Yolo & Solano Aim To Boost Local Ag & Create Jobs

Special to Davis Patch

Adding more value to agriculture is the focus of the upcoming Solano and Yolo Counties Joint Economic Summit.

“We are bringing together the experts – from academia to operators – to help shape some strategies to grow this vital sector of our economy and bring more quality jobs to the area,” said Solano County Supervisor Mike Reagan.

The Solano and Yolo Counties Joint Economic Summit is from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 16, at the Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center at the University of California, Davis.

“The summit promises to give us a road map that will guide us in our collaborative efforts to increase the development of our agriculture economy,” said Yolo County Supervisor Don Saylor.

The agenda of the summit includes:

• An overview of the Food Chain Cluster report and the shared agriculture opportunities in the two counties.
• Panel discussions that examine the potential for making the region the heart of the seed industry and how an aggregation hub can expand the region’s capacity to move products to market
• Facilitated discussions that explore how the region can move past identified barriers to growing agriculture and the food chain cluster.
• Creation of strategic action plans that add more value to agriculture and bring quality jobs to the region.

To reserve your seat at the summit, call (707) 864-1855 or email pat@solanoedc.org.  Registration fee is $25 per person, which includes parking and a lunch. 

The summit follows up on an analysis of the food chain cluster in the two-county region released earlier this year that estimated the annual economic value at $2.5 billion.

Growing that economic value will take a collaborative effort of the region’s businesses, industry leaders, and public sector partners to identify strategies for improvement, according to the “Food Chain Cluster: Integrating the Food Chain in Solano and Yolo Counties to Create Economic Opportunity and Jobs.”

The food chain industry cluster represents the full spectrum of economic activity related to agriculture, from before the crops get into the fields to value-added processing that covert the crops into consumer products.  The viability of local farming operations is linked to the availability of intermediate processors and the logistics infrastructure that transforms commodities into consumer goods.

For more information about the reports shaping the discussions at the summit, go towww.solanocounty.com/jointsummit.

The summit is sponsored by Solano County, Yolo County, the University of California, Davis, Solano Economic Development Corporation and .