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VINEYARD VIEW June 2015 WINES&VINES 29 Glassy Winged Sharpshooter Research Pro- gram and the Raisin Marketing Board. The amounts spent by each crop sector are pretty comparable. How does this compare to other specialty crops? This is a little more difficult to calculate because of the variation in farm gate value among other crops. A good way to compare research spending among specialty crops that vary significantly in farm gate value is to look at the amount of money spent expressed rela- tive to a crop's farm gate value. For almonds and grapes this comes to 0.08% and 0.07%, respectively. In the report that Peltier shared with me regarding dollars available for grape research, she also tallied figures for several other specialty crops in California and ex- pressed them as a percentage of their farm gate value. She found that the strawberry industry spent about 0.13% of their farm gate value on research; the walnut industry spent about 0.36%, and citrus spent 1.38%. If one separates wine grapes from other grapes in California, the amount of research money available in 2013 was about $2.1 million. Expressed as percent of farm gate value, that totals 0.05%, which is significantly less than these other specialty crops. For many years the U.S. wine industry has looked across the ocean with envy at the amount of money the Australian wine industry spends on viticulture and enology research each year. The Australian Grape and Wine Re- search and Development Corp. (GWRDC) lev- ies both wineries and grapegrowers to generate research funds for viticulture and enology, and the Australian federal government matches this revenue approximately dollar for dollar. GWRDC stated in its latest annual report that in 2012-13 the revenue generated by the levy and government match was about $22 million (Australian). The value of the wine grape crop that year was $867 million (Australian). Ex- pressed as a percent of farm gate value, this comes to 2.5%—even without the federal gov- ernment match it comes to 1.25%. If the Cali- fornia wine industry invested 1.25% of the farm gate value of wine grapes into research, it would have generated $40 million for re- search in 2013. State and federal grants such as the USDA Specialty Crop Block Grants and the Specialty Crop Research Initiative are also significant Sources: Citrus and strawberries: NGWI, 2010 values; almonds: Almond Board and CDFA, 2013 values; wine grapes in California: AVF, PDF and CDFA, 2013 values; Australia: GWRDC, 2013 values Call Toll Free: 800-POS-1290 We Pair Well Sell From Anywhere, Manage it Everywhere! Use your mobile device to process transactions, print and email receipts, while tracking sales and inventory. RATIO OF RESEARCH SPENDING TO FARM GATE VALUE California citrus Australia wine grapes California strawberries California almonds California wine grapes 0 0.3% 0.6% 0.9% 1.2% 1.5%