Agricultural seed: county seed enforcement subventions.

Existing law, the California Seed Law, provides for an optional subvention program under which a county may enter into a cooperative agreement with the Secretary of Food and Agriculture to receive an annual apportionment of funds from the secretary for maintaining a statewide compliance level on all seed within the county. Under those provisions, a county with no registered seed labelers may annually receive $100, at the discretion of the secretary and upon recommendation of the Seed Advisory Board, and a county with registered seed labeler operations may annually receive a subvention based on enforcement activity generated by the registered seed labeler operations within the county, and upon the performance of enforcement activities, in accordance with a method for calculating apportionments for participating counties based on units of activity, as specified. Existing law makes those provisions inoperative on July 1, 2016, except as specified, and repeals those provisions on January 1, 2017. This bill would extend the operative date specified above to July 1, 2019, and would extend the repeal date to January 1, 2020. The bill would delete the provisions establishing a method of calculating apportionments based on units of activity, and would instead require the amount of the subvention designated to each participating county to be established in a memorandum of understanding between the county agricultural commissioner and the secretary, in consultation with the Seed Advisory Board. Under existing law, the fees collected pursuant to the California Seed Law are continuously appropriated to the Department of Food and Agriculture to carry out its provisions. By extending the operation of these subvention provisions, this bill would make an appropriation.