UC agriculture budget to face additional stress
With help from Washington unlikely to materialize, the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources will likely suffer from budget shortfalls for the foreseeable future — to the detriment of farmers and ranchers who rely on its expertise.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s original state budget proposal in January called for an additional $3.6 million for UC ANR, UC Cooperative Extension and its army of farm advisors, raising the division budget to $133.1 million.
“That would have brought them to a more stable budget position,” said Taylor Roschen, a California Farm Bureau Federation policy advocate. “It certainly wouldn’t make them completely whole, but it would bring them back out of deficit.”
The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated shelter-in-place orders in March gouged a $54 billion hole in the state budget, forcing Newsom and the Legislature to start over. The budget for fiscal year 2021, enacted June 26, allocates $127.6 million to UC agriculture in 2020-21, down slightly from 2019-20.
The Legislature passed the state budget with hope a federal stimulus bill from Congress would include aid for states facing pandemic-induced budget deficits, allowing at least some cuts to be restored. But a recent letter from the state Department of Finance to the Assembly and Senate budget and appropriations committees advised the legislators no such bill had passed Congress as of Oct. 15 — and Roschen said Congress may not be able to negotiate another
stimulus package until after the election.
The ongoing shortfall led UC ANR to impose a hiring freeze, including for critical positions, Roschen said. Some vacant positions may go unfilled, or part-timers may be hired to save on expenses.
As it is, UCCE is already well short of where it was 30 years ago, she said. According to Roschen, UCCE employed 326 advisors and 202 specialists in
1990; last year, those numbers were down to 173 and 119, respectively.
The effects of an underfunded and understaffed UCCE will be felt on the farm, Roschen said, with impacts varying according to crop and location.
“It’s going to be lack of information provided to growers about different
types of practices, whether that’s integrated pest management, healthy soil practices, grazing practices, water efficiencies,” she said. “All of that research that’s conducted at the UC is supposed to be translated through the Cooperative Extension advisors, and a lot of people go to their advisors to try and troubleshoot some of these issues that we have on the farm.”
California has ambitious goals regarding climate change and the role of working lands in mitigating its effects, Roschen said, including a Healthy Soils Program and efforts toward carbon sequestration. UCCE represents the final link in the chain between researchers and growers, she added. Neglecting that final link “doesn’t help us get closer to achieving those goals,” Roschen said. “It just puts up more barriers.”
She said CFBF and others advocating for UC ANR face an uphill fight, given the likelihood UC ANR will have to compete with other agencies for a dwindling supply of money.
“I think this year it’s really going to be about working hard to make sure they don’t get cut,” Roschen said. “We will work incredibly hard to make sure that at least we’re at status quo, with a full recognition that status quo is not OK.”
In speaking to legislators, she said, she points out that UC ANR is “more than a rural issue,” noting that Cooperative Extension and UC employ small-farm advisors, run Master Gardener and Master Food Preserver programs, plus “a lot of other functions of UC ANR that cater toward a more urban environment.” Young people looking to get started in agriculture may suffer the most, she warned.
“One of the biggest hurts will be to the 4-H program,” Roschen said. “Going into last year, UC ANR and counties came to some consensus about how they’re going to fund some of the 4-H positions.”
A cost-sharing plan was devised, wherein there would be a state allocation for a 4-H employee’s salary, with the county making up the difference.
“That cost share is going to have to be reassessed, because UC may not be able to make the contribution that they thought they could last year,” Roschen said. “They started with a deficit, they didn’t ever get out of that deficit, and they still have obligations to fund. You’ve got this hole that’s getting deeper and deeper, and there’s no one else shoveling dirt in.”