Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Scientists
UCCE Farm Advisors
Various local
growers'
organizations
California Association
of Winegrape Growers
(Commodity
Organization)
Wineries
Growers
PCAs
DPR
Public
Farm workers
Figure 6.12
The Winegrape Pest Management Alliance network.
research component, and very little participation on the part of UC
scientists or extensionists.
Some agricultural leaders outside the winegrape industry have criti-
cized this partnership for being only focused on the reduction of two
agrochemicals, but leaders of other, local winegrape partnerships have
been quick to defend it. They point out that regions that wanted to take
an integrated farming system approach have done so, and this did not
need to be duplicated, even if it were possible at a statewide level. The
winegrape PMA has served to cross-pollinate some of the outreach ideas
from the more active regionally based groups to areas without formal
partnerships. It operated more as a network of (local) partnerships, or an
institutional partnership. Individual growers have participated, but it has
not been led by them, as have local partnerships. It laid the groundwork
for the Code of Sustainable Winegrowing (described in the previous
chapter).
Winegrapes are California's most valuable plant crop, worth $1.8
billion in 2000. This commodity's value and acreage grew dramatically
during the 1990s, so developing in partnership activities is unsurprising.
These four cases show, however, that winegrape growers used the agroe-
cological partnership model to achieve multiple goals, and adapted it
creatively to take advantage of their existing social networks. More than
any other group of growers, they used the partnership model to persuade
the public of their environmental initiatives. They fused the notion of
wine and environmental quality, and made a virtue out of necessity.
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