The California State Board of Food and Agriculture met yesterday at CDFA headquarters for a discussion about the current state of ag and how things might look in the future. The meeting was covered by ABC 10 TV in Sacramento, including interviews with CDFA Secretary Karen Ross and Board president Don Cameron.

https://youtu.be/qyqfqEtse9w?si=PiDMq71sbaWpsC01

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross joins Sacramento-area Certified Farmers Market manager Dan Best for a discussion in celebration of National Farmers Market Week, running from August 4-10. See and hear more about the importance of supporting local farmers and the incredible fresh produce that makes California’s certified farmers’ markets special. To find a local market near you, visit CDFA’s Certified Farmers’ Market website.

https://youtu.be/slryaQhtGhk?si=EOd2D2I9p7VMFCDg

From a USDA News Release

USDA secretary Tom Vilsack has announced the agency will invest $400 million with at least 18 irrigation districts, including five in California, to help farmers continue commodity production while also conserving water across the West.

The funding, which will support irrigation districts and producers using innovative water savings technologies and farming practices while producing water-saving commodities in the face of continued drought, is expected to conserve up to 50,000 acre-feet in water use across 250,000 acres of irrigated land in production, while expanding and creating new, sustainable market opportunities.

“Agricultural producers are the backbone of rural communities across the West and many of them are struggling under prolonged drought conditions,” Vilsack said. “USDA is taking an ‘all hands’ approach to help address this challenge, including these new partnerships with irrigation districts to support producers. We want to scale up the tools available to keep farmers farming, while also voluntarily conserving water and expanding markets for water-saving commodities.”

USDA worked to select irrigation districts based on several commodity production and water management-related criteria in order to maximize the ability to achieve program objectives, leveraging available data from the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation to ensure close alignment and partnership. USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) provided data and analysis to support the preliminary selections. Districts that have been preliminarily selected for potential inclusion in this program include:

• Black Canyon Irrigation District, Idaho
• Brooklyn Canal Company, Utah
• Central Oregon Irrigation District, Ore.
• Central Arizona Irrigation and Drainage District, Ariz.
• Corcoran Irrigation District, Calif.
• East Columbia Basin Irrigation District, Wash.
• Elephant Butte Irrigation District, N.M.
• Glenn – Colusa Irrigation District, Calif.
• Greybull Valley Irrigation District, Wyo.
• Hidalgo & Cameron Counties Irrigation District 9, Texas
• Huntley Project Irrigation District, Mont.
• Imperial Irrigation District, Calif.
• Maricopa – Stanfield Irrigation and Drainage District, Ariz.
• Palisade Irrigation District, Colo.
• Quincy Columbia Basin Irrigation District, Wash.
• Solano Irrigation District, Calif.
• Sutter Mutual Water Company, Calif.
• Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, Nev.

The preliminarily-selected districts may receive up to $15 million each in the awards and will enter into sub-agreements with producers participating within the district. Depending on available funding, awards to additional districts may be possible.

Producers who participate will receive payments for voluntarily reducing water consumption while maintaining commodity production. The needs of producers will determine the specific strategies for water conservation, including irrigation improvements, shifts in management practices, shifts in cropping systems, and other innovative strategies. USDA will learn from the diversity of strategies used and identify additional opportunities to maintain and expand water-saving commodity production in the future.

Participating producers and irrigation districts will commit to ensuring continued commodity production in the areas where water consumption is reduced. USDA is working to finalize agreements with the preliminarily selected districts, which will include the details of each individual district’s water-saving strategies, commodities to be produced, and specific budgets. Following the finalization of those awards, producers within the participating districts will work directly through their irrigation districts to participate. USDA and the preliminarily-selected districts will provide more details on the agreements and opportunities for producers to directly enroll.

Detections of West Nile Virus in California horses are occurring again this summer. Two cases have been reported, so far — one in Placer County and one in Yuba County. One of the horses has been euthanized.

Horse owners are encouraged to have their animals vaccinated to make sure they are maximizing protection against the disease. And once vaccinations occur, horse owners should be checking regularly with their veterinarian to make sure they stay current.

Californians can also do their part to prevent the disease by managing mosquitoes that carry West Nile Virus. Here are some tips:

• Draining unnecessary standing water found in wheelbarrows, tires, etc.
• Cleaning water containers at least weekly (i.e., bird baths, plant saucers)
• Scheduling pasture irrigation to minimize standing water
• Keeping swimming pools optimally chlorinated and draining water from pool covers
• Stocking of water tanks with fish that consume mosquito larvae (Contact local mosquito control for assistance) or use mosquito “dunk” available at hardware stores.

It’s important to remember that mosquitoes become infected with the virus when they feed on infected birds. Mosquitoes then spread the virus to horses.  Horses are a dead-end host and do not spread the virus to other horses or humans. For more information on West Nile Virus, please visit this link.

The USDA has awarded $100,000 to CDFA’s Office of Farm to Fork (CDFA-F2F) from the Patrick Leahy Farm to School Grant Program. This is part of a USDA award of $14.3 million to 154 projects in 43 states, as well as the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico. These investments will help 1.9 million children eat more tasty, nutritious foods in school while supporting farmers and producers in their local and regional communities.

“Farm to school is a huge win for children, schools, farmers, producers and communities,” USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack stated in a news release announcing the awards. “When schools have access to fresh, local food options with homegrown flavor, they can serve delicious, healthy dishes that kids are excited to eat, while also supporting the local economy. These grants continue our work to address both food insecurity and nutrition insecurity, ensuring that we’re not only feeding kids, we’re feeding them well.”

The grant funds awarded to CDFA-F2F will be used to host eight in-person regional gatherings across California to improve access to local foods in eligible Child Nutrition Program sites. The gatherings will serve farm to school stakeholders, including school nutrition programs, educators, food producers, supply chain partners and farm to school support organizations. The project will be led by the CDFA-F2F Farm to School Program, including partners at California Department of Education, the California Department of Public Health and the California School Nutrition Association.

CDFA congratulates other California organizations receiving awards in this grant program, including the Butte County Local Food Network, the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, Eat Real Certified Inc., the Every Neighborhood Partnership, Fiery Ginger Farm, Friends of School of the Arts Foundation, Olivewood Gardens & Learning Center Inc., the Pasadena Unified School District, San Diego Youth Services, the Sequoia Union Elementary School District, Soil Born Farm’s Urban Agriculture Project, Turning Green, and the Upland Unified School District. Click here for the full list of awardees and project descriptions.

In this video, CDFA secretary Karen Ross is joined by CA GROWN/Buy California Marketing Agreement executive director Cher Watte to discuss two CA GROWN campaigns underway.

One campaign is an agrotourism partnership with Visit California to add a Food & Drink section to Tripadvisor’s California Road Trip Republic. This allows people to learn about and make plans to visit California Wine Country, family-owned farms and more.

The other campaign, the Sound of Good, highlights the sights, sounds and feelings connected with enjoying California-grown fruits and vegetables.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Di8txZDc0

The California Department of Food and Agriculture will host the third meeting of the Regenerative Agriculture Working Group next Tuesday, July 30 from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., both in-person at the CDFA Headquarters auditorium (1220 N Street, Sacramento, CA 95814) and virtually on Zoom. Time for public comment will be reserved at the end of the meeting. To register for the event, please use the link: https://csus.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcvcuChpzwrGNxKHgB8N-q5Bx866MZRaoAx#/registration.

The Regenerative Agriculture Working Group was established to draft a recommendation for a definition of “regenerative agriculture” as it relates to state policy and programs to be considered by the California State Board of Food and Agriculture (the Board). Through facilitated meetings, the work group is drawing from the “Framework for a definition of Regenerative Agriculture” put forward to the Board by the CDFA Environmental Farming Act Science Advisory Panel (EFA SAP) along with public comment received during public listening sessions, Tribal listening sessions, and written comments. To learn more about the process, find recordings of previous meetings, or register for future meetings, please visit www.cdfa.ca.gov/RegenerativeAg.

There will also be a virtual public listening session on Thursday, August 22 at 5:00 p.m. Members of the public can join to provide comments.

For questions or to provide a written public comment, please email RegenerativeAg@cdfa.ca.gov

From a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory news release

Key Takeaways

• Agricultural residues and wastes from growing and processing crops can provide the raw materials needed to make bio-based products, materials, and fuels.
• A new award will help researchers build a publicly accessible database to guide farmers, biomanufacturers, and community leaders in the Northern San Joaquin Valley in building up a bioeconomy.
• The project will also investigate flexible conversion methods that can process mixtures of agricultural waste into the building blocks for bioproducts, biofuels, and biochemicals, making it easier for companies to use different kinds of plant matter.

In California’s San Joaquin Valley, agricultural leftovers such as almond shells, fruit peels, and orchard trimmings can potentially be converted into sustainable bioproducts and biofuels – with the right technology. In order to capitalize on that, an organization called Schmidt Sciences’ Virtual Institute on Feedstocks of the Future awarded new funding to a group investigating how to make better use of diverse agricultural waste.

The group, “Building the Circular Bioeconomy in the North San Joaquin Valley” or BioCircular Valley, is co-led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), UC Berkeley, and BEAM Circular, with partners at UC Merced, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, the Almond Board of California, and USDA Albany Agricultural Research Station.

“California has this incredible diversity of materials, but they aren’t well understood – and this makes it difficult to know how to extract the most value out of them,” said Corinne Scown, a senior scientist at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley and one of the project leads. “We want to characterize them and make that information available so companies can more easily figure out which feedstock is a good match for them, and then use that agricultural residue to make everything from bio-based polymers and chemicals to sustainable materials and aviation fuels.”

One of the group’s goals is to build a publicly accessible database and user-friendly map full of information about different feedstocks, the raw plant materials and biomass that can be broken down and used to make bioproducts. That includes where feedstocks are located, when they are available, how they are currently disposed of, how they perform in different bioreactors, how much sugar or lignin they contain, whether they can be processed with other feedstocks, their greenhouse gas footprint, the potential cost, and much more.

The project will also test ways to improve the flexibility of the conversion process, which breaks down feedstocks to prepare them to make bioproducts. Researchers will apply artificial intelligence to their lab-generated data to improve predictions of how feedstocks can be processed most efficiently or blended together. Being able to use the same technique on different (or mixed) kinds of plant matter would open up ways for companies to make bioproducts more easily.

The project builds on ongoing efforts to establish biomanufacturing capabilities in the Northern San Joaquin Valley, which includes San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Merced counties. Providing better data on how to convert the valley’s millions of tons of agricultural waste into valuable products may spur biomanufacturing companies to build facilities nearby, minimizing how far the raw materials have to be moved and generating new jobs.

The new funds for the project come from the Virtual Institute on Feedstocks of the Future, a partnership between Schmidt Sciences and the Foundation for Food & Agriculture that supports collaboration on research to transform biomass into alternative feedstocks for biomanufacturing. The award is one of five totaling $47.3 million over five years. It is expected that the five teams will collaborate to share best practices and knowledge to boost the bioeconomy at the national level.

In the past 10 years, use of higher-risk pesticides has markedly declined in both pounds applied and acres treated

Reported pesticide use in California declined by more than 5% between 2021 and 2022, reflecting a longer-term trend, according to the California Department of Pesticide Regulation’s most recent annual Pesticide Use Report.

In 2022, 181 million pounds of pesticide active ingredients were applied, mostly to farmland, a 10.4-million-pound decrease over 2021. Cumulative acres treated also decreased by 3.2% year over year. Acres treated totals are cumulative, meaning that if a one-acre field was treated three times in a year, the cumulative acres treated would equal three acres. Analyzing trends using multiple pesticide use metrics, including pounds applied and cumulative acres treated, can offer a more nuanced, complete understanding of pesticide use.

The state requires pesticide use reporting for all agricultural applications and some nonagricultural applications, including those in parks, managed urban landscapes, rights of ways, roadsides and structures. Consumer pesticide use is not reported.

The annual report includes a summary of pesticide use by category, based on the pesticide’s potential to cause health or environmental impacts or the type of pesticides. In the past 10 years, use of higher-risk pesticides has markedly declined in both pounds applied and acres treated. In terms of pounds applied, pesticide use decreased in most categories, including:

• 77% decrease in groundwater contaminants
• 45% decrease in reproductive toxins
• 45% decrease in cholinesterase inhibitors
• 21% decrease in toxic air contaminants
• 20% decrease in carcinogens
• 17% decrease in fumigants

Over the same period, biopesticide use has increased by 56%. Biopesticides are considered a lower-risk alternative for pest control.

The Pesticide Use Report includes data for California’s counties collected by county agricultural commissioners, who receive reports from growers, applicators and others. California’s pesticide-use reporting program began in 1990.

To learn more about pesticide use and use reporting, visit DPR’s website Pesticide Use Reporting (ca.gov).

For more information about the state’s transition to sustainable pest management, visit DPR’s website Accelerating Sustainable Pest Management: A Roadmap for California.