PALM DESERT, Calif. — A.G. Kawamura brought a wealth of knowledge to his role as the secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. As a third-generation farmer, he’s seen the evolution of agriculture firsthand.
In this episode of the “Tip of the Iceberg” podcast, filmed during the 2024 Sustainable Produce Summit, Kawamura shared how farming in California’s Orange County has changed. He said his family started farming in the county when it was very rural. Now Kawamura calls himself an urban farmer because he selects pieces of land to lease for farming in areas typically not thought of for agriculture.
“We always look for a vacant land lot, and if the weeds are going well, we know it’s probably pretty good piece of ground,” he said. “We look for a water supply, because we are irrigated agriculture. Being able to use that model over and over and over again, we’ve been able to jump into an abandoned airport, an abandoned golf course; we’ve been able to walk into a military base and realize that they have a lot of ground that’s sitting idle, and we can help revive it and put it back into production.”
He said the cost of farming has changed over the years and threatens the very existence of California farmers. He said he’s seen many farmers in the Golden State opt to leave the industry or the country and begin production in Mexico to avoid the high cost of land, labor and water.
“If you have a labor-intensive highly perishable crop that has higher labor cost that spell the difference between viability and actually survivability,” he said. “Ultimately, you’re a high-cost producer and you’re losing the ability to make money. So many people have picked up and left. … That may be the most tragic thing is when you see really good farmers going out of business either because they can’t grow fast enough to offset these costs or they just can’t compete in a marketplace where they’re competing head-to-head against other imported goods.”
Kawamura said at one point in Southern California there were 27,000 acres of table grapes about 13 years ago. Now there’s less than 2,000 acres in production.
Mechanization, he said, is one bright spot in the future of farming, and asparagus, he is a crop ripe for robotics. He said at one point, there were more than 30,000 in production in the state, and it’s less than 100 or 200 acres now.
“That industry, for example, could come back tomorrow once you have robotics,” he said. “These are the kinds of opportunities that exist; you just have to recognize that things have to change.”
Agriculture’s water use in the state is always a big debate, and Kawamura said he’s excited to see where the future of the industry is headed, thanks to new technologies and targeted irrigation methods.
“We’ve gone from flood irrigation to furrow irrigation, to sprinklers, to drip irrigation,” he said. “We see that there’s all kinds of interesting ways to save on water and become more efficient in our water. The new tools that continue to come out including in the breeding arena for more water-efficient plants or salt-tolerant plants if the water quality is potentially impacted — these are all the new things that are coming along just in for many of us to try and put into play.”
He said he wished the lawmakers in the state had a better handle on the challenges of modern farming, calling it death by a million cuts. He said farmers in the state — and around the country — do so much good work in the realm of sustainability and social responsibility. He said something must change where farmers get some break or incentive for growing nutritious food.
“Where the government has a wonderful role where they can step in in many ways,” he said. “Whether you’re dealing with climate-smart agriculture whether you’re dealing with nutrient-dense food distribution into the most food insecure — it’s finally starting to happen that people are realizing ‘Boy we’ve had these problems for a long, long time let’s start looking at solution’ instead of wringing our hands and saying ‘Oh, it can’t be done.’ Ultimately we can say that don’t wait for the government to get it right; the industry itself is starting to get these things right.”
Click on the video player above to hear the full podcast.
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