Value Drops 3% in 1985; 4th Straight Decrease : State’s Farm Exports Continue to Slide

California farm exports continued their four-year slide in sales last year, the state Department of Food and Agriculture reported Wednesday.

The value of California’s leading farm exports totaled $2.83 billion in 1985, down 3% from $2.90 billion in 1984, according to figures made public at an agricultural trade seminar here.

Farm exports--battered by intense competition and a dollar that last year had barely begun its decline--have fallen each year since 1981, when exports totaled a record $4.2 billion.

The 3% decline last year was less than half of the 7% drop in U.S. farm exports overall, however, said Ray Borton, a senior agricultural economist at the Department of Food and Agriculture.

“We’ve been watching this go down,” Borton said. “We would be happy to see a turnaround and hope that this has bottomed out. We hope that we will at least hold or go up this year.” He said raisin, wine and horticultural exports are doing “quite well” this year, and recent cotton orders have been encouraging.

Farm exports accounted for 20% of sales of the state’s agricultural products last year, down from 25% in 1981.

Overseas shipments of wheat, in terms of sales value, declined 31% in 1985. Lemon sales were off 39%, carrots 38%, flowers and nursery products 23% and cotton seed 38%. Sales of oranges, a major export crop, declined 4%.

On the other hand, the state enjoyed increases in 1985 export sales of rice, up 19%, almonds 27%, walnuts 19%, alfalfa 52%, grapefruit 203% and strawberries 21%.

Japan once again was California’s biggest customer, accounting for about 28% of export sales. It was followed by the European Communities, or Common Market, Canada and South Korea.

Meanwhile, an early indication of how well the nation’s new program of export subsidies is working for one major California export crop--rice--came Wednesday from the U.S. Agriculture Department. Although rice exports are surging, Thailand, the world’s leading shipper, is still giving domestic producers a run for their money, the department reported.

Farm prices of U.S. rice on the world market have plunged by more than half since last April 15, when the new program went into effect. (Under it, producers repay federal rice loans at the prevailing value of rice on the world market, which is much less than the face value of the loans.)

As market prices tumbled, rice exports grew rapidly as anticipated, said analyst Sara J. Schwartz of the department’s economic research service, and the United States now expects to export 2.2 million metric tons this year, up from 1.9 million tons in 1985. Shipments next year are expected to rise again, to 2.6 million tons.

Thailand, whose rise as a low-cost competitor contributed to the shift in U.S. rice policy, is expected to export 4.4 million tons of rice this year but may drop to about 4 million tons next year, Schwartz said. Since 1981, she added, Thailand’s share of the world market grew to 35% from 23% while the United States’ share dropped to 17% from 23%.