Taken from an EPA news release

Two Californians–Lake County supervisor Eddie Crandell Sr. and Jeanne Merrill of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition–have been appointed to join the Environmental Protection Agency’s Farm, Ranch, and Rural Communities Federal Advisory Committee (FRRCC), which provides independent policy advice, information, and recommendations to the EPA Administrator on a range of environmental issues that are of importance to agriculture and rural communities.

Crandell and Merrill were named as part of a group of 20 appointments to the committee, and they join a third Californian already serving, Amy V.C. Wolfe of AgSafe. A total of 37 people from across the country serve on the committee.

Earlier this year EPA Administrator Mike Regan issued a new charge for the FRRCC — to evaluate the agency’s policies and programs at the intersection of agriculture and climate change. The committee will consider how EPA’s tools and programs can best advance the agriculture sector’s climate mitigation and adaptation goals, ensuring that EPA can best support farmers and ranchers in their efforts to reduce emissions and accelerate a more resilient food and agriculture system.

The EPA received more than 85 applications for committee positions and selected new and returning members from a pool of highly qualified candidates to represent a variety of agricultural sectors, rural stakeholders, diverse geographies and whose backgrounds include extensive experience with EPA priority issues, including climate change.

CDFA’s Division of Measurement Standards (DMS) oversees fair commerce in California, including firewood purchases that are common this time of year.

If you’re a consumer who wants to purchase firewood to last through the winter, you’re going to be spending hundreds of dollars per cord. The current average prices are $330/cord in the Sacramento-area, $360/cord in the Bay area, and $350/cord in Southern California.  Prices can go higher if you want a more expensive type of wood like maple or oak.

It’s important that consumers make the best purchasing decisions and value comparisons.  To do that, buyers need to be able to compare one seller’s offer with another.  Knowledge of the proper terms and units of measure used for firewood is key. 

Firewood is sold by the “cord.”  The cord, or fractions of a cord, are the legal units of measurement for firewood, just as milk is sold by the gallon or hamburger is sold by the pound.  A cord is 128 cubic feet.  To determine how much firewood you purchased, measure and multiply the length x width x height in feet to calculate cubic feet.  Any number less than 128 cubic feet is short of a cord. A helpful link of how to measure firewood may be found on the DMS webpage: CDFA – DMS – Programs – QC – Firewood (ca.gov)

Beware buying bulk wood by a “truckload”, “face cord”, “wheelbarrow”, or any other term other than a cord. These units of measure are not legally defined and therefore not comparable. For example, a dump truck load is far more than the capacity of an pick-up truck. Also, make sure you get a receipt for the wood from the seller.  The law requires this, plus the seller’s name and address, date, identity of the wood, quantity, and price.  If in doubt, take photographs and don’t burn any of the wood; file a complaint with your local sealer of weights and measures.

CDFA – County Liaison Office – County Commissioners & Sealers Contact Information (ca.gov)

The ongoing drive of farmers and ranchers to remain resilient in the face of climate change took center stage over the last several days in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, where CDFA Secretary Karen Ross traveled to participate in the Conference of Parties 27 (COP27). 

Secretary Ross highlighted California’s leadership on climate goals as well as cutting-edge implementation. The Secretary spoke of “multi-level action”– meaning an effort to weave climate ambition and the actions of local and regional governments into policy developments to accelerate vertically-integrated implementation and investment plans–and she emphasized the importance of implementing the Glasgow Climate Pact to keep global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels.

Secretary Ross described California’s ambitious methane reduction target, its methane-reducing investments in the dairy sector, and how the dairy industry has risen to the occasion in partnership with the state. Through CDFA’s Dairy Digester Research and Development Program (DDRDP), California dairies have installed 131 digester projects that capture 2.3 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent every year or more than 23 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent over the projects’ 10-year life of practice.

On Agriculture Day at COP27, Secretary Ross moderated a panel entitled “Farmers at the Center” at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) pavilion. The panel showcased the diverse experience of farmers around the world and their efforts to fight climate change through climate-smart agricultural practices.

“Food production is so intertwined with climate,” said Secretary Ross. “Farmers are key to alleviating global hunger in a world with a growing population, and climate-smart agricultural practices can help them continue to do so in a hotter, drier future.”

The conversation highlighted the need to provide multiple approaches and practices to provide near-term and scalable solutions to the many challenges the world faces today and showed that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to farming in a changing climate. Panelists explained that with proper market signals and supportive policies, farmers can offer the keys to carbon sequestration, food security, and a healthy environment.

“To help increase these practices, we need to ensure that we have created the right market signals, enabling policies, and provide plenty of technical assistance,” Secretary Ross added. “We also must emphasize the importance of research, innovation, and technology in moving forward.”

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack was also at the conference and highlighted the United States’ investment of $8 billion in climate-smart agriculture through the Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities program and the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as the launch of the Agricultural Innovation Mission for Climate initiative, which is a partnership between the USA and the United Arab Emirates seeking to address global climate change and increase investment in climate-smart agriculture and food systems innovation over a five-year period.

Additionally, Secretary Ross met with the Deputy Premier and Minister for Climate, Environment, and Water for South Australia, Susan Close. The Secretary and the Minister discussed similar climate-related challenges facing California and southern Australia, including extreme heat, renewable energy production, and protecting biodiversity. 

As part of California’s nation-leading investment in farm to school programs, the California Department of Food and Agriculture Office of Farm to Fork (CDFA-F2F) is excited to announce $25.5 million in funding for 120 farm to school projects across the state.

In total, these projects represent 1,489,364 students, 163 school districts and educational entities, over 50 farms, four food hubs and enormous support from California’s urban, rural and suburban communities.

The 2022 California Farm to School Incubator Grant Program offered four funding tracks, with opportunities for K-12 school districts, early care and education centers, agricultural producers and farm to school partnerships to receive funding.

“Each of these projects will help us build a healthy, equitable, resilient food system, and will give California farmers more opportunities to share fresh, nutritious, delicious, and locally grown products with our schoolchildren” said CDFA Secretary Karen Ross.

The 2022 grant cycle received over $58 million in application requests and triple the number of project proposals from the previous year, highlighting the growth of farm to school across the state.

“Our investments in farm to school are investments in our health, our local economies, and our planet,” said First Partner of California Jennifer Siebel Newsom. “I am grateful for each of these projects for their commitment to supporting California children and our California farmers.”

Visit the CA Farm to School Incubator Grant Program website to view the full list of 2022 grantees. To learn more about CDFA’s farm to school programs, visit the CDFA Farm to School Program webpage.  

In recognition of Veterans Day tomorrow, here is a video from CDFA’s award-winning Growing California series on opportunities for veterans to become farmers and ranchers with assistance from the Farmer Veteran Coalition.

https://youtu.be/_FWbirZksUU

The Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) has published an interview with Sarah Standiford of CDFA’s Produce Safety Program as part of a Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) case study series. The interview highlights how California farms can prepare for a FSMA Produce Safety Rule inspection.

The article’s Q&A format reviews the background of why CDFA performs these inspections on behalf of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the steps that occur during an inspection, and tips for farmers preparing for an inspection.

“CDFA really values ‘soft skills’ in their inspectors and we understand that growers’ farms are their livelihoods,” Standiford says in the interview. “CDFA’s Produce Safety Program is here to help farms feel comfortable with the FSMA produce safety requirements and to foster compliance with the Produce Safety Rule. It’s a shared responsibility between growers, inspectors and farm employees – we all need to work together to keep our food safe.”

Click here to read the CAFF interview, “FSMA Inspection Case Study: CDFA FMSA PSP Inspector.” 

From Morning Ag Clips

The American Star Awards, including American Star Farmer, American Star in Agribusiness, American Star in Agricultural Placement and American Star in Agriscience, are presented to FFA members who demonstrate outstanding agricultural skills and competencies through completion of an SAE (supervised agricultural experience). This year’s winner is Central Valley resident Peter Bliss.

Farming is a family business for many, but for folks like Peter Bliss, it’s more than that — it’s a lifelong dream.

“I definitely am going to farm for the rest of my life,” Bliss said. “I was about six years old when I told myself I was going to farm, and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.”

Bliss is a member of Merced-Golden Valley FFA in central California, and his supervised agricultural experience (SAE) project sees him farming cotton, almonds and wheat. He started with only 30 acres inherited from his grandfather, but his operation has since grown to exactly 417 acres.

“I’m a fifth-generation Bliss farmer,” he said. “We started in the 1880s … and I want to continue this tradition.”

Specifically, Peter has 212 acres for cotton, 105 acres for almonds and 100 acres for wheat. Most of his land is rented, he said, but he wants to own it all someday.

In the future, Bliss plans to expand his operation by planting new kinds of crops in addition to his usual big three. In fact, he said he’s already planted corn silage just recently.

“I plan to diversify a little bit more, get into other crops like corn and hay,” Bliss said. “I’d like to grow in size. That’d be really nice.”

Although his SAE is successful now, Peter said he had a rocky start with FFA. He wasn’t satisfied with the program at his first high school, so he moved to a different high school between his sophomore and junior years.

“I just wasn’t comfortable inside the ag program,” Bliss said. “I’d say I switched [schools] solely for the purpose of FFA, and then my opportunities took off.”

He didn’t build his SAE alone, though. He said his biggest supporters are his family, his FFA advisor Cody Jacobsen, and a family friend named Scott Apupel — or, as Bliss likes to call him, “Dad Number Two.”

For FFA members starting their own SAE, his best advice is to give it your all.

“You’ve got to put in 100 percent effort,” Bliss said. “You can’t come in competing in an SAE contest … only doing 50 percent effort and trying to get 100 percent out of it. It just doesn’t work.”

Researchers at UC Merced, led by water resources management professor Dr. Josue Medellin-Azuara, have estimated direct agricultural losses due to drought total $3 billion over the last two years — $1.7 billion this year and $1.3 billion in 2021. As many as 752,000 acres of farmland could be fallowed this year because of water shortages, which could amount to a total of 2.6 million acre-feet.         

Dr. Medellin presented his initial findings this week to the California State Board of Food and Agriculture, while noting that a final report will be delivered soon.  

The research project–funded by CDFA–reports that California is in the midst of one of the hottest, driest three-year periods on record, and it also shows extensive losses in the food processing sector, with estimates reaching nearly $6 billion in 2021 and 2022, and more than 12,000 lost jobs.     

Learn more about the UC Merced research here.

When CDFA Undersecretary Christine Birdsong recently toured Yo’Ville Community Garden and Farm in Fresno, a resident-led community garden that also serves as an incubator farm, a large plot brimmed with marigold flowers being grown by historically underserved farmers.

Marigolds (cempasúchil in Spanish) feature in traditional Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations, which begin today and continue through November 2.

The occasion features decorated altars resplendent with offerings ranging from photographs of the dead to candles, keepsakes, favorite foods and drinks, and yes, marigolds.

Marigolds also hold spiritual significance in Hinduism for many of our farmers and food processing workers in places like Bakersfield, Patterson and throughout the valley, and the flowers were utilized in recent traditional Diwali observations.

“It was wonderful to see the cultural connections at Yo’Ville Community Garden, with agriculture tied to these significant holidays,” said Undersecretary Birdsong. “Our farmers and workers have personal connections to these occasions, and you can see the importance of growing these flowers for our local communities in the Central Valley.”

The Yo’Ville Farm Incubator Program recently received a grant from CDFA’s Beginning Farmer and Farmworker Training and Workforce Development Grant Program, and programs like Yo’Ville are firmly in mind with the ongoing development of the Fresno-Merced Future of Food Innovation Initiative (F3),

The Central Valley received $30 million for F3 in the 2021-2022 California State Budget, money that will be utilized to establish a Climate-Smart Agrifood Technology and Engineering Cluster while also serving the area’s approximately 4,500 historically underserved farmers, in addition to assisting workers with training to help meet agriculture’s future in technology.

And if that also means more marigolds, well, so much the better — along with the seemingly endless variety of culturally important foods, flowers, herbs, plants and other agricultural commodities that are planted and harvested in our state every day.