Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
growers to contribute their knowledge or leadership. Growers are osten-
sibly on the management team, but meetings are frequently scheduled at
times they cannot attend, and their contributions appear slim. Obenauf
believes that the release of the
Integrated Prune Farming Practices
Decision Guide
will accelerate the adoption of practices by PCAs and
growers.
Local Winegrape Partnerships in Northern California
“Winegrapes are a product of a place,” in the words of John Clendenan,
a Sonoma County vineyard manager. The geography of winegrapes facil-
itates and amplifies the successes of agroecological partnerships in this
commodity. Winegrape growers are acutely aware that they are paid on
the quality of their grapes, and that their location strongly influences the
price they receive. More than any other agricultural product, wine is
branded by the place the grapes are grown and vinted. Geographic
branding creates a structure for coordinated actions among producers,
even greater than marketing orders, to add value to their commodity.
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Regional cooperation among winegrape growers laid the foundation
for their partnerships. Wineries have profited from the geographic
branding of grapes and wine, and they too have supported winegrape
partnerships more actively than has any other food-processing industry.
Not all winegrape regions are created equal, however. Demand for wine
has spurred the expansion of winegrape vineyards throughout the state,
but most of the profits have been realized in coastal counties.
Unfortunately for the winegrape industry, the regions where they can
grow the best grapes also host highly desirable residential real estate,
exacerbating urban-agricultural interface tensions. Criticism of the
industry on environmental grounds threatens the viability of winegrape
production. Winegrape partnerships in coastal counties are the only to
explicitly name the public as a target audience for their message, and half
of the six partnerships can be found in those counties.
Winegrape partnerships have more fully taken over extension func-
tions than those in other commodities, in part because they are
motivated to enhance the environmental credentials of their industry to
local critics, and in part because he winegrape industry underwent dra-
matic expansion at the same time UCCE suffered an extended period of
