1 day Ago By By Todd R. Hansen, McNaughton Media
FAIRFIELD — The California wine industry faced nearly $4 billion in damages from the 2020 wildfires – not all from burned wineries and vineyards. Smoke damage also played a significant part in that damage estimate. With so much at stake, UC Davis researchers have been working on ways to mitigate the effects of climate change in viticulture, which includes smoke taint, drought-tolerant rootstocks and other ways that grape growers can adapt to warming temperatures.
Now some of that research is at risk of going up in flames due to job cuts by the Trump administration, and even more pointedly, by what critics are calling cuts by the unelected president, Elon Musk. Ron Lanza, with Wooden Valley Winery in the Suisun Valley, called the news "concerning." "It is very, very important to the growers that we have pieces of equipment or whatever (researchers) come up with to detect .
.. the level of exposure the grapes have had," Lanza said.
He said his family's vineyards have only had "smoke taint" once, that in 2008, but it is an issue that the California Association of Winegrape Growers discuss more and more frequently. Lanza sits on the association board. Lanza said growers need to have early detection of whether the grapes have been exposed or risk losing entire crops when the wineries reject the crops.
He said that is particularly important during crop years like this one when there is a glut of fruit and wineries could use smoke taint as an excuse for not buying the crop even if it has not been exposed. "Every one of (the winery) contracts have smoke exposure clauses now," Lanza said. Moreover, growers need to be able to prove when the grapes have been exposed or risk crop insurers rejecting their claims due to the lack of proof.
"It's absolutely concerning," Lanza said. The wine grape crop in 2023, the fifth largest commodity in the Solano County, had a gross production value of $35.04 million, the annual Crop & Livestock Report states.
“When wildfires rip through our communities, smoke exposure can destroy millions of dollars of grapes. That’s why I lead a bipartisan group of members every year to secure federal research funds at the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service to fund smoke exposure research,” Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St.
Helena, said in a statement. “A better understanding and faster detection process for identifying grapes exposed to smoke is critical for growers’ ability to limit their losses after a fire." Thompson blasted "unelected billionaire Elon Musk" for ordering the Department of Agriculture to fire two smoke exposure researchers at UC Davis, stating the action wastes a decade of research and "leaving the largest wine-producing region without anyone to continue this important research.
" “In firing the only two smoke exposure researchers in our region, Elon Musk and his Republican enablers are not only throwing out a decade of research progress, they are making it harder for our agriculture producers to recover after wildfires strike. The only waste, fraud and abuse here is that losing this research is a waste. Musk is a government efficiency fraud, and our growers are being abused by this non-transparent process to cripple critical federal services,” Thompson said.
The Winegrape Growers association also lashed out not only against the UC Davis research cuts, but cuts in other areas, too. “This has been a huge hit for us,” said Natalie Collins, president of the California Association of Winegrape Growers. “Firing is happening across all spheres.
For (Agriculture Research Service), many scientists ‘probationary period’ was three years, and probationary employees do not have the same protections as tenured employees.” Alisa Jacobson, co-chair of the West Coast Smoke Exposure Task Force subcommittee on research, echoed Collins’ dismay. “The WC smoke exposure task force worked really closely with some of the scientists that were laid off.
These were some of the smartest and brightest people out there working diligently to help support agriculture and the wine industry. It’s a major setback to the work we’ve been doing,” Jacobson said. The 2023-24 budget had $5 million in funding for the Mitigating the Adverse Consequences of Wildfire Smoke of Wine Grapes program, which is administered by the U.
S. Department of Agriculture. "However, this research is now halted by these firings," the statement from Thompson's office said.
"It would allow industry representatives to collaborate with land grant university researchers in West Coast states to research what causes the grapes to be damaged by smoke and how to best mitigate this damage. This research would provide for better testing and prediction of risk, thereby reducing the uncertainty for producers in fire-prone areas." Another $1.
2 million, in 2023, was secured for the University of California, Davis, to conduct smoke exposure research with the purchase of two pieces of equipment essential to smoke exposure research..
