The third highest ranking concern of the Northern and Southern San Joaquin Valley and Low Desert regions was “water quality ”, while “regulations on water quality” was the third highest ranking concern for the Intermountain region. The third highest ranking concern of the Coastal and ierra Nevada regions was “regulations on chemical use”. The acramento alley ranked “input costs” in the top three concerns. Growers were asked about their top management challenges for the agronomic crops they grow. While several stood out, such as weed control and irrigation/water management ranking as the top challenges , there was relatively strong representation across categories. Soil management, disease control, and harvest operations ranked lowest. When broken down by the top 8 agronomic crops, the highest-ranking management challenges differed among crops . Irrigation/water management was the top management challenge for alfalfa and corn silage growers, while weed control was the top management challenge for dry beans, sunflower, and cotton growers. For rice growers, irrigation/water management and weed management were tied for first as the top management challenge. Nutrient management was the top management challenge for wheat and corn grown for grain.Slightly more than 2/3rds of responses were from California’s Central Valley which is where most of the state’s agricultural production is located . In 2017, counties with the highest total cropland were Fresno , Kern , Tulare , Merced , and San Joaquin . According to USDA NASS data from 2018, the district containing Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Tulare had the highest total gross value of agronomic crops in 2018 , vertical grow rack system while the district containing Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Sacramento, Solano, Sutter, Tehama, Yolo, and Yuba counties had the second highest gross value of agronomic crops in 2018 .
Therefore, since 67% of our respondents represent these two districts, the geography of our respondents appears to be representative of where much of the agronomic crop production is taking place in the state. Representation is lacking most in Imperial county, which is a large producer of agronomic crops, particularly hay crops. In 2018, Imperial county had 341,229 acres in agronomic crops, ranking second in the state for gross value of alfalfa production . However, it is important to note that the average farm size in Imperial County in 2018 is much larger than the state average of 348 acres, meaning that less people may be working larger areas of land. Therefore, looking only at acreage and economic value in agronomic crops may not be representative of how many people in our target population work in a particular region. Regarding the top three field crops grown by respondents, agriculture census data from 2017 shows that rice represented 541,000 planted acres in California, alfalfa 720,000 acres, and wheat 480,000 acres in 2016 . Grain corn represented 420,000 planted acres, silage corn 315,000 acres, cotton 218,000 acres, dry beans 50,000 acres, and sunflower 46,600 acres. Therefore, crop representation in our needs assessment survey roughly follows the area planted throughout the state. The results of our survey indicate that respondents are skewed slightly younger than the distribution of the industry population. According to the 2017 Census of Agriculture Online, the average age of California farmers is 59 years old . Nearly 60% of survey respondents were 54 years old or below, and the greatest number of respondents fell between the ages of 35-44 . This may be related to the mode of survey delivery. Online surveys may be bias towards younger respondents with higher income and education .
Additional drawbacks to online surveys include the fact that the survey presentation may vary based on browser settings and variations in hardware which may increase the likelihood of response error . In addition, the flexibility of the internet and ease with which false identities can be created can make survey results unreliable . Online surveys do have the advantage of allowing for large-scale and inexpensive data collection. With online surveys, costs per response decrease as sample size increases, while for surveys sent through postal mail, costs tend to increase significantly as sample size increases . Research comparing electronic surveys to postal surveys has confirmed that electronic survey content results may be no different than postal survey content results yet provide advantages of fast distribution . Qualtrics Survey Software allowed us to customize survey questions based on the respondent’s primary vocation. While paper surveys can also indicate that a set of questions are only for people that select a particular answer choice in a previous question, the online survey allows for a more customized experience through format and response control . Electronic surveys can also yield a significantly higher response rate than paper surveys . Because the objective of this study was to reach the broadest audience possible, an online survey that could be completed on a computer or mobile phone platform was selected.Water-related issues were clearly the most prominent in our survey responses, representing 4 out of the top 5 concerns listed by respondents. Specifically, regulations on water use and water costs were the two concerns that had the highest number of respondents expressing that they were “very concerned”.
The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act , signed into law by Governor Brown in 2014, requires groundwater-dependent regions to stop over drafting groundwater and develop plans to balance pumping and recharge . Since this is the first time groundwater use is subject to regulations in California, growers are expectedly concerned about changes that will occur as a result. Groundwater contributes % of California’s water supply in an average year, and up to % or more during dry years, while some agricultural and disadvantaged communities rely on groundwater for up to 100% of their water supply . This suggests that tensions will grow in the future as groundwater pumping regulations are enacted. Water is generally the most-limiting input for crop production, and therefore impacts on cost, availability, or quantity will limit the capacity for growers to manage this resource. California has approximately 2.8 million ha of irrigated land, which produces nearly 90% of the harvested crops in the state . A decrease in water availability because of new regulations has implications for maintaining the same area under irrigation into the future. Impacts of water decline were already being felt before SGMA was signed into law. Due to increasing incidence of prolonged drought, California saw a decline of more than 200,000 acres of irrigated land between 2004 and 2006, while nearly 250,000 acres had to be idled in 2014 alone . It is projected that an additional 500,000 to 1 million acres of land in the San Joaquin Valley alone may have to be retired due to SGMA . Uncertainty and difficulty around water resource planning and management is amplified by increasing unpredictability of weather patterns. Annual rainfall varies greatly in California – more notably than other parts of the country – which makes predicting rain fall year to year a challenge . For these reasons, it was unsurprising that irrigation and water management were ranked as a top management challenge for survey respondents.A large portion of respondents expressed that they are “very concerned” about regulations on chemical use, such as pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides. Given new or impending bans on agrochemicals in California, vertical farming racks it makes sense that growers are concerned about finding alternatives. California’s recent ban on chlorpyrifos – an inexpensive and effective pesticide used nationwide since 1965 – highlights this issue. Chlorpyrifos exposure has been linked to harmful health effects, including neurodevelopmental disorders . In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a federal ban for chlorpyrifos on all food crops, but soon after, the federal government under the Trump administration concluded the science was “unresolved” and removed the ban. Regardless, California, along with Hawaii and New York, decided to move forward with banning chlorpyrifos. In California users were required to stop using these products on December 31, 2020. Other states continue to use these agrochemicals, leaving California growers to feel like they are at a competitive disadvantage.
The ban on chlorpyrifos has and will likely continue to be felt where it was most heavily used. This includes Fresno, Tulare, Kern, and Kings counties, all of which have strong representation in our survey. The period between 1991-2012 saw large increases in chlorpyrifos use in these four counties . During this time, 7.2 million pounds of chlorpyrifos was used in Fresno county, 6.1 million pounds was used in Tulare county, 5.4 million pounds were used in Kern counties, and 3.2 million pounds was used in Kings county . Effects will also be felt heavily in alfalfa production since chlorpyrifos is the most popular side-spectrum insecticide for management of key alfalfa pests, such as the alfalfa weevil and aphids . In our survey, 5% of alfalfa growers and consultants said that they were “very concerned” about regulations on chemical use. There are other impending regulations on neonicotinoids in California, which are commonly used on cotton, corn, and grains. However, recent evidence has linked these chemicals to honeybee die off and declining pollinator health . Because of the high solubility of neonicotinoids in water, it has also been found that they readily leach into water bodies and can persist over multiple years, which has implications for aquatic species . In July 2018, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation announced that they will not consider applications of any new uses of neonicotinoid insecticides until re-evaluation of the chemicals are completed . An addendum was published in January 2019, and the investigation is ongoing . This prospective ban is particularly worrisome to certain stakeholders. A recent study found that in 2011 between 79-100% of maize acreage in the USA were treated with neonicotinoids . In addition to chemical bans, there are significant challenges with getting new products registered in California. California is unique in that tens of thousands of residents live near intensively farmed areas and the production is often labor-intensive. Therefore, the effect of pesticide use at the agricultural-urban boundary and the potential effect on farmworkers are key evaluation factors for product registration by the California DPR, while there is not as much emphasis on these factors at the federal level by the U.S. EPA . In addition, federal pesticide law mandates that the U.S. EPA consider the economic benefits of a pesticide when deciding whether to register it. California law does not allow consideration of economic benefits in the decision to register a pesticide unless there is no feasible alternative. Therefore, the financial advantages of using a certain pesticide cannot outweigh the health risks of use under California law. This is beneficial for communities, farmworkers, and consumers – yet, it may seem unfair to growers and input suppliers when market competitors have access to chemicals that they do not.Weed control was ranked as the top management challenges by growers and consultants. Current estimates of losses on global crop production show that weeds cause the largest losses , followed by insects , and diseases . Total weed control costs in the U.S. are more than $11 billion a year, most of which is spent on herbicides . The direct annual cost to monitor and control invasive plants in California is estimated at around $82 million . One of the most widely used herbicides is glyphosate. Although the Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly stated that glyphosate is safe, California has led the charge in holding Monsanto accountable for Roundup’s link to cancer in humans and the death of important insects. As early as 2017, California added glyphosate to its list of carcinogens under Proposition 65 and the state has a growing number of cities and counties banning or restricting glyphosate. To date, more than 40 communities in the state of California have restricted the use of glyphosate in some capacity . Yet, weed management as a category in our survey was broad and could mean many things – new weed species, herbicide resistance, drift issues, or preventing the use of certain herbicides, Therefore, UCCE must work directly with agronomic crop producers to determine future directions of weed management research. Herbicide resistance is a growing concern in cropping systems throughout the state, particularly in rice .