California continues to set the pace for the rest of the nation as the country’s largest producer and exporter of agricultural goods and services. In addition to generating $36.6 billion in annual revenues, the industry – which includes fruit, vegetables, dairy and wine production – creates at least $100 billion in related economic activity. This economic sector is administered and regulated by the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), whose dual mission it is to protect and promote the efforts of the state’s farmers and ranchers while ensuring that safety standards are maintained at the consumer level. Then there’s the fun stuff. CDFA maintains the Division of Fairs and Expositions, which provides fiscal and policy oversight for the state’s network of California Fairs–a summer jamboree of concerts, science fairs and equestrian activities. This division provides oversight for the fairs’ continued recreational and cultural use by the general public, as well as providing educational and competitive exhibits that highlight California industry, resources and products. And the not such fun stuff: CDFA’s purview includes enforcement of the state’s weights and measures laws and regulations at the state and county level. It also is responsible for protecting the state’s plants, animals, natural resources and urban areas from invasive pests and diseases.

Agricultural Statistical Review (CDFA website)

The California Department of Food and Agriculture can trace its beginnings to an act of the state legislature on April 5, 1880, to create a State Board of Viticulture to protect grape vines from phylloxera root rot, which already had destroyed most of the wine grape vineyards in Europe. The seven-member board represented districts throughout the state. Four days later, the legislature passed the Act for the Better Protection of Fruit Trees and Vines, which authorized the state’s county boards of supervisors to appoint an unspecified number of commissioners to inspect fruit trees and vines within each district.

Pest infestation, such as CDFA’s decades-long battle against the Mediterranean fruit fly, has been a top priority of the department since 1881, when the legislature created county boards of horticultural to inspect for insects and require treatment. In 1886, Ventura became the first county in the state to establish a plant quarantine ordinance that prohibited the transportation of insect-infested fruit trees and vines. Los Angeles and Orange counties followed suit with similar ordinances in 1890. The legislature recognized the need to protect the state’s fast-growing agricultural economy from disease and infestation. In that light, an act was passed in 1899 putting the state in charge of the seaport quarantine inspection program. In 1911, California officials began inspecting the baggage of ship passengers from Hawaii in response to a discovery of the Mediterranean fruit fly on the island.

In 1919, the California Legislature created a single department responsible for protecting and promoting agriculture – the California Department of Food and Agriculture – with a secretary replacing the state commissioner of horticulture. Among the most significant developments since then has been establishing border inspection stations in the 1920s in response to the huge increase in automobiles, which threatened the introduction of weevil-infested alfalfa from Nevada and Utah.

After an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease in 1924, Arizona, Nevada and Oregon required cars entering those states from California to be disinfected, produce confiscated and persons fumigated. At one point, the governor of Arizona signed a law forbidding people leaving California to cross Arizona except by train. A meeting in April 1924 of Western states resulted in that law being modified.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in March 1926 that federal quarantine laws preempted the states, rendering invalid all state and local quarantine ordinances.

If the early years of regulating agriculture was to protect the California farmer from the depredations of exotic pests, that role gradually expanded to include concerns of the market place (standardization), fairs, milk pricing and such cultural aids as assistance to the farmer in weed control and control of rodents and other damaging creatures.

Today, CFDA is as busy protecting consumers as it is farmers and ranchers. It provides for, and oversees, standardization practices, thus ensuring farmers good markets for their products and ensuring quality for consumers. It promotes marketing of goods in a variety of ways, also assuring quality and quantity to consumers. It looks after the health of livestock and plants, and the same benefits accrue to the consumer. It insists on measurement standards that also have dual blessings. And it assures the consumer and farmer protection against the careless use of pesticides, thus affording protection to both people and the environment.
 

A Department History (CDFA website)

Department Publications and Reports (CFDA website)

The California Department of Food and Agricultural has a wide and expansive landscape of responsibilities and concerns. Directly under the secretary is the State Board of Food and Agriculture, a 15-member panel appointed by the governor that advises the governor and the CDFA secretary on agricultural issues and consumer needs. The members represent a wide spectrum of agricultural, geographic and academic interests. Each year, the governor designates one of the members to serve as president.

Within the department, there are six divisions representing the department’s wide array of oversight and regulation:

Animal Health and Food Safety Services: Responsible for the safety and security of meat, poultry, dairy products and other foods of animal origin. Headed by a director, this division also is responsible for the detection and eradication of livestock and poultry diseases as well as assisting cattle owners against the loss or misappropriation of animals.

Fairs and Expositions: Provides fiscal and policy oversight for the state’s network of California fairs. Headed by a director, the division strives to maintain a statewide competition consistency, maximize exhibitor experience and ensure educational opportunities.

Inspection Services: Provides inspections and chemical analysis as part of a policy to ensure that fruits and vegetables meet maturity, grade, size, weight, packaging and labeling standards. Its purview also includes enforcing proper standards for fertilizer, animal feed and livestock drugs.

Marketing Services: This division provides framework and coordination for the agricultural industry’s long-term marketing plan. It is headed by a director and is comprised of five branches: Agricultural Statistics, Dairy Marketing, Market Enforcement, Milk Pooling and Marketing.

Measurement Standards: This group carries out the vast majority of weights and measures enforcement activities at the local level. It is their responsibility to ensure fair competition for industry and accurate value comparison for consumers. It also enforces quality, advertising and labeling standards for many petroleum products.

Plant Health and Pest Prevention Services: Headed by a director, PHPPS is mandated to keep pests and other types of infestations from attacking California agricultural output. The division is comprised of five branches: Pest Exclusion, Pest Detection/Emergency Projects, Integrated Pest Control, Plant Pest Diagnostics, and Office of Pesticide Consultation and Analysis.

CDFA also maintains the Pierce’s Disease Control Program, an ongoing effort to minimize the potentially deadly effect of Pierce’s Disease on the state’s grape growers. 

Roughly half of CDFA’s 2011-12 budget – $232.3 million – goes toward pest prevention and food safety services. The second-largest expenditure – $65.1 million – goes toward general agricultural activities, which include providing funding and policy oversight for federal grants, coordination on environmental issues affecting agriculture and centralized communications for all facets of the department’s areas of responsibility. This program also partially reimburses counties for carrying out agricultural programs under the supervision of CDFA.

The next largest piece of the pie – $60.4 million – goes to marketing the state’s commodities and agricultural output and services. It also funds government support for those agencies needing chemical or product determinations.

CDFA this year will spend $42.4 million for facilities and other elements of infrastructure. As a landlord, the department rents or owns 317,000 square feet of office space, 228,000 square feet of laboratory space, 16 inspection stations, nine employee residences, four veterinary laboratories and seven warehouses.

Governor Brown’s budget-cutting did not spare CDFA. In fact, it struck at one of the department’s most popular activities, and the one that directly affects the most people: the network of California fairs. The governor’s budget includes an ongoing decrease of $32 million that eliminates state funding to the counties for the fairs. When the governor announced his intention to cut the fair budget in February 2011, the Western Fairs Association released a list of 29 fairs that it said would be at risk of closure. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat, citing CDFA statistics, reported that the state’s 78 county, agriculture and citrus fairs generate roughly $126 million annually in tax income for the state, and that they support more than 25,000 full-time jobs representing $856 million in wages.

About 24% of the department’s $441.0 million budget is paid for out of the state’s General Fund. The rest is from federal funding and fee-for-service programs.

3-Year Budget (pdf)

Combating the Medfly Menace

For more than 100 years, the fruit flies have posed the single greatest pest-related threat to the state’s multi-billion-dollar agricultural export industry. In 1899, the state fought to prevent the importation of Mexican fruit fly. In 1911, the state began inspecting baggage on incoming ships after a Mediterranean fruit fly was discovered on a ship entering from Hawaii.

Female medflies destroy fruit by laying large numbers of fertilized eggs beneath the surface of the host fruit’s skin. The eggs hatch into larvae, which then consume the pulp of the fruit or vegetable. In all cases, medfly-infested food products are rendered inedible and worthless on the market. And the cycle can be extremely fast: A farmer could lose an entire crop in a matter of days. During the middle years of the 20^th century, Florida and Texas experienced medfly infestations that were successfully eliminated with the use of the pesticide malathion.

The first medfly infestation in California occurred in 1975, when, it is believed, a medly entered Los Angeles County by way of contaminated fruit. Eradication efforts were started immediately – a combination of heavy use of malathion, releasing 600 million sterile male fruit flies in an effort to render the female eggs infertile, and placing a quarantine over a large area surrounding the actual discovery sight. By August 1976, state officials declared victory.

But the afterglow of success was short lived. In 1980, medflies were detected in several counties. Although the pests were quickly eliminated in Los Angeles County, hundreds of medflies were still detected in eight counties in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. More than 525 miles were quarantined and aggressive tactics were applied. However, this time they didn’t work. Meanwhile, Japan, a large buyer of California produce, was threatening to ban the state’s fruit and vegetables. On top of that, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said eradication efforts were insufficient and called for an unprecedented program of aerial spraying of malathion. Several states even threatened to cut off the importation of California produce.

CDFA officials announced that they were considering the aerial spraying, which set off a firestorm among the affected local governments. Public interests groups also strongly opposed it. Governor Brown, in office during his first stint, was torn by the enormity of a decision that carried so much political baggage, and delayed a decision. The federal government responded by issuing a threat to quarantine the entire state. In July 1981, the state governments of Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas said they were going to impose unilateral quarantines on certain California produce. Japan and Mexico ratcheted up the pressure with talk of trade restrictions.

Brown and many of the affected city officials opposed aerial spraying, and CDFA scientists were considering using stronger pesticides, such as methyl bromide and ethylene dibromide, which also posed significant health risks.

On July 10, 1981, Governor Brown ordered an all-out aerial assault on the medfly infestation. Helicopters began spraying on July 14, performing their missions from a secret landing base set up in a cemetery. By September 1982, the effort was considered a success, at a cost reportedly of $100 million.

There have been many smaller medfly infestations since, with the government spending hundreds of millions of dollars to combat them. Although Japan and Mexico, and other states, have called off their threats of banning California produce, the problem goes on.

Complicating the issue is that James Carey, a University of California, Davis entomologist told a session of the state Assembly in 1990 his theory that the medfly was already a permanent resident in California. CFDA continues to maintain that each appearance has been an isolated incident. What is particularly galling to CFDA officials is that since announcing his study findings in 1990, Carey has never presented new evidence one way or the other, making the issue a sometimes-touchy subject when negotiating trade deals with foreign governments. In addition, the federal government makes “emergency” funds available to the state when an outbreak is determined to be isolated. If the medfly were deemed a permanent California resident, the state would lose out on eradication funding, and the growers would have to pick up the costs. As they represent a rather formidable lobbying force in Sacramento, don’t expect them to accept that quietly.
 

Malathion for Mosquito Control (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)

Combating the Medfly Menace (Center for Trade and Commercial Diplomacy)

A natural consequence of California’s economic downturn in the first decade of the 21^st century has been a redoubling of efforts to reduce what some consider a regulatory burden borne by agricultural businesses. The California Farm Bureau Federation summed up that concern in a 2011 commentary. “Air regulations, water quality rules, statutory animal care practices such as those imposed by Proposition 2, product standards and requirements, labor regulations, CEQA requirements, Endangered Species Act rules and restrictions, wetlands preservation statutes and more all add up to a formidable framework of overlapping rules and regulations that jeopardize the future of California agriculture and the economy.”

The bureau conducted a survey of its members as to what regulations they would target for reform or elimination while the state pondered legislation that would empower the CDFA to identify and resolve what it considers duplicative regulations. Assembly Bill 691, introduced in February 2011, would declare the intent of the legislature to enact subsequent legislation requiring that the Department of Food and Agriculture establish a one-stop permit assistance pilot program which would allow farmers and agribusiness owners to obtain all necessary city, county, and state regulatory permits in one location.

The secretary of the department would become a pro-active ombudsman responsible for providing assistance to farmers and ranchers in obtaining permits from the state. He would be given responsibility to identify any agriculture regulations “that may have a negative impact on the agricultural industry, and make recommendations regarding changes necessary to alleviate those negative impacts” and report them to the president pro tem of the Senate and to the speaker of the Assembly.

The state already requires that any regulatory change by a state agency include an assessment of negative economic effects it might have on California business, but this bill proposes to augment that by also requiring that an agency provide an explanation “setting forth the reasons for rejecting any proposed alternatives that would lessen the adverse economic impact on any business.” In effect, this would put an impediment in the way of agencies creating any new agriculture regulations by requiring them to first conduct a cumulative impact report more burdensome than the law currently requires.

Farmers Applaud Bill To Eliminate Duplicative Regulations (Assemblyman Henry T. Perea website)

Tell Us How Regulations Hamper You (by Rich Matteis, California Farm Bureau Federation)

AB 691 (Official text of legislation)

Summary of AB 691 (Legislative counsel’s digest)

Aerial Spraying

In late 2007, CDFA became the center of attention over a controversial eradication program for the light brown apple moth involving aerial spraying of the pesticide Checkmate. After spraying in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, reports of adverse health effects and plans to expand the spraying into the Bay Area brought negative media attention, leading to the legislature attempting to close the loophole that allowed the spraying without an environmental impact report. Numerous local governments rejected the plan, and an investigation by the Associated Press led to the suspension of a nearly $500,000 public relations campaign undertaken by the department to “counter the concerns raised by local environmentalists and residents, who complained of breathing problems and other ill health effects after the spraying.” In March 2008, the mayor of Albany, California, called for the resignation of CDFA Secretary A.G. Kawamura. On May 12, 2008, in response to a lawsuit brought by Helping Our Peninsula's Environment, a judge in Monterey County ordered a halt to the aerial spraying program until an environmental impact report is completed. This decision followed a similar decision by a Santa Cruz County judge on April 24, 2008.

It is not clear if either decision halts aerial spraying outside the counties where the decisions were made. But what is clear is that the debate over the use of aerial spraying as a weapon against agricultural pests will continue.
 

Pro Spraying

Aerial spraying for pest control has a long history. Man has been spraying crops from the air for almost as long as he has been flying. Boll Weevils, Japanese Beetles and the European Corn Borer have all been hunted down and sprayed into submission. Or at least remission.

Spraying advocates argue that it’s needed to protect California’s largest industry: agriculture. Without spraying, they say, crops would be destroyed, other states and countries would refuse our exports, people would be discouraged from going into farming, crop selection would be limited and farmers would be financially ruined on a regular basis.

According to Agri Business Weekly, “Aerial spraying is recognized as a method or standard means of pest control, crop management, and fertigation as expounded in agricultural modernization.” Proponents of spraying point to long testing periods for pesticides, the expertise of scientists doing the testing and the broad use of the chemicals worldwide as evidence of their safety.

The National Agricultural Aviation Association says aerial spraying helps fight cancer because we wouldn’t have fresh fruits and vegetables year round without it and “consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables is associated with a reduced risk of chronic disease, including many cancers.” Spraying also enhances the safety of the food supply “by reducing levels of natural toxins, such as mycotoxins, and reducing the potential for contamination of fresh produce by food borne human pathogens.”

Federal Occupational Safety and Health Regulations of 1996 produced guidelines that it said would “eliminate or minimize as far as practicable the exposure of any person to hazardous substances such as pesticides.” It recommended not using human markers on the ground to guide the planes, but if their use was unavoidable they should be aware of “a high potential for exposure to pesticides.”
 

The Truth About Aerial Spraying (Agriculture Business Week)

100 Years of Achievements in Insect Control (Clemson University Pesticide Information Center)

Recommended Specific Control Measures for Spraying (Department of Commerce)

Industry FAQ: Is It Safe to Use Crop Protection Products? (National Agricultural Aviation Association)
 

Against Spraying

Aerial spraying opponents say the pesticides used are dangerous to human beings, destructive of the environment, end up in places they were never intended to be, are lazy substitutes for safer, more natural products and encourage bad farming practices. Their use, they say, reflects the improper influence that giant agribusiness has on government policy to the detriment of public safety.

The California Alliance to Stop the Spray was formed during the fight over eradication of the light brown apple moth in Northern California in 2008. But its arguments against spraying go beyond the local fight. The group accused the CDFA of selectively using, and misusing, outdated data from an Australian study to justify its use of spraying to avoid economic catastrophe. It said the CDFA of failed to address adverse health and environmental impacts, safe and natural integrated pest management programs employed elsewhere and the impossibility of eradication. The alliance also warned of huge losses to the tourism industry, real estate values and organic farming that would be far larger than losses to agriculture without the spraying.

Opponents of spraying warn of unpredictable “spray drift” risks that can carry pesticides far from their original targets and impact schools, livestock, water sources and other crops.

Atmospheric Alterations and the Implications (Stop Aerial Spraying) (pdf)

Economic Impacts and Solutions (California Alliance to Stop the Spray) (pdf)

A.G. Kawamura, 2003-2011

William (Bill) J. Lyons Jr., 1999-2003

Ann M. Veneman, 1995-1999

Henry J. Voss, 1989-1995

Jack C. Parnell, 1987-1989

Clare Berryhill, 1983-1987

Richard Rominger, 1976-1982