From the Margins to the Middle: The Policy and Politics of Sustainable Agriculture in California

Pete Price

California has been in the forefront of the effort to advance the principles of sustainable agriculture. It is home to the country’s largest number of certified organic growers and transitional growers who are actively pursuing sustainable farming practices. It is the country’s largest market for organic and residue-free commodities, and it supplies much of the market in the rest of the U.S. and other countries. The movement to reform pesticide regulation and use, a mainstay of sustainable agriculture, has been very active politically for years in California. Its universities include a number of applied researchers and field personnel who make valuable contributions to sustainable agriculture.

Yet these efforts have been fought largely on the margins – of politics, of academic research, and of agriculture itself. Today, however, a mixture of policy and market decisions are forcing a reconsideration of the principles of sustainable agriculture and creating an opportunity to move sustainable agriculture from the margins to the core of agricultural policy.

Although sustainable agriculture involves much more than progressive pest management, pesticide use in California agriculture has been the political focal point for many years. In the late 1970s, as the USEPA pesticide re-registration program suffered from delays and scandal, and as soil fumigants like DBCP were discovered in groundwater aquifers, California adopted its own pesticide registration process. In 1984 California enacted the Birth Defects Prevention Act, requiring pesticide manufacturers to submit a full battery of health effects data. It was followed in 1985 by enactment of the Pesticide Contamination Prevention Act, requiring submission of environmental fate data, identification of likely leachers, and cancellation or modification of the use of pesticides found in groundwater. In the late 1980s California enhanced its residue testing program, after finding many gaps in the state’s pesticide residue monitoring program.

Today California agriculture is struggling to deal with the effects of the federal Food Quality Protection Act, which may make commonly used pesticides unavailable, especially on the state’s many minor use crops. In water, agriculture also is struggling with the implications of the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act, which essentially reallocates water away from agriculture and back to fish and the environment.

These regulatory approaches to pesticide and water use are inherently confrontational, pitting the interests of mainstream agriculture and its suppliers, the pesticide manufacturers and water purveyors, against urban and environmental interests. Even after passage and enactment, these laws have been implemented haltingly at best, over the strenuous efforts of opponents who work very hard in the regulatory arena to lessen their impacts.

Politically, these laws pit two Californias against one another: one that is coastal, urban, relatively affluent, and socially liberal; and the "other" California, which is inland, rural, chronically depressed economically, and socially conservative. For decades, California’s Central Valley and the agriculture industry have held pivotal political power in Sacramento. For forty years, Democrats, mainly coastal urban, have held almost uninterrupted control of the State Legislature. But the majority margin of power is usually held by Democrats from the Central Valley, who traditionally protect mainstream agriculture’s interests against perceived threats.

Politically, progress on sustainable agriculture via statutory restrictions on pesticide and water use has been limited, although it has forced greater consideration of alternatives. In contrast, statutory and budget support for research and field applications of sustainable agriculture practices have offered a "carrot" to growers, particularly those impacted by the regulatory "stick."

In 1986 the California Legislature created the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program at the University of California. In 1998 the Legislature enacted legislation to expand, and increase funding for Biologically Integrated Farming Systems, one of SAREP’s key programs. In 1999 the Legislature provided new funding for the state’s Pest Management Alliance, a program to encourage commodity groups to adopt sustainable practices designed for their crops and commodities. This year, a coalition of sustainable farming and pesticide reform organizations are sponsoring legislation and a budget proposal to inject significant new funding into a number of key sustainable agriculture programs at the University of California, including SAREP, Agroecology, Centers for Biological Control, and the Small Farm Center.

The loss of pesticide tools through FQPA and water through CVPIA, the growing market for organic and residue-free crops, and the growing evidence that sustainable practices offer economic solutions have created the political environment for an alliance of progressive farmers, commodity groups, researchers, and citizens to call for a shift in emphasis that will move sustainable agriculture from the margins to the middle of agricultural policy and offer a "carrot" to a beleaguered industry.

Pete Price
Price Consulting
1029 K Street, Suite 38
Sacramento, CA 95814
Tel: (916) 448-1015
pprice@quiknet.com

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