A referendum among grape growers to tax themselves to fight off
the glassy-winged sharpshooter has been extended by two weeks, but
people in the wine industry said low turnout was the result of
confusion over the voting process and not an indication of lack of
support.
A referendum among grape growers to tax themselves to fight off the glassy-winged sharpshooter has been extended by two weeks, but people in the wine industry said low turnout was the result of confusion over the voting process and not an indication of lack of support.
“There were 7,000-plus people that we had to get to and there’s a variety of factors,” said Paul Kronenberg, president of the Family Winemakers of California. “It’s a very complicated process and it’s a fairly big universe.”
The vote is being conducted on behalf of growers by the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
The sharpshooter was discovered in California in 1999. The insect preys on a variety of crops but carries Pierce’s Disease, which is particularly lethal to grapevines. The disease essentially clogs the plumbing in a vine, making it impossible for the fruit to receive water and nutrients.
Josh Jensen, owner of Calera Winery in Hollister, said he voted in favor of the bill that will tax grape growers to fight the Sharpshooter. Although Calera has never had any problems with the pests, Jensen said he voted for the bill to help fend off a Sharpshooter invasion from down south.
“It’s really potentially a destructive, a fatal pest for everybody’s vineyards, including ours,” he said. “To not spend the money, to do the research and find out about it and do something would be very short-sighted. If it (sharpshooter) does come up and establish itself, it can kill any grapevine in San Benito County.”
George Guglielmo, of the Gulgielmo Winery in Morgan Hill, said his family voted for the initiative and that he believes winery owners and grapes growers throughout Santa Clara Valley support it.
“I haven’t talked to many people about it, but I’m under the impression that the industry as whole is supportive,” he said. “It’s a problem that could become a major problem for the state.”
Eric Wylde, Santa Clara County’s supervising agricultural biologist, said his staff trapped two sharpshooters in San Jose in April, but has not seen evidence of the pest since then. In addition to the trapping program, the county inspects nursery stocks from southern California and, every other week, releases 1,000 parasitic wasps, which destroy sharpshooter eggs.
“They’re smaller than a grain of rice and they won’t sting people,” Wylde said.
If it passes, the referendum will extend a three-year old tax on grape production. The tax is set by the Pierce’s Disease/Glassy-winged Sharpshooter Board, which is made up of grape growers and vintners. The tax is on sliding scale that can go as high as $3 for every $1,000 in grape value. In each of the last two years, the tax has been set at $2.
Kronenberg said there are many grape growers who don’t pay the assessment directly and so didn’t realize they could vote, and that several growers who operate under different business names received more than one ballot.
“Sometimes if there’s a bit of confusion, you don’t act,” he said. “We think that contributed to the slowness of votes coming in.
The CDFA has received more than 40 percent of the ballots, the threshold needed to for the initiative to pass. To be successful, the measure must receive a majority of the votes cast by the growers who currently pay 65 percent of the total assessment, or 65 percent of the vote cast by the growers who pay at least half of the assessment.
Luke Roney also contributed to this story.
