- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
China has threatened to impose retaliatory tariffs on American exports following President Trump's plan to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Agricultural exports are in the crosshairs, reported Thaddeus Miller in the Merced Sun-Star.
China's tariffs would first hit U.S. products such as avocados and nuts with 15 percent duties, the article says.
"It doesn't really matter which one it is, whether it's alfalfa, almonds or wherever it may go," said David Doll, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Merced County. "They're as much political as they are anything...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue followed his townhall at the World Ag Expo last week with visits with farmers and tours of farmland in the San Joaquin Valley. "I need all the education I can get," Perdue said at Harris Woolf California Almonds facility in Coalinga, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times by Geoffrey Mohan.
Mohan spoke to the director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center, Dan Sumner, to understand Perdue's role in President Trump's...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
California's years-long drought is easing up, with storms delivering rain and snow that has exceeded "normal" for the state, reported Jed Kim for the Marketplace Sustainability Desk. Kim interviewed Dan Sumner, the director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center, a UC Agriculture and Natural Resources statewide program that focuses on such topics such international markets, invasive pests and diseases, and rural development.
Sumner shared a message of hope during the two-minute Marketplace...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
About 4 percent of the California agricultural economy - $1.8 billion - will be lost in 2015 due to the California drought, and combined with ripple effects in affiliated industries, will produce a $2.7 billion economic hit, reported the San Jose Mercury-News.
The article was based on an economic analysis by a team of scientists that included Daniel Sumner, director of the Agricultural Issues Center, a UC Agriculture and Natural Resources special program.
The downturn will be felt most sharply in the San Joaquin Valley, where five of...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
As California struggles through the four-year drought, a common complaint asserts that agriculture generates only 2 percent of the gross domestic product, but consumes 80 percent of the state's water. Both figures are deceptive, says an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times written by a UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) agricultural economist, and the California secretary of agriculture.
The authors, Dan Sumner, director of the UC ANR Agricultural Issues Center, and Karen Ross, secretary of...