UC Berkeley

This dissertation analyzes the history and evolution of the United States strawberry industry from an economic perspective. Particular emphasis is placed on the location of production, the use of damage control, and the development of capital, elements which I argue gave rise to a system of strawberry monoculture. To do so, I take a multidisciplinary approach and draw on different bodies of literature to address key components of the industry's history, including the economic and biological rationale underlying agents' production choices, how emerging supply chains altered the organization of the industry, and the intransigence of production systems after they have been developed. In Chapters 1 through 3, I provide a cursory overview of the origins of the strawberry industry, its production trends, key innovations, and its status leading up to and following the phaseout of the agricultural chemical methyl bromide. I also discuss the literature and methodological background I intend to draw upon; in particular, the evolution of agricultural systems, innovations and the development of new supply chains, and the economic and biological considerations of crop rotation and monoculture. I then introduce a more detailed depiction of strawberries prior to their commercialization, as well as the characteristics of proto-commercial production in the eastern US; this focuses on the confluence of key transportation supply chains and a breakthrough innovation in strawberry varieties, a combination which led to the formation of a full-fledged strawberry industry. I examine the structures that developed in response to this expansion as well as the costs and profits of a representative grower. In Chapters 4 through 7, the focus of the historical narrative shifts from eastern and southern states to California. I provide a brief overview of the practice of fumigation and its development post-1850; in particular, I examine key fumigants and their uses, as well as their drawbacks, as context for the persistence of methyl bromide. I then discuss how California became the undisputed leader in national strawberry production, and how future innovations have been predicated upon the soil conditions provided by methyl bromide fumigation. I then use this contextual framework to construct a theoretical model of agricultural production in which an agent chooses between rotation and a chemical damage control agent. In Chapters 8 and 9, I introduce the changes occurring to strawberry production in the post-war era, including several of the post-war innovations that depended on fumigation. I additionally fit empirical data to models of adoption suggested by economic literature. I conclude with a short overview of lessons derived from the historical narrative, including how key, seemingly immutable characteristics of strawberry production have persisted through the previous two centuries and continue to shape the industry.