From some future vantage point, the 1980s may well be characterized as a decade of major transition for California agriculture-a decade in which agriculture ceased to be judged solely on the market value of production and began to be judged on the basis of multiple economic, ecological, and social criteria. One of the important lessons of the 1980s derives from the economic performance of agriculture. At the beginning of the decade, global recession caused agricultural exports, prices, income, and asset values to plummet. Unstable, poorly designed national and international economic policies, not events “down on the farm,” were the primary causes of those difficulties. Likewise, recovery in the late eighties stemmed from forces well beyond the farm g a t e more stable monetary policies and resumption of economic growth abroad. These roller-coaster conditions reinforced the dependence of agriculture on national and international economic policies and events. Agricultural markets, capital, labor and management, research and development have become increasingly international in scope and operation. In turn, they are driven by the interaction of national economic policies. Maintaining competitiveness in this highly interdependent world will be an even greater challenge in the nineties. Other indicators of future forces likely to affect agriculture also emerged in the eighties. Most prominent were the public values and goals voiced concerning the use of natural resources and quality of the natural environment. The continuing struggle over water resources, compounded by recurring drought, underlined the critical role this resource will command in the future of California agriculture, and the entire state. Water “swaps“ between agricultural and urban users and water markets for privately held rights, for example, took on new significance as harbingers of the future. With population growth and the spillover from urban to rural areas, the future use of prime agricultural land commanded increasing attention, as is evident in ”rights-to-farm” and “no growth” or “slow growth ordinances and in increased state subventions to local governments to retain land in agricultural use. Air pollution in prime agricultural production areas, particularly the San Joaquin Valley, posed ominous threats to agricultural productivity. California is a populous,urban state. It will be even more so by the end of the nineties as the population approaches 32 to 33 million. Agriculture must adapt to and co-exist with this growth. One result will almost inevitably be higher costs for natural resources used by agriculture. Reflecting growing concerns about the quality of the environment, the eighties witnessed a plethora of stringent command-and-control regulations affecting agriculture and natural resources. Most