California ag tour gives U.S.
trade rep crucial insight into
state’s export crops
Editor’s note: Portions of this article are excerpted from one by
Gray Allen in the September/October issue of Blue Diamond’s
Almond Facts member & customer magazine.
he trip from Geneva, Switzerland, to the irrigated
desert valleys of Central California is a
distance of some 5,700 miles, although some
would say the two regions are light years apart.
For Ambassador Allen F. Johnson, the chief
agriculture negotiator for the Office of the U.S. Trade
Representative (USTR), the two regions are inexorably
linked, because what happens at the trade table in Geneva
impacts all American farmers and ranchers.
To help Johnson better understand one of the nation’s leading
export crops -- almonds -- Blue Diamond Growers hosted
him during August on two days of a four-day tour of
almond ranches and processing facilities and talks with growers.
That’s why you could see Johnson seated behind the wheel
of an almond sweeper, gathering almonds into windrows,
readying them for pick up by a harvester. Johnson also met
with growers and co-op leaders to update them on the results
of recent World Trade Organization (WTO) talks in Geneva
and to listen to their hopes and concerns on trade issues.
Johnson says the first-hand knowledge he gains from visits
with farmers and ranchers across America gives him
invaluable insights that increase his effectiveness.
Billion-pound crops
The first step in harvesting almonds is to drive a self-propelled
tree shaker into place, attach its "jaws" to a tree trunk
and vibrate the tree until the almonds drop to the orchard
floor. In the old days, growers had to manually strike the
trunks with rubber-headed mallets to drop the nuts, catching
the falling almonds on ground tarps. In a few isolated hill
locations, the old-fashioned methods persist.
Proper "shaking" technique is a must. Shake too lightly
and you leave nuts (called "stick-tights") on the branches,
wasting crop and creating possible homes for over-wintering
pests. Shake too vigorously, and you could inflict serious
damage to the tree.
Undaunted, and after only a brief demonstration from
grower and Blue Diamond board member Aldo Sansoni,
Johnson hooked a shaker onto a tree and gunned the engine.
He grinned broadly as fat, ripe Nonpareil almonds rained
down.
The 2004 crop Johnson helped harvest is expected to be
America’s third billion-pound almond crop.
California produces about 88 percent of the world’s
almonds, and more than 70 percent of the crop is exported
to 95 nations, making almonds the nation’s leading horticultural
export. Blue Diamond is the nation’s largest processor
and marketer of the crop, and about two-thirds of the state’s
growers belong to the co-op.
Just 60 years ago, Spain and Italy produced 80 percent of
the world’s almonds. Mechanization of the California
almond industry has helped turn the tables. Spain is now the
largest single importer of U.S. almonds and is expected to
have purchased 130 million pounds of California almonds by
the end of the 2003-04 marketing season. That’s 24 percent
more than the previous year. Spain could import an additional
20 percent next season due to a second year of Spanish
almond crop failures, the co-op says.
The value of California almond exports for the current
marketing year surpassed $1 billion in July. Almonds --
increasingly popular as a garnish on salads, in breakfast cereals
and combined with countless other foods -- are
California’s largest food export.
Expanding acreage
Some 550,000 acres in California are planted in almonds,
and advances in tree varieties, planting patterns and in the
science of orchard agronomy have made each acre ever-more
productive. Indeed, as recently as 1989 there were 411,000
bearing acres of almonds in the state producing about 488
million pounds of nuts.
Almond plantings in the Golden State could increase by
another 250,000 acres by the end of the decade, according to
some estimates. If so, almond export sales would likely surpass
those of U.S. wheat.
"Almond crop increases of the magnitude the state has
cultivated during the past 25 years represent one of the
great agricultural success stories in the nation’s history,"
Johnson said.
From a marketing stance, development of international
markets is what has made that incredible industry growth
possible, and Blue Diamond is the acknowledged leader in
spreading consumption of American almonds around the
globe. Consumption of California almonds has increased by
an average of nearly 6 percent annually for the past 24 years.
The co-op’s own test kitchen has also played a key role in the
growth of the industry by pioneering new uses for almonds in
a wide variety of foods, from ice creams to frozen dinners,
cookies and pastries. The majority of almonds are used as a
food ingredient, rather than consumed as snack nuts.
Co-op supports open markets
Sansoni hosted Johnson, Congressman Denis Cardoza
and about a hundred almond growers and guests at a luncheon
in his 104-year-old Delta Farms "Party Barn," near
Los Banos. Johnson spoke about the work that the agriculture
arm of the USTR does to increase trade opportunities
for U.S. farmers. He expanded on those comments the following
day at a roundtable discussion with Blue Diamond
officials and guests at the co-op’s main plant in Sacramento.
"We applaud Ambassador Johnson for helping to negotiate
the World Trade Organization’s break-through framework
agreement for historic reforms in Geneva," said
Sansoni. He cited expanded market access for U.S. products,
including almonds, through tariff cuts that are still to be
negotiated. He also praised Johnson for achieving agreement
on quota expansion and the elimination of agriculture export
subsidies.
Johnson’s message emphasized the opportunities for
prosperity for all parties engaged in free trade. "Our mission
is the global liberalization of trade," he said, pointing out
that with open markets, everyone grows and prospers.
Blue Diamond, he said, is "extremely effective in bringing
important trade issues to our attention and supplying us with
the facts and figures that we need to properly and effectively
represent you." He praised California agriculture for its
"ingenuity, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit." The
almond industry in particular, Johnson said, "stays on top of
the issues that affect its trade potential.
"History has not been kind to countries that put up
walls," he said.
"America has succeeded because we have an open society.
We have shown that it is better to have a trade deficit and
strong economy than a trade surplus and weak economy.
Closed markets can’t grow. They stagnate. So we are working
to open the closed markets of the world to help them
grow their economies. That will help
them and us because strong and growing
economies buy more American
produce."
Growers urged to produce
high-value foods for world
As world population and food consumption
expands, so will the demand
for high-value products, where the
United States has a comparative
advantage, Johnson continued.
Nationwide, exports of agricultural
products grew more than three times
as fast as the total of all U.S. exports
in the past year. USDA has forecast
record agricultural exports of $61.5
billion through Sept. 30. The United
States is the Number 1 world exporter
of fresh fruits and nuts and second in
fresh vegetables.
"We are also advancing U.S. interests
in the World Trade Organization
(WTO) by working to level the playing
field for America’s farmers, ranchers
and growers, who often face high
barriers to our world-class products,"
Johnson said. "The WTO framework
agreement reached July 31 in Geneva
will benefit American agriculture,
including fruits, nuts and vegetables.
Eliminating export subsidies, reducing
and further harmonizing trade-distorting
domestic support and substantially
increasing market access will benefit all
of American agriculture. Clearly, the
$82 billion in subsidies provided by the
European Union must be significantly
reduced," he declared.
"It is in the mutual interest of all of
U.S. agriculture -- specialty crops,
livestock and program crops -- to be
mutually supportive and work towards
these goals. By addressing these three
pillars of agricultural trade together, all
U.S. farmers and ranchers can win.
Only in the WTO can all trading partners
be brought to the table to secure a
comprehensive deal that benefits U.S.
agricultural interests by reducing all
types of trade-distorting policies."
Enforcing existing trade agreements
is just as important as negotiating new
agreements, he noted.
"In the case of fresh fruits and vegetables,
many of our day-to-day activities
involve foreign phytosanitary barriers
--plant health issues," he said.
"Together with USDA scientists and
technical staffs, we are constantly
working with the industry to ensure
that measures imposed by foreign
countries on U.S. fruits and vegetables
have a scientific basis and are not
unnecessarily trade restrictive. As
needed and appropriate, we initiate
dispute settlement cases.
"California’s rich agricultural valleys
have sustained farmers for more
than 150 years," Johnson said. "To
extend this rich tradition of stewardship,
we must continue to embrace the
outward vision as the road to the
future. By developing export markets
and continuing our long-standing agricultural
heritage, farmers and ranchers
can look outward beyond California’s
coastline to the rest of the world for
their long-term prosperity."
"Almond crop increases of the magnitude the state has cultivated during the past 25 years represents one of the great agricultural success stories in the nation's history," says U.S. Trade Ambassador Allen F. Johnson.
Photo by Gray Allen, coutresy Blue Diamond Growers
Allen F. Johnson sweeps almonds into windrows, to be collected by a harvester.
