The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) California is the leading producer of wine in the United States, accounting for 72 percent of all wine, foreign and domestic, consumed in this country.

(b) Winegrapes are grown in virtually every county for processing by more than 800 wineries located throughout the state.

(c) California grows more than 327,455 acres of winegrapes producing 2,570,707 tons of grapes per year valued at more than seven hundred eighteen million dollars ($718,000,000), as of 1990, with a direct and indirect impact on the state’s economy totaling more than eight billion six hundred million dollars ($8,600,000,000).

(d) Destructive pests and diseases, including phylloxera, pose a significant and imminent threat to the state’s important grape and wine industry.

(e) Phylloxera has already infested grape acreage in many California counties, including Napa and Sonoma, resulting in losses totaling two billion dollars ($2,000,000,000) to growers and the wine industry.

(f) The state has an interest in protecting its agricultural products from further destruction by phylloxera and other harmful pests and diseases.

(g) To avoid a potentially catastrophic loss to one of California’s most important industries, the Legislature declares that this chapter is in the interest of the public health and welfare.

(h) The Legislature further declares that it is in the interest of the public health and welfare that the districts authorized to be created by this chapter not duplicate existing services already being provided to grape growers by the University of California Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor or the county agricultural commissioners.

(Added by Stats. 1993, Ch. 1078, Sec. 1. Effective October 11, 1993.)