The Sacramento business journal is reporting “huge” demands for California bonds: Investors were more enthusiastic about buying California debt than expected, putting in orders for $6.54 billion in general obligation bonds in a sale by the state Treasurer’s Office that ended Tuesday State officials had expected to sell $4 billion. The extra cash will allow officials to restart more stalled projects that were halted in December due to the state’s cash crisis. Treasurer Bill Lockyer’s office said there was “huge” demand from both individual investors and institutional buyers such as mutual funds. Officials have not determined which of 5,300 halted projects should be allowed to proceed. Until this sale, the tight credit market and the state’s prolonged budget crisis kept California out of the bond market for nine months.

Agricultural holding company Yasheng Group reported a $76 million profit for 2008 as part of its goal to be listed on a major U.S. stock exchange, according to a report in the San Francisco Business Times. Yasheng Group is a Redwood City holding company focused on agriculture in China. It has about 15,000 workers. It owns seven agricultural businesses in China that grow products such as onions, potatoes, apples, alfalfa, flax, beets, wheat, apricots, sunflowers, beer barley and cumin. As part of its move towards a major stockmarket listing, Yasheng published its financial results for 2006 and 2007 in January. More on Yasheng Group seeking stock exchange listing

The California Sustainable Winegrow-ing Alliance, created by the San Francisco-based Wine Institute and the California Association of Winegrape Growers has received a $125,000 specialty crop block grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service to create a certification system for the effort. According to a Business Journal Report, the program started five years ago with the creation of the voluntary Code of Sustainable Winegrowing. Some environmental-protection advocates have called for third-party verification of compliance with the extensive best-management practices in the code. The alliance is currently drafting guidelines for certification.

As reported in the Los Angeles Times:

With the declining value of the U.S. dollar and increasing wine sales overseas, Charles Shaw wine, an American favorite, may seem in some places more like “One-Buck Chuck.”

That’s because the low value of the dollar is starting to turn California wines into bargains abroad. 2007 was a vintage year for wine exports, which grew by almost 9% to a record $951 million, the Wine Institute, the industry’s main trade group, said Thursday. California wineries make 95% of the U.S. wine sold abroad. Two large Central Valley companies, E. & J. Gallo Winery and Charles Shaw maker Bronco Wine Co., were among the biggest exporters.

Gallo, the nation’s largest wine exporter, has bottles on the shelves of supermarkets in China and 91 other countries, and Bronco is a big supplier of bulk wine that is bottled and sold in England, one of the largest foreign markets for California vintages.

The volume of U.S. wine sold abroad is growing by an even faster, 12% rate. California wine is now sold in 125 countries. On Thursday, the euro rose above $1.52 for the first time in its nine-year history. Further interest-rate cuts in the United States are likely to keep exchange rates favorable for wine exporters. At the same time, the low dollar helps California winemakers fend off foreign competition in the U.S. Jon Fredrikson, a Woodside, Calif., wine industry analyst, believes there are early signs that the low dollar is starting to pay off for California makers of premium wines.

“American wines are a bargain right now, and that’s showing up with what’s being shipped to Canada, where the value of our wine shipments is up nearly 25%,” he said. But exporters and industry analysts said the rosy numbers masked a more negative truth about the global wine market: There’s a huge trade imbalance.

Though the U.S. sold nearly $1 billion of wine abroad last year, it imported $4.7 billion worth, according to Fredrikson. The U.S. is a target for virtually every other wine-producing nation because it is the most lucrative market in the world, he said. Americans drink about $30 billion worth of wine each year.

High-end California vintners are having trouble breaking into many foreign wine markets abroad, where French labels still carry more prestige, he said. Much of the wine moving between the U.S. and Europe is less expensive bulk wine that companies are purchasing to bottle and market under their own labels. Fredrikson said the trade had taken on a certain irony with “these big ships of wine passing each other at night.”

Vintners, though, are bullish about exports. “We can compete very well with anywhere in the world,” said Joseph Gallo, chief executive of Modesto-based Gallo, the largest winery in the U.S. Constellation Brands Inc. of Fairport, N.Y., which owns the Ravenswood and Robert Mondavi brands, among others, said its sales of California wine grew by double digits through November.

“A lot of growth is happening with better wine at higher price points,” said Jose Fernandez, CEO of Constellation Wines North America. “It’s just not people looking for an inexpensive California Chardonnay.” Fernandez believes the low dollar has enticed overseas drinkers to sample California wine, and “once that happens, they discover that they like the quality of the wine.”

The feud between Mexican and California avocado growers continues. As reported in “The Packer”:

Last year the Irvine-based California Avocado Commission unsuccessfully sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture in an effort to keep out Mexican avocados because of concerns about armored scale insects.

Now, Mexican avocado exporters have two active lawsuits against California interests.

Following up on a January lawsuit against the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the Avocado Producer and Exporting Packers Association of Michoacán (APEAM) has filed a lawsuit against the California Avocado Commission, requesting an unspecified amount to compensate for what it called severe damage to the marketing of Mexican avocados in California caused by the commission in 2007. Tom Bellamore, senior vice president and corporate counsel for the California Avocado Commission, said APEAM essentially has refiled the case that was dismissed without prejudice last September. “It is the commission’s position that that those claims then lacked merit and still do today,” he said.

Mexican exporters had hoped to settle the matter out of court, but the avocado commission’s board rejected a settlement proposal, said Emiliano Escobedo, APEAM’s U.S. representative in Los Angeles. “We had definitely hoped that the lawsuits were behind us, but they unfortunately are not,” he said. “What we really want is to sell more avocados and not have to fight anyone in court.”
The lawsuit states that less than two months after Mexico began shipping avocados into California in early 2007 the commission created significant disruption to the market and “severely damaged the ability of Mexican growers and packers to market their fruit,” according to a press release from APEAM.

The lawsuit charges that the California Avocado Commission spread falsehoods and disparaged Mexican avocados in ways that significantly reduced sales. Dale McNiel, Washington, D.C.-based lawyer for APEAM, said the lawsuit alleges trade defamation, interference with contractual relations, interference with prospective economic advantage, negligence and unfair competition. “The gist of the matter is that CAC made numerous public defamatory statements about Mexican avocados which contributed to the severe drop in demand during 2007 and to some extent continuing into the future,” he said.

As reported in International Herold Tribune, but isn’t it possible that in some countries this situation could have occurred and no recall would have been issued in the first place?

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said Friday the nation’s largest beef recall has set back negotiations to ship U.S. beef to Japan and South Korea. Those markets closed to the U.S. cattle industry in 2003 after a scare over mad cow disease. Schafer said at a convention of meat packers and processors that he is hopeful trade talks will continue, but that the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. recall has diplomats asking why the U.S. can’t ship safe meat. The USDA recalled 143 million pounds of beef from the Chino-based slaughterhouse after the U.S. Humane Society released undercover video that showed slaughterhouse workers there kicking and shoving sick and crippled cows and forcing them to stand with electric prods, forklifts and water hoses. Downer cows, or those too sickly to stand, are banned from the food supply because they carry a higher risk of mad cow disease and other illnesses.

As reported by Reuters:

California, the top U.S. food producing state, has sent its first official agricultural trade mission to communist Cuba, looking to tap a potential $180 million food market. While other U.S. states have pushed ahead in selling Cuba an average $350 million per year in agricultural products, mainly grains, California is a late arrival. Californian companies sold products worth just $735,000 to Cuba in 2006.

“Some of us might be a little late in getting here, but we are here,” California Food and Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura told reporters in Havana. Kawamura is leading a delegation of companies seeking Cuban contracts for dairy products, wine, grapes, figs, nuts and other specialty fruits. So far, Cuba has bought powdered milk and rice from California, and some wine and apples.

U.S. food sales to Cuba were allowed in 2000 under an exception to the trade embargo Washington has maintained since 1962 against Fidel Castro’s government.

Santa Monica Fatburger Corp. plans to open three restaurants in the United Arab Emirates. The development is represented by Fatburger franchisee Khalil Asfour of Vetra Investment with the first Fatburger restaurant scheduled to open in Dubai in 2008. Fatburger, a subsidiary of Portland, Oregon.-based Fog Cutter Capital Group Inc.has a total of 91 restaurants more than a dozen state as well as China and Canada.

Whole Foods Market Inc. has completed the sale of its 35 Henry’s Farmers Market and Sun Harvest Market stores to a subsidiary of Los Angeles grocer Smart & Final Inc., according to a report in San Diego Business Journal. The Austin, Texas-based company sold its two operations to Smart & Final for $166 million, including a distribution facility in Riverside. Sun Harvest stores are located in Texas, and Henry’s are located in California, with 15 stores in San Diego County. “Our plans are to continue under the existing names and formats,” a spokesman told the Journal. “Overall what you’ve seen is the model that you’re going to get going forward, including the focus on natural and organic and lots of produce.” The sale of Henry’s was the result of Whole Foods’ bid to acquire Henry’s parent Wild Oats for about $565 million. Wild Oats was Whole Foods’ main rival in the natural grocery business.

Biodiesel industry leaders have created the California Biodiesel Alliance, a new not-for-profit trade association to promote increased use and production of high quality, renewable biodiesel fuel in California, according to a report in Central Valley Business Times. The founding members of the group is are biodiesel feedstock suppliers, producers, fuel marketers and distributors, technology providers, fuel retailers, consumers, and advocates. “We’re inviting industry and members of the public to join us in unleashing the power of the biodiesel market here in California,” says Alliance Chairman Eric Bowen of Tellurian Biodiesel.

Trade negotiator Cathleen Enright has been hired to head Western Growers’ office in Washington, DC. , according to a press release issued by the association. Enright has served as deputy assistant U.S. trade representative, plus held positions in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. State Department.

“Cathleen stood out for her combination of academic training in science, intellectual firepower, her energy and determination, and her substantial record of achievement in the difficult world of foreign trade negotiations,” said Western Growers president and chief executive officer Tom Nassif.

As deputy assistant U.S. Trade Representative, Enright negotiated bilateral and multi-lateral agreements with U.S. trading partners that restored market access, or opened access for the first time, to U.S. agricultural commodities. Among these included agreements with South Korea for California citrus, India for California almonds, and Canada for northwest U.S. potatoes. Enright served from 2000 to 2006 as assistant deputy administrator with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She negotiated the resolution of 30 plus phytosanitary trade barriers affecting U.S. agricultural commodities. From 1995 to 2000, Enright served as a policy analyst with the U.S. State Department, where she coordinated interagency and international coalition efforts for negotiation of an international treaty in trade in products of biotechnology.

The Chico Enterprise Record reports:

Area exporters and businesses have an opportunity to put their wares before the eyes of retail buyers from Shanghai, China next month.  Butte College’s Center for International Trade Development is one of the state’s centers putting out a call to exporters.  “Retail growth is extremely strong in the Chinese market, creating tremendous incentives for California exporters,” said Chico center director Jim Wilson.  Businesses must register by Thursday.  Suitable products include cheese products, nuts, frozen products, canned foods, wines, cereals, bakery products, premix flours, snack foods, condiments, dried foods, cookies, chocolate, fruit jam, oil and oil products, seafood, organic food products, and juices.  The buying mission is organized by the California Department of Food and Agriculture and U.S. D   epartment of Agriculture, in addition to the California Centers for International Trade Development.  The event itself is July 2 at Long Beach City College.Questions can be directed to Wilson at 879-9049, or to Priscilla Lopez at the Center for International Trade Development at Long Beach City College, 1-562-938-5018.

“Southland residents already pay among the highest grocery prices in the nation, and the forecast is for even higher costs. Federal statistics released Tuesday for April show that food prices in Southern California rose 5.7% from a year earlier. Prices are going up for much of what gets dumped into the grocery cart including cereals, bread, bacon, pork roasts, chicken, eggs, cookies, hot dogs, oranges, soda pop and dried beans. Nationally, food prices rose 3.9% in April compared with the same month in 2006, and the outlook is equally chilling wherever you shop. It is happening for many reasons: inflation, drought, freezing weather, even the rising cost of corn — highly sought after not only as ingredients for thousands of food products but also to make ethanol.”

“Already fraught with a persistent glut of milk, enormous environmental challenges and lack of new processing capacity, the California dairy sector will need to continue its growth or face declining profits and harder times ahead, according to a report commissioned by the California Milk Advisory Board. ‘These three challenges end up amounting to a problem where the industry will face a sustained period of tougher profits and tougher economic times for dairymen,’ said David Palecek, a consultant with McKinsey and Co., which conducted the study. As the No. 1 milk-producing state in the nation, California is now a major exporter of dairy products nationally and globally. Producers enjoyed several decades of success and two of their most profitable years in 2004 and 2005. But they are also at a crossroads because the very strategies that have worked so well to drive their success in the past are now threatening the dairy sector’s viability, the report said. Ray Souza, a dairy producer from Stanislaus County and president of Western United Dairymen, which conducted a forum this month to facilitate discussion of the study, said the McKinsey report lays down a road map for producers to look at where they want to go in the future. ‘And it comes at a critical time because we’re on the heels of developing a new Farm Bill, so we’re looking at milk pricing and our dairy industry both in a national and statewide level,’ said Souza.”

The opening of a “Ranch 99″ supermarket in Chino Hills has sparked a minor protest, but seems to have fizzled out and the protesters have found little support among community leaders:

the demographic shift has proved unsettling for some in this upscale San Bernardino County town, and that tension surfaced when a major Asian grocery chain, 99 Ranch Market, announced plans for a Chino Hills store. The Chino Hills City Council heard an outcry from a small group of residents, including one who wrote that he didn’t want to see “little Chinatowns all over the Hills” filled with Asian signs he can’t read.

The skirmish mirrors clashes in the San Gabriel Valley in the 1980s when Asian immigrants moved into the traditionally white and Latino suburbs. When a wave of Asian businesses followed, city officials in Monterey Park tried unsuccessfully to pass English-only ordinances, arguing that Chinese-language business signs would confuse firefighters and emergency workers.

Larry Blugrind of Chino Hills told the City Council in a letter that the store would ‘result in a run-down center that is the equivalent of a Chinese Pic ‘N’ Save less than a mile from the kind of high-quality shops our city has been trying to attract to this area.’ Reached by telephone, Blugrind explained that he enjoyed having a diverse community — his daughter-in-law is Japanese.

“My worry is that 99 Ranch could be a steppingstone for it to become all Asian,” he said. “I don’t want another Hacienda Heights.”

In Chino Hills, the City Council has no say in whether Tawa Supermarkets Inc. can open a 99 Ranch Market. The store is moving into a space formerly occupied by a Ralphs supermarket. It’s a simple case of one grocery store taking over for another, said Mayor Gwenn Norton-Perry. ‘It’s an approved use, and we as a city have no purview over this. That’s the bottom line’” Norton-Perry said….

From 2000 to 2005, the city of 81,000 saw its Asian population jump from 22% to 39%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent survey. Of those, 10,316 were Filipino and 7,752 were Chinese. Asian Indians, Koreans, Vietnamese and Japanese constitute most of the remaining Asian Americans. The Asian influx has already had an effect on some public services: The Chino Hills library stocks books written in Chinese, Korean and Japanese…

As for the sign, ‘We can tell them we prefer signs to be in English only, but we can’t require it,’ Norton-Perry said. Still, some say the spat is much ado about nothing. ‘Last I remember, the words ‘99 Ranch’ were in English,’ said Don Nakanishi, director of UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center. ‘You have El Pollo Loco,’ he said, referring to the popular Mexican restaurant chain. ‘Nobody’s telling them to translate that.’

“A produce trade association announced it has pledged $2 million to fund a research center at the University of California, Davis dedicated to reducing food-borne illnesses in fresh vegetables and fruits. The Center for Produce Safety will be housed within UC Davis’ existing Western Institute for Food Safety and Security and distribute research grants to scientists from around the country, said Jerry Gillespie, the institute’s founding director. ‘This is a major step forward as far as industry stepping up and providing funds for scientific research,’ Gillespie said Monday. The move by the Produce Marketing Association, which has offices in Delaware and California, follows the nationwide E. coli outbreak linked to California-grown spinach that resulted in the deaths of three people last summer. Bryan Silbermann, the association’s president, said another trade group has promised to provide funds for the center, and that federal and state government officials would be among those deciding how to divide the research money. ‘We want to see this as an ongoing, world-class center of research and a clearinghouse of research,’ said Silbermann, who declined to name the second group before the official announcement planned for Wednesday.”

“U.S. wine exports, mostly from California, soared 30 percent in value and 4 percent in volume last year, after slipping in 2005, according to a new study of Commerce Department data by the Wine Institute trade group. Exports rose to $876 million and 404.5 million liters last year, with California generating 95 percent of the total. In Europe, where the U.S. makes more than half of its foreign sales, exports surged 48 percent by value. In Canada, they increased 29 percent. ‘This dramatic sales growth in 2006 must be placed in perspective, as it does follow a decrease in 2005,’ says Joseph Rollo, director of the international department at the Wine Institute, which represents more than 1,000 California wineries and related businesses. `Nonetheless, the long-term trend of California wine exports shows steady expansion in all major markets and growth in new, undeveloped markets. The 2006 number represents a 106 percent increase in exports by value in the last decade.’ The growth is particularly encouraging because Europe has long had a protected wine industry, with tariffs that can run 2 1/2 times the U.S. rate. `The export growth is impressive considering the trade barriers that California wineries face in markets worldwide,’ Rollo said in a phone interview, `where they have distribution restrictions and the wineries receive production subsidies from their governments’. “

“Two California almond handlers, International Almond Exchange, Inc., and Global Nuts, LLC, have been charged with willfully violating the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 and various provisions of the federal marketing order regulating almonds grown in California. USDA filed complaints alleging that International Almond Exchange and Global Nuts failed to pay assessments for crop years 2002 to 2006. The complaints also include counts of failure to dispose of inedible almonds and failure to file reports. USDA is seeking full payment of all assessments due.”

Brunton Vineyards, Inc., a division of Brunton Vineyards Holdings, Inc. announced that it has received a Letter of Intent from Zhejiang Ouhai International Trade Corporation for the distribution and delivery of a minimum of 1,200 containers per year of the company’s wine brand, Addison Cole. The proposed transaction translates to approximately 1,000,000 cases of wine for the year, with an approximate annual contract value of $80,000,000. The first purchase order is scheduled to be received by mid to late April 2007, once details are finalized pertaining to label design and compliance specific to the Chinese market.