- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, on a trade mission in Asia, signed an agreement with South Korea yesterday to increase collaboration on trade and technology, according to a San Francisco Chronicle column by Andrew S. Ross. Today the governor was scheduled to call for ratification of the U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement.
The state's current trade relationship with South Korea includes exports of $500 million in California agricultural products - beef, rice, nuts, oranges. UC Agricultural Issues Center, Dan Sumner, told Ross South Korea is an...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
American dairy operators are asking the Obama Administration to protect them from an increase in New Zealand dairy exports to the U.S., according to an article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. But Daniel Sumner, director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center, believes the American farmers' worries are overblown.
"They're making wild claims," Sumner was quoted in the story.
Obama's trade negotiators begin talks next week in Australia on a regional trade agreement that may make it easier for New Zealand dairy operators to...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Sacramento Bee* reported bad news for California almond growers, but the director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center, Dan Sumner, still had encouraging words for the industry.
According to the Bee story, written by Jim Downing, almond prices dropped more than 30 percent from August to December, the market for orchard real estate has gone cold, and the industry expects to be left with a 300 million pound surplus when the 2009 harvest begins in August.
Making matters still worse is a looming drought. West Side farmer John Diener told the reporter he plans to fallow 3,000 acres of land in order to concentrate what water he will have...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center, Dan Sumner, indicated that declining agricultural research is contributing to a hike in global food prices, according to an article in today's San Francisco Chronicle.
There has been a decline in investments in agricultural research and development at the federal and state levels and worldwide, with more resources diverted to improving efficiency, the story paraphrased Sumner.
"It's a long-running phenomenon I think we ought to pay a lot more attention to," he was quoted.
The Chronicle story, by George Raine, also attributed the spike in food prices to:
- ...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Last week, the media devoted time and space to the California visit of Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. On Thursday, she met with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign a number of bilateral scientific, agricultural and educational agreements.
A story in the Los Angeles Times said the two countries have become trading partners over the last four decades largely because of the work of an informal group of Chileans who studied agriculture at UC Davis in the 1960s and 1970s.
"They are the ones who sowed the seeds for what is today a multibillion-dollar agricultural operation in Chile," UC Davis Chancellor Larry...