects producers' prospective gains from a marketing order and, hence, their voting decision regarding its establishment or disestablishment. Very few studies have examined distributional issues related to marketing orders. The few that have take the presence of the marketing order as a given, and then examine distributional issues. In our theoretical model, we examine the case of an industry with two firm types – a low cost dominant firm and a competitive fringe composed of high cost firms – and compare voting outcomes for a marketing order that engages in demand-enhancing generic advertising activities with the money from a unit assessment. We compare voting power to market share. Voting power is characterized using Banzhof power, a concept from political science. Because legal requirements for forming/dissolving a marketing order require a double (federal) or triple (California) majority there is the potential for substantial differences between a firm's voting power and its market share. We model the federal requirements that a majority of producers accounting for a majority of production must approve formation/dissolution. We find that under the double majority rule the greater the cost advantage of the dominant firm the less voting powe r it has relative to the competitive fringe. Work on the model continues. Currently we are expanding the range of market structures analyzed. The next step will be to introduce a two-period model incorporating entry and exit.

In general, conventional and organic growers have different pest management options. When pest and/or natural enemy populations move across fields, organic and conventional growers' pest management decisions may affect nearby growers. This project demonstrated that California citrus growers' pest management decisions are affected by the pesticide use of nearby growers. Specifically, when nearby growers use pesticides toxic to A. melinus, a natural enemy of California red scale, citrus growers are more likely to treat for California red scale using an insecticide. Other findings included (1) Citrus growers' information sources are a significant determinant of whether or not they utilize biological control in their IPM programs, and (2) More educated growers, growers with more citrus acreage, and growers with higher-valued citrus crops are more likely to use biological control