Furthermore, the percentage increase in gross sales is reduced when growers with sales above the $5 million reporting ceiling accurately report increased acreage but do not report the corresponding increase in gross sales, only the requisite $5 million. Organic fruit crops posted a sales increase of 28 percent between 1998 and 2002, with a 40 percent increase in acreage . The most important commodities for sales growth were strawberries, raspberries, wine grapes, dates, avocadoes, apples, and peaches. Organic wine grapes increased in sales by over $4 million and acreage expanded by over 3,000 acres.In contrast, sales of table grapes almost halved over the period while acreage reduced only slightly.The most important nut crops remained almonds and walnuts, with sizeable increases in sales and acreage for both.Field crops grew in acreage from 1998-2002, with the number of farmed acreage increasing by over 50 percent . One third of the increase in acreage is attributable to pasture and range land paralleling the increase in livestock and dairy production. Another 25 percent reflects increases in rice, alfalfa, and wheat acreage. Rice remained by far the most important field crop during the period but with stagnant sales at around $7 million. Alfalfa was the second most important field crop with sales increasing from less than half a million dollars in 1998 to $1.3 million in 2002. The importance of field crops to organic agriculture remained small, falling from 6 percent of sales in 1998 to less than 5 percent of sales in 2002. This decrease in importance is explained by an absolute decrease in sales over the five year period in almost every region. The decrease in importance is also related to the dramatic increase in sales of livestock, poultry and products. Sales from livestock, poultry,macetas 30l and related products increased by 389 percent over the past five years, although they remained less than 3 percent of the organic industry. Dairy production increased from $4 million to over $11 million.
Sales of organic meat were not permissible prior to 1998 due to differential labeling requirements for organic meat and other foods. Sales of organic chicken reached over $6 million in 2002 with beef and turkey each at about $300,000. Organic eggs sales were $3.6 million in 2002. California agriculture today is known around the world for its diverse product mix, remarkable productivity, and technological sophistication. It is also known for its large-scale farm firms, vertical coordination in food marketing and processing, and, less happily, its environmental problems and farm-labor concerns. The development and adoption of improved technology has been a central element in all of the changes during the twentieth century that have led to the marvel that is today’s California agriculture, and the problems that it faces in the twenty-first century. In this chapter we review the role of new technology in the development of California agriculture, emphasizing the period since World War II.First, we document the changes in the inputs and outputs over the 1949-91 period showing the general trend to save land and labor, to increase the use of capital and purchased inputs, and to increase the output of all categories, but especially vegetables, and nursery and greenhouse marketings. Along with the growth in measured productivity, there have been some important changes in the structure of agriculture as well as in the nature of farms and farming, with a trend to fewer and larger, more specialized farms being an important element of the structural change.The second part of this chapter focuses on the evolution and adoption of various technologies in California agriculture. California is a part of the United States, and its agriculture has shared in many general developments such as the mechanical innovations that displaced the horse over the first half of this century, and other nationwide chemical and biological advances; still, California agriculture remains unlike farming in most of the rest of the country in many ways.
We describe major changes in the elements of technology that have facilitated California’s agricultural development, using examples of mechanical harvesters, pest-control strategies, and irrigation technology. We also discuss some examples of integrated systems involving multiple elements of production technology and marketing—such as the development of tomato varieties that could withstand mechanical harvesting, and the development of new strawberry varieties along with pest-control and production technology to match market requirements. In the last part of the chapter we consider the sources of new agricultural technology and the role of government in providing resources for research and development, as well as institutional structures to facilitate private-sector activity.California agriculture today is very different from what it was in the gold rush years and through the early part of the twentieth century. In the early years, even in this century, there were few people to feed within California, and transportation costs and technology were such that perishable commodities were not economic to produce for shipment over long distances to the population centers in the East. The main focus of the state’s agriculture was on producing grain under dryland conditions, either for human consumption or for livestock feed. Feeding horses was a primary role of California agriculture up through the 1920s. The development of irrigation, transportation infrastructure and technology, postharvest storage and handling technology and facilities, food preservation technology, and the growth of the state’s population, along with the replacement of the horse by motorized vehicles, changed all that. The seeds for the radical transformation of California agriculture during the twentieth century were sown in the last decades of the nineteenth century. In the first chapter of this volume, Olmstead and Rhode provide an overview of the history of California agriculture; they emphasize the role of technology.1 We build on the foundation laid in that chapter. The key elements of technical change have included mechanization , irrigation, agricultural chemicals , improved varieties and other biological improvements, and improved management and information systems. These changes in technology have been made in conjunction with changes in the output and input mix, for related reasons.
Indexes of output in California agriculture in the post-World War II era are shown in Table 1. In terms of total agricultural output, California farmers produced over three times as much in 1991 as in 1949 . Different components of agriculture grew at different rates at different times. For instance, greenhouse and nursery products grew almost tenfold , while output of field crops grew much more slowly . There was considerable variation within individual categories, with some individual products growing very rapidly and others shrinking to negligible amounts. Thus the composition of California production changed markedly over the post-war period. Higher-valued products such as vegetables, greenhouse and nursery products, as well as fruits and nuts, account for a larger share of the value of agricultural output in the 1990s than they did in the immediate post-war period; the shares of livestock and field crops are smaller, accordingly,maceta 25 litros even though all sectors of California agriculture grew significantly over the period. The use of inputs in California agriculture also changed markedly over the postwar period, as seen in Table 2. California agriculture’s use of purchased inputs more than trebled from 1949 to 1991 . The use of capital services—including physical inputs such as automobiles, tractors, trucks and combines, as well as biological inputs such as dairy cows, ewes, and breeder pigs—grew by over 75 percent from 1949 to 1991 . However, quality-adjusted land and labor use in agriculture declined. Land use fell by 8 percent , while labor use decreased by 10 percent . Across all input categories, the index of input use increased by 58 percent, from 100 to 158.That the 237 percent increase in agricultural output was achieved with only a 58 percent increase in agricultural inputs is a reflection of the changing productivity of those inputs. Expressing aggregate output per unit of aggregate input provides a measure of productivity, as shown in Table 3. Productivity in California agriculture doubled between 1949 and 1991 . This means that, if input use had been held constant at the 1949 quantities, using 1991 technology would have resulted in twice as much output as using 1949 technology. Alternatively, to produce the output in 1991 using 1949 technology would require using twice as many inputs as were actually used. In other words, more than half of 1991’s agricultural output is directly attributable to improved technology; and less than half is attributable to conventional inputs. Growth rates of output, input use, and productivity have varied widely from decade to decade. The period of greatest productivity growth was during the 1970s when global commodity markets boomed. The 1980s was a decade of relatively slow growth in output and productivity. Based on similar data ending in 1985, Alston, Pardey, and Carter estimated that the rate of return to public-sector agricultural R&D in California, to which much of that productivity growth could be attributed, was around 20 percent per annum in real terms.3 Complete, specific data on inputs, outputs, and productivity in California and U.S. agriculture, comparable to those in Tables 1 through 3, are not yet available for the years after 1991.However, the data that are available suggest that the 1990s reflected are turn to a more-normal rate of productivity growth in California, sustaining the longer-term average rate, in the range of 2 percent per annum.Mullen et al. applied California’s 1949-1991 average annual agricultural productivity growth rate of 1.81 percent per year to the period 1949-1999. They found that with 1950s productivity and the actual inputs used, output in 1999 would have been only 42 percent of the actual value of $25.3 billion. Hence, the factors that gave rise to productivity growth since 1950 accounted for $14.8 billion worth of output in 1999 alone. Considering the period 1949-1999, Mullen et al. estimated that if public agricultural R&D accounted for one-sixth of the productivity growth the benefit-cost ratio for public investments in agricultural R&D would still be 6:1 . Changes in inputs, outputs, and productivity in California agriculture paralleled similar changes in other states and around the world, but with some important differences reflecting elements unique to California.
As a result of these changes, farms and farming today are very different from what they were in the early part of the twentieth century. Clearly, new technology has been a major driver in the development of California agriculture—and not just agricultural technology. Important changes off the farm have included improvements in methods of food preservation, storage, transport, and handling, along with general improvements in the transportation infrastructure. A host of other technological changes have been applied on the farm. Many of these have been shared with agriculture in other places, and beyond agriculture. In what follows we emphasize those developments that have been specific to California and important here, focusing for the most part on technology applicable at the farm level.The process of technological innovation in California has much in common with the process of technological innovation in the United States more generally. Nonetheless, there are some unique features. Like other regions in the United States in the early part of the twentieth century, changes in technology in California emphasized the adoption of mechanical technology—improved plows, various kinds of harvesting machines that were initially powered by animal power or steam engines, tractors, and so on. All of these innovations reduced costs, especially labor per acre.4 Such mechanical inventions enabled the establishment of land-intensive agriculture and, together with the Homestead Act of 1862, were crucial elements in the settlement of California. As in the rest of the United States, California agricultural production in the twentieth century has grown primarily through increases in yield per acre. California farmers were early in their adoption of chemical inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, and swiftly took up more advanced agronomic and biological management practices. Recently, California has become the leader in introducing biotechnology and computerized systems into agriculture.Unlike other states, however, the growth of agriculture in California required diversion of water. From the nineteenth century on, California agriculture emphasized the introduction and adoption of institutions and technology to facilitate irrigated agriculture.The institutions ranged from local collective arrangements for diverting the water to massive state water projects. Technology emphasized physical innovations in delivering water to improve control and efficiency. In California, as in other western states, much emphasis was given to improved irrigation technologies.