Posts Tagged: statistics
A Summary of 2017's Agronomic Statistics for California and Merced and Madera Counties
The California Department of Food and Agriculture's (CDFA) recently released statistics review...
Florida Crop Affected by Huanglongbing?????
The latest National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) results are out for the citrus crop. These are results that are collected by the USDA to gauge production in the different growing areas of the country. From this most recent data, it is clear that citrus production is diminishing with time, most likely the effect of Huanglongbing. This is about a 60% decline from 2015.
The impact of this reduced production has reached out to not just growers, but also the juice industry they support, or are supported by. There's been a decline in the number of juice plants since 2014 which are reliant on volume to stay in business. If plants close, growers have fewer options for their juice citrus. http://www.theledger.com/news/20140705/at-least-one-juice-processor-expected-to-close
Most commercial crop production figures are collected by state and summarized on a state basis with the Agricultural Census every 10 years - https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/. The last was done in 2012.
Daily market prices for these different commodities can be seen on a wholesale basis by city, at USDA's Market News Service - https://www.marketnews.usda.gov/mnp/fv-home . This gives current prices and archived prices for products sold in different markets. It gives a general idea of what the grower will be paid for a given crop.
All of these sources are helpful for deciding where crop prices and markets are going. If you have time check them out.
citrus greening
The arduous task of assessing impact
Unlike farmers, for example, we can't report back changes in yield per acre planted or larger fruits as a result of our efforts. We can't always prove whether an end result is correlated or caused by our efforts. But we still have to find a way to link our efforts to outcomes and accurately quantify some of the qualitative information about attitudes, behavior, knowledge, skills, and impacts. Evaluation is typically an important component of demonstrating a program's accountability and continued worth to funding sources. There are resources to ensure your environmental program is using the best available peer-reviewed protocol and methods.
As a new ANR program, the UC California Naturalist Program constantly seeks ways to evaluate program impacts. Working with UC Davis School of Education's Heidi Ballard at the helm of the evaluation process, we received a two-year NSF Pathways grant to develop and test survey instruments to evaluate the impact of the California Naturalist program. We conducted interviews of class participants in 2012 and 2013 and included questions about the course, perspectives on science and the environment, prior knowledge of the content delivered during the course, information about each participant, and finally changes in participant's knowledge and scientific and environmental perspectives. We worked with a committee of experts that included academic experts in the field of citizen science from Cornell and other universities.
The results of this two-year study will help direct the future course of our program. We found that overall course satisfaction was high with a majority of participants selecting the highest level of satisfaction, four individuals selecting somewhat satisfied and none selecting anything below. Instructors all received very good or excellent rankings. Ninety-six percent of those surveyed responded that they do plan to volunteer, which indicates that the participants who are receiving this training will be applying it to land stewardship, interpretation, citizen science and other activities that help nature and people. The mission of our program is to foster a diverse community of naturalists and promote stewardship of California's natural resources through education and service. Our findings support our program tremendously, and also point to opportunities for growth, like making sure the diversity of program participants better reflects the diversity in California.
Evaluation is a science with logical steps that require expertise and resources to execute in a meaningful way. A blog post detailing all the ways a program can tackle an evaluation plan would be redundant at best, and misleading at worst. I am not a social scientist, nor an expert in evaluation, but I have received an inordinate amount of help in program evaluation from internal training at ANR, university colleagues, and a few online resources highlighted below. There are some excellent free resources available that cover both the pedagogy and practical steps in creating an evaluation plan.
- UCANR ToolKit for Assessing IPM Outcomes and Impacts While specifically geared toward an IPM program, this will be useful for anyone needing a refresher or solid introduction, steps, and links to peer-reviewed literature on evaluation planning.
- The NSF User-Friendly Handbook for Project Evaluation (2012) Aimed at people who need to learn more about both the value of evaluation and how to design and carry out an evaluation, rather than those who already have a solid base of experience in the field. It builds on firmly established principles, blending technical knowledge and common sense and presenting both quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods.
- Center for the Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) The resources on this NSF-funded website are designed to assist project directors, and evaluators, by referring to reports on past projects to build on prior work and to key resources to learn about integrating and managing evaluation.
- The American Evaluation Association's public e-library Best if you have a search term in mind or time to head down various rabbit holes!
California Agricultural Production Statistics
California agriculture experienced a nearly three percent increase in the sales value of its products in 2012. The state's 80,500 farms and ranches received a record $44.7 billion for their output last year, up from $43.3 billion in 2011 and $37.9 billion during 2010. California remained the number one state in cash farm receipts with 11.3 percent of the US total. The state accounted for 15 percent of national receipts for crops and 7.1 percent of the US revenue for livestock and livestock products. Exports totaled $18.18 billion in value which represents an eight percent increase over the previous year.
California's agricultural abundance includes more than 400 commodities. The state produces nearly half of US-grown fruits, nuts and vegetables. Across the nation, US consumers regularly purchase several crops produced solely in California.
California's top-ten valued commodities for 2012 are:
- Milk — $6.9 billion
- Grapes — $4.449 billion
- Almonds — $4.347 billion
- Nursery plants — $3.543 billion
- Cattle, Calves — $3.299 billion
- Strawberries — $1.939 billion
- Lettuce — $1.448 billion
- Walnuts — $1.349 billion
- Hay — $1.237 billion
- Tomatoes — $1.170 billion
Please see complete statistics for 2012, reproduced as PDF files below, or use the link in the right column to access this report and others on the NASS website.
workers
Pollen Power
Cool temperatures and honey bees do not a good team make. Since honey bees don't forage until...
Pollen Power
Pollen Everywhere
Pollen Load