Secretary Ross: “This is about helping to solve the biggest challenge of our time. Nothing’s more rewarding than to be able to grow food and feed people, but to be able to do this and solve these problems and to be able to improve not only nutrition for people, but the health of our planet… who wouldn’t want to be in agriculture?”

Interview by Amy Mayer

During February, CDFA’s Office of Environmental Farming and Innovation held a series of meetings with farmers and ranchers to get their input on ways to sequester carbon, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve biodiversity to help meet California’s climate goals. CDFA released a preliminary report from those sessions Tuesday (March 30). Secretary Karen Ross spoke with Agri-Pulse about those meetings and how ag is contributing to the state’s climate goals. 

This interview has been edited and condensed.

There were six listening sessions, two each for the annual, perennial, and livestock sectors. They were organized so people came together for an initial meeting and then reconvene a second time a few days later. How did your office decide that was the approach you wanted to take? 

The director of our office, Amrith Gunasekara, has had a lot of experience and interaction with farmers and ranchers. He learned this from our work early on in climate change, going back to 2012, when we convened the Climate Change Consortium for Specialty Crops. Based on his experiences of doing that first Consortium report and so many other (reports) that we’ve done around potentially contentious issues, we really wanted to use the first convening to get everyone on that same basis of understanding: here’s what we already have, we’re looking for things to add on to or adjust to what’s in existence. And then, when people walk away after that initial discussion, they go home and think about it. So it seemed to make sense to bring (groups back) together. 

What are some takeaways from those meetings?

The one thing that came through loud and clear is “we’re so over regulated, please don’t let these things turn into other mandates.” Our secret sauce is voluntary practices, technical assistance, and incentive grants. That’s how we’ve gotten so many people into this. Adding demonstration projects really helps for that farmer-to-farmer learning (because) they have very candid conversations. There are a lot of really interesting thoughts about region-specific needs and practices. In a big diverse state like California, with so many different microclimates and so many soils, we have to be very mindful that it is not a one-size fits all.

I wanted to ask you about specifically some of the climate smart projects that have been instituted. Are there are any that stand out for you as most practical to be replicated on the widest scale?

Because it was the first program and it was rolled out in response to drought, our State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program, SWEEP.  One of the things that I think has made our programs work is we don’t say “here is what you must do.” It’s a menu for you to pick what works best for your operation and where you are in this continuum of sustainability. 

I have been so impressed and pleased by the momentum behind Healthy Soils. It’s interesting because we have like 27 practices that you could go with but cover crops, hedgerows—which is exciting for our pollinator friends—mulching and compost are the top four. And then kudos to our dairy families, we did one pilot program year and did 12 dairy digesters. By the time of sign up, of course, a mandate on methane reduction helped pique interest. A dairy digester is like a mini utility that you’re operating, so allowing the partnership of dairy farmers with developers has been very positive.

Do you think because there’s been so much adoption by dairy farmers to the digesters that that might lead more methane gas infrastructure?

That has already started and I think that will accelerate and especially if we focus on just trucking. If we could convert major fleets that tend to fill I-5 and I-99 24/7/365 days out of the year we would have an immediate positive impact on the air quality in the Central Valley. The developers are big believers in cow power, and even if, as we see this move towards zero emission vehicles, we went all electrification in the grid, we could still use the dairy digesters for generating that renewable electricity so that we could have freeways lined with the electrical charging stations with cow power. I get excited about cow poop.

Do you think agricultural equipment will evolve to meet the zero emissions mandate, or do you think agriculture is going to head in the direction of trying to get some exemptions?

We will work hard to meet the mandate for the years in which they’re set. This is providing a very strong market signal and so just given my conversations, especially with the major farm equipment manufacturers, some of this stuff could be near term, meaning maybe in 15 years, some of it maybe less. There’s work that’s happening on it and oftentimes as policy signals are sent that work will accelerate. But we feel that with having to meet this “technically and economically feasible” (expectation), we’re going to keep moving as quickly as we can on this pathway. But in the meantime, being able to reduce the carbon intensity of whatever it is that fuels that piece of equipment is going to be extremely important. 

California is moving ahead with a lot of things that are still not on the agenda in other ag states. How are you seeing other states respond to what California ag is doing in terms of climate change?

I’m always mindful that it’s different farming here because we are specialty crops, we are farming practically every day of the year. In dairy and dairy efficiencies, California has been a leader and we’ve seen how rapidly dairy farming across the country has embraced a lot of the efficient practices that they have, and that was even before climate (became a priority). I see the cattle sector really providing strong leadership from California. Understanding the role of grazing, whether it’s for wildfire or for habitat and retaining the biodiversity that’s on rangeland, has really taken off across the country. […] On climate, I’m excited to be part of a national conversation and to see how much momentum in the last couple of years has really gone from not wanting to talk about climate change at all to let’s all work together because it’s going to take collaboration. And it cannot just be farmers and ranchers. we can lead, and it’s important that we have that strong voice, but we need the entire supply chain in this with us. We tend to silo ourselves, even within that supply chain, and we can’t afford to do that. The brand names have set some of their sustainability or climate goals, and thought it was easy to say, “Oh, this is what we want to buy from you.” And they’re much more engaged (now) and understand how complex it is, that there are trade offs and that there are unforeseen incidents and risks that a farmer has to deal with, and they shouldn’t have to do that all alone. 

As the federal government focuses more attention on climate policy, how much is USDA reaching out to the states, or to California specifically, to try to make sure that what comes down from USDA aligns with what states are prioritizing?

I was really thrilled to see that they announced that they’re seeking comments on farmer- and rancher- lead solutions, so that’s a golden opportunity. We really are excited to encourage all California ag groups, as well as our sister agencies, to weigh in with comments. It’s great that before they actually went through some sort of “here’s our idea of what this should look like,” they’re starting with “let’s see what’s out there.”

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And let’s face it, we built our climate smart programs on research that’s been happening at USDA for years and on the work that Secretary Vilsack and the Obama Administration did when they came up with identifying the building blocks for climate smart agriculture. Those definitions and that way of doing organizational thinking made it much easier for us to go into this space and use terminology that was already out there, not only nationally, but internationally. That’s important work that they’ve done and we were able to just step on to that and build upon it.

There’s starting to be a lot more talk about ecosystem services markets, about a carbon bank or some kind of payment for carbon sequestration. What’s the situation here in California, and what’s the potential of that?

Well, clearly there’s the interest and with our cap-and-trade program it’s been primarily about the wisdom, or not, of pursuing an offset, which is almost a 10-year process. The verification process is expensive and the dollars generated are so minimal. One of our first ones was in rice and it just didn’t pan out the way people had hoped or expected it to. There’s huge interest in markets and we’d love to see that the consumer would help share this wonderful public benefit of us being the ones who manage it and take responsibility for it. By the same token, we want to make sure that it’s real. It could easily fall into a greenwashing and so we want to make sure there’s integrity in how this is done. I’ll just be blunt: I don’t want to see a brand taking a bunch of credit for what a farmer’s doing for them to meet their goals without some payment and some verification so both of them have comfort that this is real, we stand behind it, the practices are on the ground, sequestration is happening. We’ve been talking about it for 15 years and we’re much closer than we’ve ever been. 

Any final thoughts? 

This is about helping to solve the biggest challenge of our time. Nothing’s more rewarding than to be able to grow food and feed people, but to be able to do this and solve these problems and to be able to improve not only nutrition for people, but the health of our planet… who wouldn’t want to be in agriculture?

Link to interview on Agri-Pulse web site

By Jerry Brown and Miles Reiter

Jerry Brown was the governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. Miles Reiter is a berry grower and the chairman and chief executive of Driscoll’s.

This week, in the case of Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about a historic California law that gave farmworkers the right to vote in secret ballot elections on whether they wanted to be represented by a union.

We know that law — the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act — well. Forty-six years ago, one of us was signing it as governor of California and the other was a strawberry farmer along the Central Coast of California.

We came from different perspectives then but share a common view now: The law has fulfilled its promise to bring about labor peace by giving voice to California’s farmworkers. That law, and the self-determination it brings, should not be weakened or undermined.

In the 1930s, as part of the New Deal, Congress created the National Labor Relations Board to govern the process by which workers could decide if they wished to be represented by a union. Congress declared that U.S. policy was to eliminate “substantial obstructions” to the free flow of commerce, and to protect rights to self-organization and freedom of association. Notably, Congress failed to extend these fundamental workplace rights to farmworkers.

The unionizing campaigns in California’s agricultural fields in the 1960s and 1970s were marked by the substantial obstructions that Congress sought to eliminate in other sectors of the economy. There was violence in rural communities and chaos in the fields; grapes and lettuce were boycotted. Consumers and celebrities alike demanded union contracts for farmworkers, and the economic clash dramatized the issue. But the clash obscured a fundamental question: What did the farmworker want?

The 1975 California law was bold and unprecedented because it gave real choice to farmworkers for the first time. Procedures, modeled in part on federal law, permitted farmworkers to decide whether they wished to be represented by a union, and also set rules for management and worker relations. And with the secret ballot, farmworkers could vote for or against unionizing, free of reprisal or coercion.

In the current proceeding, today’s Supreme Court is reaching back to that law 46 years after its passage and considering if a provision that allows union organizers limited access to agricultural fields in order to reach workers should be outlawed. (The California Supreme Court upheld the provision in 1976.)

This “access rule” has long accommodated employees — many of whom speak no English — without burdening employers. And it facilitates a transparent competition for the hearts and minds of farmworkers.

Neither of us is a fan of unnecessary regulation. And the procedures adopted by California’s labor relations board can at times seem complicated. Nevertheless, the mere existence of these rules has quelled the controversy that previously marked farmworker organizing campaigns. By distinguishing fair from unfair labor practices, employers and unions know the rules. And it is the rules that bring clarity.

Our purpose is not to argue the jurisprudence on “administrative takings” or the reach of federal labor law. We write to stand up for our state’s unique Agricultural Labor Relations Act, with a heartfelt reminder of what labor relations were like in the fields of California before this law.

A generation after it empowered farmworkers and calmed the turmoil in the fields, the law is now under threat. In the midst of a pandemic and with renewed understanding of the essential role that farmworkers play, the U.S. Supreme Court should recognize that this special law has given voice to men and women who do the work that feeds America.

Link to article in the Washington Post

March 31^st is a state holiday to remember the commitment of Cesar Chavez to respect and honor the work of farmworkers and their contribution to California agriculture. Today and every day, we thank farmworkers for all they do to bring food to our tables. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, CDFA has played a role supporting our #essentialfarmworkers through food access, PPE distribution, and support in cases of quarantine due to COVID.

The California Association of Food Banks (CAFB) is now accepting bids from farmers and third parties to provide food boxes to low-income senior citizens as part of the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP).

The CAFB request for proposals is available here. Bids will be accepted until April 30, 2021.

Traditionally, the SFMNP has provided vouchers to eligible senior citizens to redeem for fresh produce at Certified Farmers’ Markets. With the arrival of COVID-19, the program was modified to create a partnership between the CAFB and local producers, allowing for the bulk purchase of fresh and nutritious food from farmers, and providing for its distribution to eligible seniors through food box deliveries.

This program is supported through the joint efforts of the USDA, the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the California Department of Social Services.

By Tim Hearden

The son of immigrants, Miguel Gomez knows a thing or two about seizing the future.

After growing up watching his father work 60 hours a week as a leafy greens foreman in California’s Salinas Valley while attending night school at a local community college, Gomez is taking a similar path.

He works full-time in sales and operations for vegetable processor Taylor Farms while taking 16 units at California State University, Monterey Bay in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree in agricultural plant and soil sciences.

With his experience, and with a goal of working toward a doctorate in plant pathology, Gomez could be a face of the next generation of agricultural workers – those with humble backgrounds as traditional laborers who are gaining the knowledge and skills necessary to participate in the budding technology revolution.

Gomez urges his peers to be self-motivated, learn good communication and “people” skills and learn how networking works.

“Don’t fear change,” he said March 18 during a virtual conference. “Always raise your hand and say, ‘Here, I’ll do that.’ Above that, you have to be willing to learn.

“You don’t have to get it right” in the beginning, he told about 400 high school students watching on video. “You just have to get it going.”

Gomez made his remarks as a featured speaker during an evening online reception to open the two-day Salinas Valley Ag-Tech Summit (earlier this month), which focused on the importance of education for tomorrow’s workforce.

His talk inspired California Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross, who was seen smiling on video as Gomez spoke.

“It is such an exciting future,” Ross told the student. “I can tell by the way you talk that you already know that.”

Read more on Western Farm Press web site

The California Natural Resources Agency has announced upcoming dates for regional workshops to engage the public on Governor Newsom’s Executive Order on Nature-Based Solutions (N-82-20).  

Registration and participant information will be shared publicly and available on the Nature-Based Solutions webpage in early April.

CDFA’s Alternative Manure Management Program (AMMP) provides financial assistance for the implementation of non-digester manure management practices on California dairy and livestock operations, which will result in reduced emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas (GHG) 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide in its potential to warm the atmosphere.

Eligible practices for funding through AMMP include: pasture-based management; alternative manure treatment and storage (such as compost bedded pack barns); and solid separation or conversion from flush to scrape in conjunction with some form of drying or composting of collected manure.

In March 2021, all 35 projects funded by the AMMP in the 2018 round have been completed. Collectively, these projects will reduce GHG emissions by 296,060 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (MTCO₂e) over the project life of 5 years. Some of the 2018 AMMP recipients include Art Silva Dairy, Den-K Holsteins, Frank Coelho & Sons Dairy, and SBS Ag Dairy.

The AMMP is funded through the California Climate Investments and was first launched in 2017. To date, the program has had four rounds of funding, in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. For all four rounds, 114 incentive projects have been funded with a projected GHG emission reduction of 1.1 million MTCO₂e over 5 years. Sixty-one projects funded in 2019 and 2020 are expected to be completed in 2021 and 2022, respectively. Eighteen projects funded in 2017 were completed by the summer of 2020.

“I am very pleased that we have reached this milestone in the AMMP program,” said CDFA secretary Karen Ross. “California dairy farmers are achieving methane reductions every day, having changed their manure management practices in significant ways. These changes will help our dairy families meet their sustainability goals well into the future.”

Lists of program-level and project-level progress of projects funded through the AMMP are available on the AMMP webpage: https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/oefi/AMMP/.

Interested stakeholders and members of the public may sign up to receive AMMP-related updates through the mailing list of the CDFA’s Office of Environmental Farming and Innovation (OEFI), home to CDFA’s numerous Climate Smart Agriculture Incentives Programs in addition to AMMP, such as the Dairy Digester Research and Development Program (DDRDP), State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program (SWEEP) and the Healthy Soils Program (HSP). 

By Lori Pottinger

The San Joaquin Valley has begun to grapple with implementing the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Figuring out the math of balancing water supply and demand in ways that cause the least economic harm to farmers and local economies is challenging, and difficult tradeoffs are inevitable. We talked with Emmy Cattani, a fifth-generation farmer from Kern County, about some options.

PPIC: Talk about ways that agriculture can reduce land fallowing in implementing SGMA.

EMMY CATTANI: More supply is critical. The biggest opportunity is to figure out how to capture water in big flood events, which are expected to become more common with climate change. More extreme storms can bring a deluge of water in a short time, and currently we don’t have the infrastructure to capture and store it for later use. Solving this will be expensive. Partnerships between farmers and cities is a good solution for sharing the costs of the infrastructure needed to move floodwaters into groundwater storage.

Related to that, we need to explore opportunities to increase groundwater banking (recharge projects that track how much water is stored underground by different parties). Expanding groundwater banking will enable us to use surface water storage more strategically, especially in light of climate change bringing more intense rain storms and less snow.  Partnering with urban water agencies can increase the supply of banked water for the agricultural sector. There are many examples of this in Kern County, where urban partners lease storage capacity in agricultural water basins, paying for that storage capacity by leaving water in the basin.

PPIC: What are the best ways to increase flexibility in water management to help agriculture adapt to SGMA?

EC: The bottom line is we must find ways to incentivize farmers with the lowest cost of fallowing and facilitate the transfer of their water to places that can use it most productively. That involves a bit of a shift in mindset for most water districts. Many districts control surface water rights and focus mostly on maximizing supply inside their district. We need them to broaden their thinking so that the goal is to make the best use of available water in whatever way makes sense for local growers, local businesses, and their communities. I think that involves a few things. First, allowing and facilitating trading between willing buyers and sellers within a district could help water move from the least-productive to the most productive lands. And districts could partner with each other. Many growers farm in multiple districts, and district boundaries are fairly arbitrary. Allowing growers to move water across these boundaries could enable growers to use their own water on their most productive ground.

At a bigger scale, we could expand district-to-district trading. While this has been going on for decades, it only accounts for a small percent of water used in California. To significantly bring the cost of SGMA down, we’ll need more trading between districts and across basins. To make more water available for these trades, districts must involve their growers, giving them the option to accept incentives in exchange for fallowing their least-productive land. And a final opportunity is for districts to provide incentives to growers who want to convert land to less water-intensive uses, such as habitat and solar. Historically, districts have provided no incentives to growers who convert lands to solar—they just lose their water rights.  We need to compensate growers for reducing water use on converted lands.

PPIC: What is needed to make the best use of lands that come out of production?

EC: First, if farmers take a “go it alone” approach, fallowing could happen haphazardly and even bring negative consequences. One promising solution is to bring renewable energy development to the San Joaquin Valley. With a federal infrastructure bill on the horizon, there’s an opportunity to support increased transmission capacity. Solar will utilize the most land, but we can also expand renewable uses of agricultural and dairy biomass. Developing renewable energy on retired farmland would contribute to the economy and create jobs.

Second, we need to have water districts and groundwater sustainability agencies weigh in on planning for where lands could be retired. A lot of groups are weighing in on things like fallowing land for habitat. But people can get protective about their property rights, and it’s jarring to see your farm on someone else’s map of lands that should be fallowed, so this has to be thoughtful process. Water districts are locally run and trusted entities. They could use revenue from growers’ property assessments or groundwater pumping fees to buy land to take out of production. They have the administrative staff and internal skills to manage the conversion of fallowed lands to recharge basins, or to work with land trusts or public programs for converting it to habitat or other uses. Most growers don’t have the resources do this themselves, and I think having districts claim that role is really important for a smooth transition.

Link to interview on PPIC web site

Welcome to Ag Day 2021! California’s theme this year is Celebrating Resilience.

In this video, CDFA Secretary Karen Ross chats with five young Ag leaders about resilience as well as exciting future prospects in agriculture.

We are observing Ag Day virtually this year and inviting you to participate by posting content on social media platforms with the following hashtags: #AgDay21 #CaAgDay2021 #CelebratingResilience