Some Farmers Are Skeptical of Ads for State’s Produce

Squeezed between rising costs and stiff competition from imports, California food growers have been looking for ways to convince consumers and retailers that their crops are worth paying more for.

State agriculture officials unveiled one possible solution Thursday, in the form of a “California Grown” advertising campaign to persuade Californians to buy produce from their home state.

But some growers and others don’t expect the $32-million campaign to have a measurable effect and are concerned it could touch off charges of protectionism.

“We have to be very careful,” said Dan Sumner, head of the Agricultural Issues Center at UC Davis. “The last thing we want is to encourage the Japanese to have a ‘Buy Japanese’ program any more than they do already.”

Nonetheless, state officials believe a little public education will boost the $29.8-billion industry’s bottom line and instill pride in the state’s agriculture products. Local television spots and supermarket signs featuring the “California Grown” license plate logo were scheduled to debut Thursday night in major markets across the state. They will run for 30 weeks.

“Imports have increased so much over the last eight or 10 years,” said Ralph Watts, chief executive of the Buy California program, which received $20 million in federal funds and the rest from the state and industry. “It’s putting a lot of our industries in trouble.”

Net income on California’s farms declined 32% last year to $3.8 billion from $5.6 billion as prices for many of the state’s 350 commodities dropped and production costs increased. But some growers expressed skepticism that an advertising campaign would have much effect.

“I hate to be the one to say it, but I really don’t think so, “ said Bill Gentle, an apple grower in Fresno.

Consumers, he said, care about quality and price rather than where their produce comes from.

“If Washington Fuji apples are priced at 69 cents a pound and California [apples] at 79 cents a pound, [a television campaign is] not going to sell one extra pound,” Gentle said.

Gov. Gray Davis previewed the ads Thursday at the California State Fair in Sacramento.

“You can’t get any better food than the food raised in California,” he said as he stood onstage with growers and farm industry lobbyists surrounded by crates of fruits and nuts.

“I know it sounds like boosterism. But you know how stringent our environmental health standards are. No one else in the world has the high standards we have.”

Produce-importing groups said they would be on the lookout for such messages in the ads.

“There’s nothing wrong with people promoting their products. But if they try to disparage the competition, they’re going to have a problem,” said Lee Frankel, president of the Fresh Produce Assn. of the Americas, which represents U.S. and Mexican produce growers and distributors.

Watts said the campaign would not knock other growing areas but simply would feature Californians talking about why they support local agriculture. “We’re just telling people when they have a choice to buy California,” he said.

Frankel said growers would be better served if the state invested the $32 million in border controls or developing tastier varieties of fruit that hold up to shipping.

“I think at the end of the day what really matters to the consumer is the quality and the taste.”

Times staff writer Dan Morain in Sacramento contributed to this report.