SACRAMENTO - In the new, wide-open global marketplace, Chinese garlic and apples are pushing out their California competitors.
Mexican asparagus and raspberries are crowding the shelves of grocery stores, and the state is embroiled in a "tomato war" with Canada over accusations of unfair trade. California's status as the world's superpower of agriculture is being tested on all sides, even in the state's own supermarkets, prompting farmers and politicians here to question how they will continue to prosper.
Agriculture is the top industry in the state. Farmers and ranchers, who consistently outperform Hollywood's entertainment barons and Silicon Valley's technology tycoons, earned $27 billion in sales last year. Until recently, they thrived largely without the kinds of subsidies the federal government has long given to producers of grain, fiber and fodder.
But with the advent of open markets guaranteed by treaties like the North American Free Trade Agreement, the state's fruit and vegetable farmers are suddenly interested in federal farm subsidies. Until now, only the state's rice and cotton farmers have received the cash payments, which mainly go to farmers in the Midwest and the South.
Only about 3 percent of the $20 billion in annual federal subsidies have typically gone to California farmers, even though the state is the biggest producer in the country.
"We've been fiercely independent out here," said William J. Lyons Jr., the state secretary of agriculture. "But there's now competition in California, and that's really scary."
After canvassing farmers up and down the state, Mr. Lyons has begun what he calls the first stage of a campaign to persuade the federal government to extend subsidies to the fruit and vegetable farmers of California. The main mechanism would be to let them take part in conservation programs that protect the environment by setting aside land, cleaning water and improving farmland by planting buffer strips or creating wetlands.
"We have the largest agriculture industry and one of the most environmentally sensitive," he said. "We need a farm bill that is more inclusive and addresses better conservation and market enhancement."
But California's new enthusiasm for broader subsidies to help cushion the shock from global competition has hit a roadblock in Washington.
In recent private negotiations on a final farm bill, lawmakers agreed to continue financing for the traditional commodity crops but to trim proposed conservation spending, saying there is no more money.
When Congress returns on Tuesday, House and Senate negotiators will meet for final decisions.
As the bill wound its way through Congress, California's two senators made a rare move to flex the state's muscle on the farm bill.
But to the surprise of many lawmakers, the senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both Democrats, ended up favoring the traditional recipients of commodity subsidies, inadvertently undermining the conservation programs promoted by most of the state's farmers.
Reversing their earlier votes, they decided against limiting individual farmers to $275,000 in annual subsidies, saying it would be unfair to the state's rice and cotton farmers. Without those limits, lawmakers say, more than $2 billion will have to be cut from conservation programs.
The two senators later said they also wanted to put back money for conservation.
The dispute over the bill's priorities has ricocheted across the state.
"I feel like the senators caved in, turning their backs on what matters to most of us farmers," said Judith Redmond, a farm partner of the Full Belly organic farm outside Guinda in the spring-green hills of the Capay Valley.
"We have done without any government payments, and done well," Ms. Redmond said. "But we do need help to protect the land, and the riverbanks."
Unlike some of the huge farmers to the south who rely on exports, Ms. Redmond and her three partners are worried about competition for market share in California.
>From their small farm of 100 acres, planted with fruit and nut orchards and interspersed with rows of vegetables and flowers, the organic farmers earn a gross income of $1.3 million each year. They sell to local farmers markets, to restaurants and, increasingly, to town dwellers who buy annual subscriptions for produce delivered weekly.
Whatever the federal government does, the state government is already stepping in. Responding to increasing fears of competition, Gov. Gray Davis is planning a "Buy California" campaign to begin in June in an effort to persuade consumers to demand that the foreign fruits and vegetables in stores be replaced by produce grown in California.
With help from federal grants, Governor Davis will try to "sell California to Californians" with $35 million worth of newspaper and magazine advertisements and television, radio and Internet promotions over three years, said Ralph Watts, the campaign's chief executive.
"It may not be the Academy Awards, but if 'Buy California' works we will at least hold on to the market we have here," Mr. Watts said. "We have gone from a free, unsubsidized farm state to now we are afraid of the global market."
The program will start during the Democratic governor's re-election campaign in a bid for support from farmers, a critical swing vote.
"This is something we're going to be talking about a lot in the campaign; it would be very tough to win the race without the Central Valley," said Roger Salazar, a spokesman for the governor, referring to the heartland of California agriculture.
With inexpensive table grapes pouring in from Chile and peaches and nectarines, broccoli and cauliflower crossing the border from Mexico, ranchers and farmers will need more than a "Buy California" campaign to thrive in the global market, said Bob Pauli, president of the California Farm Bureau.
"None of us knows where this farm legislation is going to end up," he said. "We'd like programs to deal with the ground water problems we have here that help all farmers."
As a fruit grower and vintner, Mr. Pauli has never received federal subsidies. But as president of the farm Bureau, he said he understood why "the rice and cotton guys are so dependent on government payments," mainly because they have received them since the Depression.
Straddling the center are the rice farmers themselves.
Grant Lundberg, the chief executive of the Lundberg Family Farms in Richvale, perfectly captures the California dichotomy.
Mr. Lundberg's family has been a pioneer in the agriculture movement to protect the environment, and it produces the No. 1 brand in the domestic organic rice market.
Yet the Lundberg family is also part of the old-fashioned subsidy system and received $3.2 million in payments over the last five years, the 10th-largest sum in California. Mr. Lundberg said he did not want any limit on those payments.
"Globalization has made all produce more competitive," he said. "I can't say why rice should get subsidies and not vegetables, but it is a question of a stable food supply.":
