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Lowering Pesticide Risk in Winegrape Vineyards by Establishing a Critical Number of Participating Growers and Wineries in the Lodi Rules for Sustainable Winegrowing Certification Program
Executive Summary
Pesticide use in vineyards, when measured by pounds per acre applied, is one of the highest in all of agriculture in California. Moreover, because of the spread of Vine Mealybug throughout all of the major winegrape growing regions of California, growers are now using an organophosphate (OP), Lorsban, to control this pest which is the first time many of them have used an OP in more than 20 years. Winegrape growers also face many other important environmental challenges such as air quality, habitat management and human resource management. And lastly, the globalization of the wine industry has brought significant financial pressure on growers, particularly in the Central Valley of California, as winegrape prices ‘soften’.
There are many efficacious practices for California winegrape growers to adopt that reduce pesticide use and risk, as well as those that address the other challenges discussed above. However, even though most growers would like to use these practices there are a number of barriers to their adoption, both real and perceived. What is needed in California agriculture is a number of incentives that encourage growers to implement one or more of the sustainable farming practices that reduce pesticide risk as well as reduce other environmental and social risks.
The Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission developed the Lodi Rules for Sustainable Winegrowing certification program as a market-based incentive for growers to implement reduced risk pest management as well as many other sustainable farming practices that mitigate other environmental and social problems associated with growing winegrapes. It is hoped that growers certifying vineyards under the Lodi Rules program will receive economic benefits through one or more of the following: reduced insurance premiums, higher winegrapes prices, preferred winegrape contracts, renewed winegrape contracts, or increase wine sales.
For the Lodi Rules program to be successful as a business model, it is essential that a critical number of growers and wineries join the program in the next 24 months so that a sufficient number of Lodi Rules labeled wines are in the marketplace to create a marketplace ‘pull’ for the program to continue to grow. If the Lodi Rules business model is financially successful we will also see measurable environmental and social improvement in the Lodi wine community.
The goal of the project is to achieve a critical number of growers and wineries participating in the Lodi Rules program and document pesticide risk reduction in the next 24 months by achieving the following objectives: Enroll 50 growers in the Lodi Rules program by the end of the second year; certify 10,000 acres annually (10% of Lodi vineyards) by the end of the second year; have 24 wine labels (i.e. wine brands) bearing the Lodi Rules logo by the end of the second year; document pesticide risk reduction and other environmental and social benefits by comparing certified and conventionally management vineyards using the Lodi Rules pesticide environmental impact model and farming practices standards as the metrics.
The outcomes of the project will be 50 or more participating growers, 10,000 or more certified vineyard acres each year, 24 or more wine labels bearing the Lodi Rules logo, and pesticide risk reduction measured using the Lodi Rules pesticide impact model.