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Bird flu's impact on egg and milk markets varies
Egg prices soar while dairy prices remain stable as H5N1 spreads through California
Consumers have faced reduced egg supplies and high egg prices. A recent article by University of California, Davis agricultural economists explore the reasons for reduced egg supplies and high egg prices and assess what producers and consumers can expect now that the bird flu, or H5N1, has spread through poultry farms and California dairies.
The authors find that California egg production in December 2024 was 30% lower than in January 2022, while national production, which is the source of most of California's retail supply, had declined by much less. California milk production is also decreasing as the virus sweeps through California dairies, but has not driven up consumer prices because of major differences in the relevant markets.
“Despite California producing more than 15% of U.S. milk, H5N1 has had little or no impact on milk prices because the disease has not substantially affected national milk production,” said co-author Daniel Sumner, a Distinguished Professor with the UC Davis Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. “Most California milk is used for storable, processed products like cheese, milk powders and butter that enter a large global market.”
Avian influenza has been around for decades. But in early 2022 a new outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) hit flocks of egg-laying hens across the United States, leading to almost continuous outbreaks across multiple states. These outbreaks, and the subsequent loss of hens due to the disease and the long-standing “depopulation” program intended to eradicate the disease, have led to the loss of more than 60 million U.S. egg-laying hens from 2022 through 2024. In California, the disease led to the destruction of around 10.6 million laying hens, with another 1 million table-egg pullets (young hens about to start laying) also destroyed.
Production decreases coincided with the rising egg prices that jumped in 2022 and again dramatically at the end of 2024, with national wholesale egg prices clearing $5 per dozen and California egg prices rising above $7 per dozen. California's regulations state that only cage-free eggs may be produced or sold here, raising average prices in normal times and accounting for higher volatility in egg prices for California consumers.
In August 2024, H5N1 was detected in California dairies and spread rapidly. As of late January 2025, nearly 75% of California herds had been infected. In contrast to its high mortality in birds, H5N1 has mostly produced more mild symptoms in dairy herds. Individual cows are typically asymptomatic after around a month, and milk production, which may fall temporarily by 20% or 30%, takes a few more months to recover. Importantly, even in infected herds, a large share of cows shows no loss of milk production. The authors estimate that California milk production fell by 6.4%, 10.3%, and 8.4% in October, November and December 2024, compared to what would have occurred without the disease.
While consumers may not feel the effects of H5N1 through rising dairy prices, affected dairy producers have experienced major losses in net returns, which will continue as their herds recover in 2025.
To learn more about the effects of bird flu on California farmers and consumers, read the full article by Olena Sambucci, Daniel A. Sumner and Erica A. Van Fleet: “Avian Influenza and the Economics of California Eggs and Milk: Some Early Assessments,” ARE Update 28(3): 1–4. UC Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics, online at https://giannini.ucop.edu/filer/file/1740696665/21242/.
ARE Update is a bimonthly magazine published by the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics to educate policymakers and agribusiness professionals about new research or analysis of important topics in agricultural and resource economics. Articles are written by Giannini Foundation members, including University of California faculty and Cooperative Extension specialists in agricultural and resource economics, and university graduate students. Learn more about the Giannini Foundation and its publications at https://giannini.ucop.edu/.
Gift extends UC Davis pistachio research on new scions, rootstocks
Rod Stiefvater of Oro Vista Farms donates money, farm resources
Warming weather, water scarcity and a loss of winter fog threaten pistachio production in California's southern San Joaquin Valley, potentially disrupting one of the state's most valuable crops.
The University of California, Davis, is enhancing and expanding its Pistachio Breeding Program after a generous gift from philanthropist and pistachio farmer Rod Stiefvater, who is donating more than $335,000 over three years to develop new rootstocks that thrive under changing climate conditions.
Stiefvater is also donating plots in Kern County on his Oro Vista Farms property for UC Davis researchers to plant rootstocks and scions and conduct trials, all under the care of his seasoned farm managers and workers.
“I view it as a way to give back to the industry that has provided for my financial success in ways that I never dreamed possible,” Stiefvater said. “They'll receive daily attention to whatever needs arise, whether it be planting or irrigation or whatever. All those sorts of things we can handle and handle very efficiently.”
The gift establishes the Louise Ferguson and Craig Kallsen Pistachio Research Fund for new varietal pistachio research in Kern, Kings and Tulare counties. Ferguson is a UC Davis Professor of Cooperative Extension with a focus on pistachio, olive, citrus, fig and other crops. Kallsen was a Cooperative Extension farm advisor for Kern County who retired in 2023. Both have close relationships with Stiefvater and others in the pistachio industry.
“What is so uniquely valuable here is the opportunity to leverage the expertise of experienced professionals who understand how to manage this material,” Ferguson said. “There's no way we could purchase what he's giving us.”
Pistachio breeding
The Pistachio Breeding Program is currently led by associate professor Patrick J. Brown and associate professor of Cooperative Extension Giulia Marino, both in the Department of Plant Sciences.
Brown will focus on breeding, and Marino will evaluate pistachio rootstocks and varieties. A third person, funded by the gift, will help with the evaluation of the material located on Oro Vista test plots in the southern San Joaquin Valley, as well as test plots previously established by Kallsen and Professor Emeritus Dan Parfitt.
The Oro Vista location provides the college with a chance for research in the Bakersfield area, where the majority of California's nearly $3 billion in pistachio crops are grown. The area is drier, warmer and saltier than up north.
“This would be an extension reaching further south but would hopefully add to the diversity of the test plots,” Stiefvater said. “What you want to be able to do is to have both rootstocks and tops that will thrive in different climatic conditions. If you have a long-term crop or a permanent crop, you're always looking to have that sort of flexibility.”
Pistachios evolved in the high desserts of Central Asia, Iran and Afghanistan, growing at about 3,500 feet. California trees typically grow at altitudes below 100 feet, Ferguson said.
The mountains and winter rains of the southern San Joaquin Valley brought a cool fog, helping the crop grow. But those foggy days are not as plentiful as they once were, and that can harm production.
“Now that we have no fog, we have radiant heating from the sun directly onto the tree,” Stiefvater said. “It may not continue to be economical to grow pistachios down here in the southern San Joaquin Valley. So obviously, that's a major concern of mine and the industry.”
Relatively new crop to California
Pistachio as a crop arrived in California in the 1970s, and today it ranks as the sixth most valuable commodity in the state, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
The industry needs more varieties to thrive long term. Pistachios are a popular snack and serve as a rich source of healthy fats, protein, fiber and other beneficial nutrients.
“This land from Rod sort of fills a gap in the cultivar release process,” Brown said, adding that growers want to see how varieties grow in commercial environments rather than solely in university settings. “This is a really key step in getting things out there.”
Plant material from Parfitt and Kallsen's research plots will be moved to Oro Vista and evaluated for performance, yield and disease, as well as for beneficial traits such as resilience under warming temperatures or low water quantity and quality, Marino said.
“It's really very precious material that needs to be preserved, so having the possibility to put it all in one location would be a huge facilitation for us,” she said.
Being able to monitor yield and quality over time is also helpful because conditions – like very wet or cold seasons – can change from year to year and affect whether one variety is used or another. “If a tree is not productive or doesn't have good nut quality, no grower will plant it,” Marino said. “That is also important.”
Working together
Industry partners, including the California Pistachio Research Board, play key roles in funding and advancing research, as does philanthropy from individual donors. Funding and crop management gifts, like the kind from Stiefvater, play a critical role in bridging support for public research while also providing a key connection to industry, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Dean Helene Dillard said.
“This gift from Rod will have a tremendous effect on the success of the Pistachio Breeding Program and the industry itself,” Dillard said. “Only by working together can we meet the challenges of a changing climate and safeguard the future of this valuable crop.”
Ferguson and others hope this new partnership could serve as a model for future collaborations. “We're hoping that if this is successful, we would garner support from other members of the industry, in addition to Rod, and perhaps establish a larger fund,” Ferguson said.
To make a gift to the Pistachio Breeding Program or the Department of Plant Sciences contact Jennifer Martinez at jelmartinez@ucdavis.edu or 530-902-5985 for more information.
This story was originally published on the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences news site.
Date production workshop set for April 23 in Palm Desert
Scientists to present date research on irrigation, nutrients, disease, pests and regulations
The 2025 California Date Palm Workshop will be held on April 23 in Palm Desert at the UC Riverside Palm Desert Center. Anyone who is interested in growing dates is welcome to attend.
"This workshop brings together researchers, growers and stakeholders to discuss recent research data on the ‘state of the date' crop in California,” said workshop organizer Ali Montazar, UC Cooperative Extension irrigation and water management advisor for Imperial, Riverside and San Diego counties.
The international date research workshop runs from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Scientists will share the latest research and information on various aspects of date production, including irrigation and nutrient management, disease and pest management, and laws and regulations.
Abdelouahhab Zaid, secretary general of the Khalifa International Award for Date Palm and Agricultural Innovation in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, will speak about the development of date palm cultivation regionally and internationally.
Ricardo Salomon-Torres, research professor at Universidad Estatal de Sonora San Luis Río Colorado, will discuss the status of the date palm industry in Mexico.
Montazar will discuss irrigation management. Mark Hoddle, UC Cooperative Extension biological control specialist based at UC Riverside, will give a presentation on South American palm weevil in California. Spider mites, date nutrition and the aspergillus species causing black mold of dates are among other topics that will be discussed.
“We also will have a grower panel discussion on the concerns and the needs of the California date industry,” Montazar said. “This event is such a great opportunity to showcase how impactful date palm production and agriculture is in the low-desert region.”
Participation is free, but registration is requested at https://ucanr.edu/datepalm2025. Onsite registration begins at 7:30 a.m. at the UCR Palm Desert Center at 75080 Frank Sinatra Drive, Palm Desert, CA 92211.
For more information, contact Ali Montazar at amontazar@ucanr.edu or Kristy Kneiding at kkneiding@datesaregreat.com.
UC ANR fire expert highlights materials, components and actions that saved homes from LA fires
Valachovic, UC Cooperative Extension advisor, visited neighborhoods affected by Palisades and Eaton Fires
Many houses still stand among the blocks of fire-ravaged neighborhoods of both the Palisades and Eaton Fire footprints, each offering clues about what they and community members experienced during Jan. 7-8, 2025.
A squirt gun, a blender jar used to scoop water from a pool, cut fence panels on the ground, gates off their hinges, rub marks from fire hoses on cement, and a shovel in the yard. Each is a sign that someone, who may have been a resident or firefighter, was trying their best to protect a home or stop a fire from advancing through the bushes, leaves and mulch surrounding each home.
I am trained to look for these signs and see places where building materials and home elements were tested by fire resulting from ember ignitions or the radiant heat from the combustion of nearby structures. I took two trips to the Eaton and Palisades Fires in the weeks following the fires to look for examples where surviving homes withstood the ferocity of the fire and for signs of defensible space and home hardening in action.
On March 11, I presented a webinar, sharing some of my observations and critical fire mitigation strategies pertinent throughout California and other wildfire-prone areas.
Clues in the ashes, signs of hope and community resiliency
During my visits to LA, I found evidence that homes and yards can be designed, maintained and retrofitted to resist heat, embers and flames. Among the ashes, there are signs of hope and actions that we can take to help our homes resist future wildfires.
First of all, what surrounds our structures (e.g., house, garage and storage sheds) – working from the edge of the wall, under our decks, and out five feet – really matters. Fire has a hard time reaching our houses if there are no stored combustible materials, mulch, woody plants or attached wood gates. In defensible space lingo, we call this “zone zero,” and it is the most important area to create and maintain.
The windows were the weak link in both the Eaton and Palisades Fires, where the people generally built using stucco or stucco-like cladding products, which are generally less vulnerable to fire. With radiant heat from adjacent burning buildings or landscaping, the heat broke windowpanes or deformed the glazing on the vinyl windows, allowing the glass panes to fall out. Once there is an opening in the building, fire can enter the home.
When a house, garage or storage shed burns within 25 feet of another, the heat from that building can ignite siding and break glass in a window. We call that “radiant heat.” In LA, where I saw dual-paned, tempered glass windows and noncombustible siding, homes survived.
Dual-paned windows perform far better with radiant heat exposure than single-pane windows, common in buildings built before the 1970s (and the case for most homes in these fire footprints). I saw many homes that survived – despite experiencing heat exposure from a nearby building – because the single-paned windows had been replaced and upgraded to dual-pane glass. Tempered glass would be the best material choice where buildings are close to each other.
Plants, wood fences and bender boards that define planting areas create beauty, but fire can follow these items to the structure. When incorporating these elements into our yards, make sure these elements are not linked so the fire can follow them like a wick to our structures. Replace wood gates that attach to the house with metal. Place plants into groups or islands separated from the house and each other.
Every building can be a vector or a future radiant heat source. It is important to take care of all buildings, even if they have little financial value. For example, an ignited garden shed near the house can become a heat source to the home.
Action must be taken, and it is everyone's responsibility
In both the Eaton and Palisades Fires, I did not see many homes that survived without evidence of some type of defensive action. I have been wrestling with what message that sends. In the end, I concluded that the message is that in the surviving homes, small actions in preparation – combined with a little extra help from a fire professional – were the key to preventing and limiting damage.
In fires like these, where the wind is carrying embers everywhere, and fire personnel are focused on helping everyone evacuate, every little action the homeowner has taken to prepare for fire increases the chance that a firefighter will make a split-second decision and be able to take the time to help defend a building. Or, they may conclude that the building needs no assistance because it is well-prepared.
I have visited the sites of other catastrophic fires, such as the 2017 Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa, 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, and 2021 Marshall Fire in Colorado. So, where have I landed after investigating another scene of devastation?
Fire adaptation takes adaptation. We must do some things differently. This is not an action for others to take; it is an action for everyone. We have learned to use seat belts and car seats and sneeze into our elbows rather than our hands.
We can change behaviors to protect those we most care about and our homes. Is it possible to build or retrofit homes to resist hurricane-force winds carrying hot embers? My answer is yes. I can't predict that every home will survive, but many more will. And these collective actions are well worth the investment.
Yana Valachovic is the county director and forest advisor for the University of California Cooperative Extension in Humboldt and Del Norte counties and a member of UC ANR's Fire Network with a specialty in community resilience and the built environment. Valachovic is passionate about finding solutions to challenging problems bringing her skills in forestry, natural resources and sociological research, design and mitigation of the built environment for wildfire resilience, as well as her years rooted in county government and community engagement.
She is a member of the Governor's Wildfire Forest Resilience Task Force and other state fire policy workgroups, and also the co-lead of the Northern California region of the California Fire Science Consortium. Valachovic has co-authored papers on fire behavior in California forests and the intersection of fire performance in home and landscape design. She is active in California policy development and has been a technical resource for bioenergy, forest management, home hardening and improvements to defensible space legislation.
Survey: Water system consolidations improve water quality, infrastructure
UCCE specialist studying projects that help secure safe, reliable drinking water
“Nino, the water's not coming out right; something's going on with the well.”
Those words – from Michael Prado Sr.'s goddaughter – are reflective of longstanding water concerns in Monson, a rural community of about 100 people in Tulare County.
“I was one of those people who just used to turn the faucet on and expected the water to come on – I didn't know where it came from, or what was in it,” said Prado, a retired machine operator.
But during 29 years on the Community Services District (CSD) board of Sultana, a town four miles north of Monson, Prado became a self-described “water nerd” who learned about local water systems and the troubles faced by his neighbors. Monson historically has relied on private wells – some of which had high nitrate contamination levels. Then, during the drought of 2014-15, many of the wells ran dry and residents had to rely on bottled water or water tanks filled periodically by truck.
That's when Maria Herrera of Self-Help Enterprises, a community development organization serving the San Joaquin Valley, approached Prado about tying Monson into Sultana's water system that serves about 1,000 people, and giving Monson representation on the Sultana CSD board.
“I spoke to my board and it was a no-brainer,” said Prado, who has served as board president of the Sultana CSD for the past 14 years. “We share the school with Monson; it's the Monson-Sultana School – the school was actually in Monson before it came to Sultana, so our board felt the need was urgent. Our kids were in that community, and we thought, ‘You know what, let's bring them in.'”
The Sultana-Monson project – which included building new wells, laying piping and annexing Monson into the special district – was among those studied through a groundbreaking survey conducted by Kristin Dobbin, a University of California Cooperative Extension specialist in water justice policy and planning.
Dobbin is studying the consolidation of water systems, which can entail creating physical connections (such as pipelines) between water systems like in the Sultana-Monson project or administrative mergers that leave the physical infrastructure unchanged. About 250 consolidation projects have been completed across the state since 2015 – many of them in small, rural communities with tenuous access to safe and reliable drinking water.
“Water system consolidation has really become, in the last eight years, a top solution in California for addressing the chronic challenges facing smaller water systems,” said Dobbin, who is based at the UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management.
Smaller communities pursue economies of scale through mergers
Although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines a small water system as serving fewer than 3,300 people (with “very small” systems serving fewer 500), many of the systems undergoing a consolidation serve only a couple hundred residents. At such a small scale, maintaining a water system is prohibitively expensive – and smaller communities often lack the technical capability and staffing to install and adequately maintain the infrastructure.
Consolidation aims to create economies of scale for the participating systems, which can help ensure a better quality, more sustainable water supply for all community members. To better understand the motivations – and results – of consolidation projects (both completed and in-progress), Dobbin sent a survey to 434 water systems across California in early 2024.
Remarkably, of the 78 systems that responded, 100% of them reported that their consolidation was a success, and 82% indicated their motivations for pursuing consolidation were fully addressed. The top reason for consolidating, reported by about two-thirds of respondents, was a desire to improve water quality – not surprising, given the state's tight regulation of water.
“There are lot of regulatory steps and potential penalties you're incurring, to incentivize you to get into compliance, so there's a lot of pressure for you to solve the problem,” said Dobbin, noting that common contamination concerns include arsenic, nitrates and 1,2,3-trichloropropane (TCP).
Significantly, 74% of respondents said they were seeing or expected water quality improvements from the consolidation effort. Dobbin also highlighted that half of the systems were motivated to pursue the mergers to address future water supply and quality issues, indicating managers' desire to secure their system from climate change-fueled impacts like drought and flooding.
“While we do see those regulatory pressures, we also see those forward-looking desires to reduce risk and futureproof systems – and that's a positive,” Dobbin said.
Funding processes, long timelines present challenges for water systems
In analyzing survey responses, Dobbin also noted some common roadblocks faced by the systems – namely, sufficient and timely funding for their efforts. Given California's emphasis on system consolidation as a preferred way to address water challenges, most of the projects received funding from the State Water Resources Control Board. But the bottleneck – and a challenge acknowledged by the board itself – has been the process of making those funds accessible to the systems.
It was certainly a hurdle for the Sultana-Monson project. Prado noted that, at the advice of their technical assistance provider, his community's CSD took out a bank loan to get their project started, rather than wait for the state to allocate the funds.
Despite the funding challenges and delays due to supply-chain disruptions during the pandemic, the pipeline connecting Monson to Sultana is complete and the system overall will benefit from more reliable and resilient water sources. But Monson residents are still waiting to connect their homes to the water system and to have their meters installed – nearly a full decade after the project was conceived.
Extended project timelines were another frequently mentioned challenge; for projects in implementation or construction, respondents reported that they already had been working on the consolidation for an average of nine years. One key factor to help expedite that work, Dobbin noted, is the role of technical assistance providers (TAPs) – often nonprofits or community-based organizations that help water systems apply for grants and fill out crucial paperwork, from financial statements to environmental impact reports.
“They're often an important lifeline for the smallest systems who don't have staff,” Dobbin explained. “A lot of our smaller water systems don't have a general manager or a secretary; they instead have community volunteers – so these technical assistance providers play an important role in filling those gaps.”
As just one example: 79% of water systems with TAP involvement reported improved water quality, whereas 56% of water systems without TAPs reported the same.
Researcher aims to take deeper look at system-consolidation case studies
Dobbin pointed out that system consolidation is not a one-size-fits-all panacea for water challenges in California, but just one among a variety of options that need to be tailored to each unique community and circumstance.
“Our survey provides really good evidence that consolidation is an important solution set in the state and that it is beneficial,” she said. “So next we need to do that contextualizing – figuring out in what cases it is the best fit.”
In addition to studying long-term effects of consolidation on household water rates (in most cases, there appears to be an increase in rates in the short term, likely due to the need to cover infrastructure upgrades), Dobbin will be taking a deeper dive into representative case studies during the next phase of her research.
While the survey respondents were overwhelmingly positive about their consolidation projects, Dobbin suspects there may be some selection bias – with only “successful” systems electing to report their results. In the future, Dobbin also wants to find and research those “failed” projects to better understand the factors that make consolidation efforts more or less likely to succeed.
For Prado, however, the Sultana-Monson is already a success – even as Monson residents still wait to be connected into the consolidated system. In fact, Prado had this advice for any community considering helping a nearby town that is struggling with reliable, safe water supply.
“Please be a friendly neighbor and good Samaritan – whatever you want to call yourself – and help out with the water for a community in need,” Prado said.
“Water is life,” he added.
The California Water System Consolidation Survey is supported by a two-year Early Career Research Grant from the California Institute for Water Resources, a statewide institute of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources.
