Olive farmer and former California Farm Bureau President Jamie Johansson has launched his campaign for state Assembly District 3, currently held by Republican Minority Leader James Gallagher, who will term out after the current session.
Johansson led CAFB from 2017 to 2023, reelected three times. Prior to that, he served as vice mayor of Oroville and as vice president of the Butte County Farm Bureau. In December he received the Distinguished Service Award during the annual CAFB meeting.
This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: Describe your career path. What led you to run for the Assembly?
I'm a first-generation farmer, started my farm in 1993 in Oroville. I played around with cows a little bit and chased them all over the countryside, leasing land with bad fencing. So we switched to the olive oil industry, which was just growing. The 90s were a tough time in agriculture with a lot of down commodity prices. Olive processors were going out of business; there was a lot of consolidation. At that time people had heard of olive oil, but it wasn't widely used. The innovation we have to do to survive in California agriculture is never ending: you either have to diversify or get creative in terms of the products that you're producing and maybe even the varieties. But that's what's amazing about agriculture: the ability to adapt to change.
It still is an exciting time in agriculture, but extremely frustrating. When I joined the Butte County Farm Bureau, I quickly learned that if you're not telling your story, someone's telling it for you. And oftentimes this person is someone you don't want speaking for you, right? You have to join organizations like Farm Bureau and Western Growers and be able to tell your story through a like-minded organization.
So that's how I got politically involved. Just kept raising my hand. Serving on the Oroville city council was tremendously insightful, and it's the same thing we desire in agriculture, which is maintaining local control. It's the ability to determine how we farm and what we farm and what we do on our land.
If you want people to invest in agriculture, to invest in the state, there has to be a predictable outcome — that legislation won’t change, the fees aren't going to go up, you're not going to be sued. And when you have accountability and predictability, guess what? Your liberty, your freedom [comes back] to do what you choose. [Right now] too many decisions are being made for us in Sacramento, in Washington, D.C.
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Q: What were some standout moments of policy advocacy from your time at California Farm Bureau?
The first one is passing Prop. 1 and the overwhelming victory it enjoyed. We were very specific, and Governor Brown was specific that this [measure] include building more surface water storage. Sites Reservoir was at the top of the list, but there are others. We felt the people of California understood that the solution to drought, the solution for climate change, and what that may mean for water supply is more storage.
Another exciting moment was when we did a rally at the Capitol on the mandatory flows program that the state water board was going to impose, which was taking up to 50% of the water that we already use for agriculture and sending it down the river. We made the case this was the wrong direction. We had Gov. Brown and Gov.-elect Newsom sign a letter to the water board saying, “Stop,” because we're coming with a solution. Our water districts were before them saying, “Let's do voluntary agreements.”
The chair did not listen and went forward. We held the rally [and] put legislation in to get it stopped. A lot of legislators hide behind these boards that are imposing new fees and taxes and say, “Well, there's nothing we can do.” We need to bring accountability for our legislators, who need to stand up for their constituents.
I enjoyed the opportunity to talk with President Trump in the Oval Office about trade issues and tariffs, and what that imposed on farmers. I [also] had a one-on-one with him about forest fires and forest management. Paradise had just tragically burned down and over 80 lives lost, and he had visited Paradise with Gov.-elect Newsom and Gov. Brown. I thanked him for that.
Q: Since leaving the Farm Bureau, what have you been up to?
Being a dad, farming. We have expanded. We have the farm in Oroville, and now also a place in Durham.
Q: You are a Republican. How would you get bills to the governor’s desk while navigating the Legislature’s Democratic supermajority?
Politics is ultimately how we communicate. So how are you messaging it? How are you applying pressure to get that outcome? There's 19 Republicans in the Assembly. From a standpoint of votes on the floor, that’s very little. But what you can do is raise awareness. You see what happened on Prop. 36 — that backlash of righting a wrong that brought lawlessness to California was overwhelming. And that is noticed by people in politics who have to get elected. It is pointing out the will of the people and creating good messaging. It's a tougher road when you're in the minority, but there is opportunity.
Q: How could you as an assemblymember — and also the Legislature as a whole — work with the Trump administration to address issues pertinent to growers?
The biggest thing when it comes to agriculture is that we farm based on markets and science. What is the market demand? What does the consumer want?
The frustration for California farmers is that we are asked to farm based on a political agenda. The recent report on the regulatory costs alone of farming, that's unsustainable. And now consumers are priced out of a lot of the food items.
Q: Talk more specifically about your water plan.
The biggest issue in water since 2015 is groundwater. Even in Butte County — and we don't have the challenges like in the Central Valley — the solution is more surface water to alleviate the need for groundwater. That's always been the emergency outlet for many farmers when the surface water isn't there. It starts with storage. I live in the shadow of Lake Oroville, and the Oroville Dam’s production of electricity. Yet now we see dams coming out simply because utility companies don't see the cost benefit of maintaining or relicensing those. Hydropower is not considered a green energy, so we put in more solar panels and windmills that don't have the consistent production we were getting with hydropower.
Q: How can the state Legislature work on immigration, given it's a federal authority? What does it imply for agriculture given the high number of undocumented immigrants in the ag workforce?
When I was president of the California Farm Bureau, we came up with a solution of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. Illegal immigration has gotten so out of control that it's going to be difficult to come up with a solution that works for agriculture. President Trump has said deportations are going to be massive and we have every reason to believe him. The Trump administration is open to solutions, and we need to start being proactive in what we can do working with them.
We need to right a wrong in terms of the criminals. No farmer, no rancher, wants a criminal working for them.
We need better border security and we have to build the wall.
I think the immediate action is reforms to the H-2A program, and how do we make that affordable for every farmer? Certainly the costs of housing and lodging for farm workers that are borne in that are not advantageous for a smaller or medium-sized farm.
Q: How are you pacing your campaign?
Campaigns in California are expensive, even in rural areas, so we’re focused on trying to fund the campaign and getting support from leaders in our communities. We're laying the framework for the campaign that will start next spring or summer as people start paying attention because in 2026 we will elect a new governor.
Q: From a legislative perspective, what can be done to bolster agtech adoption in California?
We had success with that in 2023, when we passed a drone bill that began to establish how we apply pesticides using drones. We were able to demonstrate safety issues. Instead of having a backpack strapped to you, with chemicals on your back walking up the hills in Napa, we could do it with drones. We also showed that there was a reduction in pesticide use when we use drones. We were able to get that bill through by messaging with DPR, bringing out their regulators and showing them the technology.
Now it's a matter of following up. Where should the Legislature begin? Where are they in developing the program? How can they streamline it to bring it online? The biggest thing for the Legislature is holding people accountable. We have driverless trucks and cars operating in an urban center, yet we can't have a driverless tractor in the field when there's workers present. Cal/OSHA is going to revisit that, but there’s nothing but roadblocks.
A lot of times technology is an escape. They'll say, “Oh, technology will lower the cost. So we don't have to deal with the regulatory costs,” or “We don't have to deal with the labor issue, because everything's gonna be mechanically picked down the road.” But [new] technology is expensive. And if technology is out of a farmer’s price range, you will begin to see continued consolidation.
Q: What might people not know that makes you a qualified Assembly candidate?
If you look over what I've done and the opportunities that I've had to advocate, it really stems from a true passion for rural California and understanding that rural California is struggling. What's happening in rural California matters, because ultimately it affects everyone,
[I had] an interesting conversation with Gov. Newsom. He gets that farmers can't just leave [California]. And I said, “Well, for the most part, that is true, but what happens is we can, once the science catches up and we get varieties that can adapt to a climate somewhere else.” A lot of berries are going to the south right now because they're developing varieties that can handle it. You're seeing more specialty crops popping up in the Southeast and in the Northeast. Saying we have to just deal with it isn't exactly true, but this is where we want to be. So my running is, truly, a passion for California, and what it has been and what it can be.
