Labor shortages continue to affect Santa Barbara County agriculture, according to the recently released agricultural production report for 2016.
The report from the county’s Agricultural Commissioner’s Office pegs labor as one of the reasons for a 3.7 percent decline in crop value from 2015 to 2016. The other big reason, according to the report, is water quality. Agricultural commodities in the county grossed more than $1.4 billion in 2016, down by an estimated $52 million from 2015.
Claire Wineman of the Grower-Shipper Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties said water quality issues could possibly be a concern for some areas within the county, depending on mineral content in the soil and water and the sensitivity of particular crops to those minerals. But she said she was 100 percent certain that labor shortages continue to affect agriculture.
“That, I hear about a lot,” she said. “We see that across all crops; it’s a significant issue.”
The H-2A guest worker program has certainly helped supplement the shortage, she said, but there are issues associated with that program as well, including housing availability.
The Agricultural Commissioner’s Office referred the Sun to Public Works Deputy Director Tom Fayram to answer questions about the labor and water quality issues referred to in the report, but Fayram was on vacation as of June 19.
Strawberries were once again the county’s top-grossing crop, bringing in almost $414 million in 2016, although that’s an $11 million decrease from 2015. It’s the third year in a row that strawberries have “experienced a reduction in gross value,” according to the report, which also states that strawberry acreage and production were at record levels in 2016.
Carolyn O’Donnell with the California Strawberry Commission attributes that to supply and demand.
“Strawberries are very price sensitive, depending on supply,” she said. “If you have many weeks with a high supply—with production—than the unit price goes down.”
The Santa Maria district, which includes Nipomo in SLO County, accounted for 28 percent of the state’s planted strawberry acreage in 2016, according to the 2017 California Strawberry Acreage Survey put out by the commission. The Agricultural Commissioner’s report states that more than 8,000 acres of strawberries were harvested from the county in 2016, up from the 7,895 acres in 2015, with the unit price dropping by a little more than 70 cents.
This article appears in Jun 22-29, 2017.