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Fifth-generation farmer Tara Beaver Coronado didn’t think she would follow in her family’s footsteps.
She left her parents’ farm in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta region with the goal of becoming a teacher, but returned in 2018 to plant a vineyard. She also runs a YouTube channel called Field Trips with Tara, which highlights other farmers.
Beaver Coronado entered a 10-year contract for her 50 acres of grapes when the wine industry was booming. Since then, her operating costs have roughly doubled, but payments for her grapes haven’t.
“Without the help of my parents, I don’t know how I would have gotten started” farming, Beaver Coronado said June 2 at the Agri-Pulse Food and Ag Issues Summit in Sacramento. “I’m hoping to push through with my wine grapes. I haven’t given up yet.”
Her remarks echoed a recurring theme among the panelists at the daylong summit at the downtown Sheraton Grand – that sharply escalating costs are making it more difficult for California growers to stay in agriculture. And the state’s regulatory environment deserves much of the blame.
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“What I try to tell people is that you may love the regulations, but they’re not free,” said Dan Sumner, director of the University of California Agricultural Issues Center in Davis. “There’s a balance of costs and benefits.”
Myriad challenges confront California agriculture, from rising input costs and labor shortages to shifting consumer demand and political uncertainty. However, several of the nearly two dozen growers, policymakers and industry professionals who spoke at the Agri-Pulse summit cited regulatory pressures among the key drivers of rising costs.
For instance, a video produced by Western Growers recalled a 2025 study by California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo researchers Mike McCullough and Lynn Hamilton finding that regulatory compliance costs for California lettuce growers had risen by nearly 1,400% since 2006.
Over this period, new state and federal laws guiding food safety, water and air quality, wages and worker safety placed an additional burden while farm gate values increased only slightly, according to the study.
“I think of it as playing regulatory Jenga when you never run out of pieces,” said Chris Zanobini, chief executive officer of Ag Association Management Services Inc. His organization manages several specialty crop marketing groups.
Among the mounting burdens listed by speakers:
- Stiffer penalties for failing to meet the state’s Heat Illness Prevention Standard for workers were meant to “go after the small percentage of violators” but were “viewed as punitive,” acknowledged state Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose.
- Legislation in 2022 requiring producers to reduce single-use plastic packaging by 25% by 2032 has sent fresh produce industries scrambling for alternatives and could prompt a flurry of lawsuits, several speakers said.
- An effective ban on fully automated tractors in California that dates back to a 1970s worker safety rule hasn’t been updated despite the emergence of self-driving cars in cities.
“In every single state, you can use an automated tractor except in California,” Beaver Coronado said.
Sumner noted that regulatory costs aren’t just borne by growers but also by processors. As a result, retail prices rise, sometimes prompting consumers to seek cheaper imports, while California growers’ income remains flat.
“With all the prices going up, it effects the demand side as well as the supply side,” he said. “Something’s got to give.”
California’s Department of Food and Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency and State Water Resources Control Board commissioned a multi-year study of ways to streamline reporting requirements under CDFA’s Produce Safety Program, the state’s Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program, and the state’s winery and confined animal facility programs.
CDFA Secretary Karen Ross, who spoke at the June 2 summit, told Agri-Pulse that an updated report will be released soon.
“It’s a very small-scale version of what I hope will lead to more,” she said.
Read more news at Agri-Pulse.com.
