The Asian currency crisis will have only a limited and short-lived impact on California's agricultural exports, according to a professor of agricultural and resource economics at UC Davis. Although 17.5 percent of California's agricultural production is exported to the Asian-Pacific region, says Colin Carter, those countries most affected by the financial crisis -- Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia -- are not important importers of California's agricultural products. Within Asia, Japan is the largest market, accounting for about 27 percent of the state's agricultural exports. South Korea accounts for 9 percent and Indonesia, for 3 percent. Carter, who specializes in agricultural marketing and international trade, adds that the Asian crisis may, in the short term, slow the growth of Asian-Pacific exports that the state has experienced over the last five years. He says high-valued agricultural commodities such as fruits, horticultural products and processed foods will be hardest hit while the impact on bulk commodities such as rice and cotton will be negligible. Since fluctuating currencies affect export prices more than export volume, according to Carter, the most apparent impact of the crisis may be a decrease in prices. Sales to Japan, Canada and Mexico -- which account for 50 percent of California's agricultural exports -- have continued to grow despite bouts of unstable currencies and periods of stagnant income growth.