Society may seek to provide assistance to the farmer both for protecting the environment and for maintaining the rural way of life. This desire to maintain the scenic and recreational amenities of agricultural areas can also translate to private incentives for conservation of agricultural activities and the environment. For example, vineyards in northern California’s wine country are sources of tourist revenue as well as income from wine production. The wineries benefit directly from the crowds of visitors who crowd the tasting rooms every weekend, and the region is home to numerous bed and breakfasts to house these guests. Such examples of “agri-tourism” can be pursued anywhere that farm activities are scenic, rather than noxious, from the point of view of the potential visitor. In California, agri-tourism activities also include dude ranches, self-pick berry and apple farms, corn mazes, and farm-animal petting zoos . The potential economic impact of these activities is unknown, but it may be informative to note that golf courses, a quasi-agricultural land use, resulted in a total sales impact in California of $7.8 billion in 2000, directly supporting over 62,000 jobs . In the preceding discussion of dairy production, we noted that the negative externalities involved in dairy production counteract the other benefits of having these facilities located close to population centers. In contrast,frambueso maceta the positive externalities associated with the recreational and environmental amenities of some farming activities are magnified when these operations are located closer to urban areas. Although Napa Valley wine would still taste as sweet if it were located 200 miles further from San Francisco, there would be far fewer people enjoying a drive through wine country on any given Sunday. Everything being equal, farmers who are closer to population centers will be able to reap greater private benefit from provision of new agri-tourism opportunities.

The California Organic Foods Act , signed into law in 1990, provides protection to producers, processors, handlers and consumers in that foods produced and marketed as organic must meet specified standards. As part of the regulatory process, COFA requires annual registration of all processors, growers and handlers of commodities labeled as organic. State registration is separate from, and does not act as a substitute for, organic certification. Registration is mandated by state law and is administered by CDFA while certification is mandated by federal law and is conducted by certification organizations accredited by USDA. The Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 requires the United States Department of Agriculture to develop national organic standards for organically produced agriculture and to develop an organic certification program. The final regulations for implementation of the OFPA were published in the Federal Register in December, 2000. The new rule took effect April 21, 2001 and marked the beginning of the transition period. Full compliance with the rule was required by October 20, 2002 at which time products began to use the National Organic Program organic label. The final rule includes a list of allowed synthetic and prohibited non-synthetic materials as well as labeling requirements. Unlike COFA, OFPA requires all growers grossing $5,000 or more to obtain certification from a USDA accredited certification organization.Interest in organic agricultural production has never been greater due to the continuous and rapid rate of expansion and the relatively higher prices commanded for organic products. This chapter quantifies the current size and growth of the organic industry in California with respect to acres, farm gate sales, and number of growers. The chapter looks at size and growth with respect to major commodity groups and sub-regions of California. The state’s counties are divided into eight geographic regions based on similar groupings used by the California Department of Food and Agriculture in their annual statistical reports . The six major commodity group classifications presented also parallel the CDFA reports and include: field crops; fruit crops; nut crops; livestock, poultry and products; nursery, forestry and flowers; and vegetable crops . The most important individual commodities will also be discussed.

When interpreting the results, the following points should be considered. The numbers contained in this chapter are derived solely from information provided in the annual registration forms of organic growers. In other words, the numbers are presented as reported to CDFA by growers. Only sales from products marketed as organic are required to be reported to CDFA. This means that income from sales of organically grown products sold in the conventional market may not be included. Similarly, income from government payments is not reported. Further, the registration information does not reveal whether or not a farm also has conventional production. Therefore, the size of the farm operation is not known from the registration data; only the size of the organic enterprise is known. There are a number of conventional growers in California who devote only a portion of their total acreage to organic crop production. Therefore, some of the growers that are categorized as “small” or “medium-sized” organic farmers may actually be larger conventional growers experimenting or diversifying with some organic acreage. Under CDFA regulations, producers of organic commodities pay graduated registration fees based on an operation’s total sales. However, registrants grossing over $5 million annually were not obligated to report sales above that amount prior to 2003. While most registrants reported actual amounts over $5 million, some registrants reported at the ceiling. Therefore, the total value of production in this chapter is undoubtedly underestimated because income realized by some high-revenue producers may not have been fully accounted for.Produce includes the commodity groups of most consequence to registered organic agriculture in California. In 2002, produce was grown by the majority of organic farms and acreage . Compared to all of California agriculture, produce is an even greater proportion of organic marketings than conventional marketings, representing 84 percent of total organic sales and 60 percent of total sales from California’s agricultural commodities. In contrast, livestock, poultry and products represent only 8 percent of organic sales in 2002 but routinely contribute more than one fourth of statewide income from agriculture. In 2002 there were 45 different commodities with over $1 million in organic sales. The highest grossing commodity was grapes followed by lettuces, carrots, strawberries and tomatoes . Of the top 20 grossing commodities, eight were fruit crops , seven vegetable crops , two livestock commodities and one nut crop . The top 20 commodities represented 60 percent of total sales.Produce growers represented 78 percent of the total number of growers in 2002 . Almost half of all organic growers produced fruit crops, about one fourth grew vegetable crops and 11 percent grew nut crops.

Field crops were grown by 11 percent of producers, nursery and flowers by 8 percent and livestock, poultry and products by only 3 percent. These percentages don’t add to 100 because over one third of organic growers reported sales in more than one commodity group,cultivar frambuesas most typically vegetable crops and fruit crops. Over half of the registered organic growers grossed under $10,000 in 2002 while three percent grossed over a million dollars . Ninety percent of sales were from the 17 percent of growers grossing $100,000 or more. The remaining 10 percent of sales was captured by the 83 percent of growers grossing under $100,000 in annual sales. Over one third of the state’s total organic acreage was located in the San Joaquin Valley in 2002 . Vegetable crops comprised 42 percent of that acreage, fruit and nut crops 27 percent, and field crops 26 percent. The Sacramento Valley recorded 17 percent of the state’s organic acreage, with three fourths of the region’s acreage planted to field crops and the rest mostly divided among fruit, nut, and vegetable crops. The Central Coast represented 13 percent of the total acreage . Eighty percent of that acreage was planted to vegetable crops. The South Coast had another 10 percent of the acreage of which almost three fourths was fruit crops. The North Coast and Cascade-Sierra each had 9 percent of the acreage. Half of the North Coast acreage was devoted to fruit crops while 91 percent of the acreage in the CascadeSierra was in field crops.The San Joaquin Valley was the leading region for fruit production with 32 percent of the acreage and 26 percent of sales. The South Coast followed closely with 30 percent of the acreage and 25 percent of the sales. The North Coast had 17 percent of the acreage and 16 percent of the sales. Two thirds of the nut acreage was in the San Joaquin Valley and Sacramento Valleys with 89 percent of the sales split between these two regions. The remaining nut production was split between the Central Coast and North Coast. Three fourths of the vegetable crop production took place in the Central Coast and San Joaquin Valley. These two regions accounted for 58 percent of sales. The Central Coast had 30 percent of the acreage and 37 percent of the sales while the San Joaquin Valley had 43 percent of the acreage but only 21 percent of sales. Field crops were grown primarily in the Sacramento Valley and San Joaquin Valley with two thirds of the acreage and three fourths of the sales. Livestock and poultry production took place primarily in the North Coast and San Joaquin Valley with 95 percent of the acreage and 97 percent of the sales.The number of registered organic farms in California increased by over 50 percent during the eleven-year period 1992-2002 from 1,273 to 1,949 growers . But the growth has not been even, with the largest growth in 1994, 1998, and 2000.The numbers actually declined from the previous year in 1993 and 2002. By far the largest absolute change in number of growers has been in fruit and nut crops, increasing by over 700 growers.The number of growers increased by a much smaller percentage than the number of farmed acres, suggesting that established growers increased crop acreage and/or that some new growers entered the program with above average farm size . This is consistent with the observation that almost 40 percent of the growth in acreage was in field crops which tend to have much higher acreage per farming unit than produce crops. Acreage also grew at a faster rate than gross sales.

This is again attributable to an increasing importance of field crops that have lower sales per acre than any of the other commodity groups.Comparing the organic sub-sector to the whole of California agriculture, gross sales of organically grown commodities tripled between 1992 and 2002 while overall agricultural sales in California increased by 30 percent over the same period. Growth in organic sales averaged 20 percent a year between 1993 and 1998 but slowed to an average of eight percent from 1998 to 2002. In the five year period 1998-2002, organic sales increased by 33 percent while state total sales were stagnant. Organic crop acreage increased four-fold between 1992 and 2002 despite a decrease in land in farms for the state over the same period. Organic agriculture nevertheless represented only 1 percent of total cash income for California by 2002. Organic produce was slightly more prominent, with 2 percent of vegetable sales and 1.4 percent of fruit and nut sales in 2002.From 1998-2002, vegetable crops posted a 48 percent increase in the number of acres but only a 22 percent increase in total sales , although this varied widely across regions. Over 90 percent of the increase in vegetable crop acreage took place in the Central Coast and the San Joaquin Valley. Vegetable crops with the greatest increase in sales include spinach, celery, endive, mushrooms, lettuces, and fresh market tomatoes. Salad mix sales actually decreased over the period. Commodities with the largest increase in acreage include salad mix, lettuces, spinach, carrots and mustard. The acreage data can be somewhat misleading in that the greatest increase came from fallow acreage and acreage in cover crops for rotation purposes.Considering all salad crops as lettuces the greatest increase in acreage attributed to a vegetable commodity came from lettuces expanding from 2,600 acres in 1998 to 6,500 acres in 2002. In fact, lettuces account for over one third of the increase in vegetable acreage. However, sales did not increase in proportion to the acreage, increasing by 23 percent due, primarily, to the decrease in sales from salad mix.