By CDFA Secretary Karen Ross

My week in New Zealand touched on the similarities between our countries and the shared climate challenges related to agricultural production and sustainability, workforce development, and water. We met with growers who are staying on the cutting edge of sustainability by enhancing on-farm practices to meet growing consumer demand while adapting to the changing dynamics of workforce availability.

One of our meetings was with Ray Smith, Director General of the Ministry of Primary Industries, which includes agriculture. He spoke of the vision New Zealand has for a sustainable future, called Fit For a Better World – including productivity, sustainability and inclusivity; and that was reflected by what we saw on the farm. 

As always, I enjoyed visiting with Ag and Trade Minister Damien O’Connor. Although our trip was focused on our similar horticulture crops, at all levels of government people were eager to learn about California’s ambitious goals for methane emission reductions and the significant progress made to date in addition to the state’s investment in Climate Smart Agriculture practices. 

It was an honor to participate in  New Zealand’s “Oceana Summit 2035” with a emphasis on climate change, agri-tech and workforce development. The momentum will continue when we welcome international leaders and innovators to a June 2023 meeting called the Salinas Summit, organized by Western Growers to concentrate on agri-tech as well as advances in biological solutions and opportunities for partnerships.

New Zealand is focused on improving sustainable horticultural production through “A Lighter Touch” – bringing the horticultural, wine, and arable crop sectors together to meet growing consumer demand for foods produced through sustainable pest management practices. With approximately 92 percent of the New Zealand’s food production exported – the country is seeking to be in alignment with its export partners to ensure the long-term sustainability of agriculture.

Agriculture is a primary industry in New Zealand, and we see the country as an inspiring collaborator on issues like climate change, methane reduction, biologicals, and ag tech/automation.

I want to thank the California delegation that joined me in New Zealand — State Board President Don Cameron; State Bord Member and UC ANR Vice President Glenda Humiston; Environmental Farming Science Panel Chair Jeff Dlott; CA Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance executive director Allison Jordan: and, State Board executive director Josh Eddy. In addition to making contacts with many agri-tech leaders from New Zealand and Australia at the Oceania Summit, we enjoyed two days of farm tours and a full day of government meetings in Wellington, starting with a stop at the U.S. Embassy and a visit with Ambassador Tom Udall.

This is a spectacularly beautiful country with fabulous food and people. California and New Zealand share not only a diversity of agricultural production but also a commitment to overall sustainability. I look forward to a long-lasting partnership! 

CDFA California Farm to School Program staff joined California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom and local officials to tour Hoover High School in San Diego Unified School District earlier this week to see farm to school in action during Farm to School Month.

The group toured the school’s garden and culinary academy where students cook freshly harvested produce.

“Access to community gardens and cooking classes are so important for developing life-long healthy eaters,” Siebel Newsom said. “And the skills developed in the school’s culinary academy will help build future culinary and hospitality careers.”

As part of the tour, CDFA staff facilitated a roundtable conversation with leaders from Sweetwater Union High School District, Community Health Improvement Partners and SGG Organic Farms.

San Diego Unified School District also is a grantee of CDFA’s 2021 California Farm to School Incubator Grant Program, utilizing funds to expand local procurement for school meals, hire a full-time Farm to School Program specialist, and more.

Governor’s Office News Release

Less than a year after Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order targeted at relieving supply chain congestion, the pandemic-induced backlog of cargo ships at the state’s ports is rapidly fading. With the focus turning to long-term supply chain improvements, the California State Transportation Agency today issued final guidelines and a call for projects for the unprecedented $1.2 billion in one-time state funding for port and freight infrastructure projects to build a more efficient, sustainable and resilient goods movement system.

“California’s ports are critical to exporting and importing goods both abroad and throughout the United States,” said Governor Newsom. “After decades of neglect, we are finally making the critical investments needed to modernize our ports – helping us to keep up with demand in a way that is environmentally sustainable and brings our distribution process into the 21st Century.”

Finalized in the state budget at the end of June, the port and freight infrastructure program aims to make long-term upgrades that will increase the capacity to move goods throughout the state while lessening environmental impacts on neighboring communities.

“Thanks to Governor Newsom’s leadership, California is investing in our nation-leading supply chain infrastructure like never before to support a cleaner and more dynamic goods movement system that will power our economy for decades,” CalSTA Secretary Toks Omishakin said. “I look forward to identifying priority projects as we look to maximize this historic one-time investment.”

Seventy percent of the program funding will go to projects that support goods movement through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach – the busiest ports in the Western Hemisphere – and 30 percent will fund ports and goods movement infrastructure in the rest of the state.

The Port and Freight Infrastructure Program is a direct result of the executive order Governor Newsom issued last October that called on state agencies to develop longer term budget proposals that support port operations and goods movement. The program builds off the successful short-term actions by the state to address supply chain congestion.

Project applications are due January 13, 2023, and CalSTA expects to announce the funding awards in March 2023. For more information visit here. 

CDFA plans to be on on hand to meet with growers and ranchers at the Latino Farmer Conference on November 17 and 18 in Escondido. The National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) and USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS California) are hosting this annual conference.

CDFA will host booths to represent a wide variety of programs and services, including Spanish-speaking representatives from the Inspection Services Division, the Division of Measurement Standards, the Animal Health and Food Safety Services Division, the Office of Grants Administration, the Farmer Equity Program, and the Division of Marketing Services.

Booths will feature Spanish-language program specific flyers, including information about advisory boards and vacancies.

This annual, sustainable agriculture conference brings together the Latino farming community, the agriculture industry, agribusiness leaders, and advocates for sustainability.

For more information, please visit the Latino Farmer Conference website.

By CDFA Secretary Karen Ross

Our travel today in New Zealand took us to the country’s vegetable bowl, the Pukekohe area near Auckland, which encompasses more than 10,000 acres and produces 26 percent of the nation’s vegetables by value. The leading commodities include carrots, leafy greens, broccoli, tomatoes, onions and potatoes.

Speaking of potatoes, one of our stops was at a company called AS Wilcox and Sons Limited, where they are helping to carry out an initiative to find homes for imperfect produce (see photo). The company packages “Odd Bunch” potatoes, which are offered at a cheaper price and helps to cut food waste while taking more produce from growers and also helping make healthy food more affordable. All of this helps with sustainability!

AS Wilcox and Sons features sustainability goals that target soil health, nitrogen leaching, and integrated crop production. During an overview presentation during our visit, an element that stood out to me was a slide that aligned the companies sustainability actions with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

We also visited NZ Hothouse, a market leader in greenhouse produce focusing primarily on tomatoes and cucumbers, and we heard that labor, fertilizer and energy are the top challenges in the drive for farm sustainability. In regards to water, unlike California, 70 percent of the operation’s usage is from recycled rainwater, and future facilities are planned with 100 percent rainwater.

At NZ Hothouse we had the pleasure of connecting with FTEK, a designer and manufacturer for ag tech in the greenhouse vegetable sector. FTEK demonstrated  automation that addresses labor challenges as well as climate resilience.  

Visiting with these companies underscored our common climate challenges and provided a strong foundation for future collaboration.

Secretary Ross is in New Zealand this week for an exchange on climate change adaptation. Joining her in the delegation are representatives from agriculture and academia. This mission will serve as an educational program to help secure the long-term competitiveness of California specialty crops and enhance the competitiveness of the industry through more sustainable, diverse and resilient specialty crop systems.

Farmers and ranchers in the Delta interested in receiving financial incentives to reduce their water use and protect wildlife and water quality can now apply to participate in the Delta Drought Response Pilot Program launched by the State of California.

CDFA’s sister agency, the Department of Water Resources, is partnering with the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy, as well as the Office of the Delta Watermaster and The Nature Conservancy to announce the launch of a second phase of the Delta Drought Response Pilot Program with an additional $10.7 million in grant funding available to farmers implementing conservation measures. The Delta Conservancy will conduct the 2023 program through a reverse auction.

The goals of the 2023 Program are to reduce drought stress in the Delta watershed by incentivizing agricultural water users to incorporate practices into their operations that:

• Conserve water on a net basis during water year 2023
• Protect Delta water quality by providing an added buffer against salinity intrusion
• Promote soil health
• Mitigate potential drought impacts on fish and migratory birds

Participation in the Program requires interested individual agricultural water users to submit bids. Bids for the Program are due at 5 p.m. PT on October 18, 2022. Bid submission through Delta Conservancy’s online form must be fully completed by 5 p.m. PT on the due date. 

Click here to view the Solicitation Summary (program details) 

Click here for the Application Form 

Background Information 

The Delta Drought Response Pilot Program was first launched in January 2022. More than 8,700 acres were enrolled in the first round of the Program.  DWR allocated an additional $10.7 million for grants thanks to the Budget Act of 2022, allowing the Program to start a second phase. By rigorously monitoring the outcomes and impacts of a variety of actions in different settings throughout the Legal Delta, the Program provides data to support targeted water conservation/quality protection responses during sustained and/or future droughts. 

By CDFA Secretary Karen Ross

On the second day of New Zealand’s 2035 Oceania Summit, I had an opportunity to meet with Minister of Agriculture Damien O’Connor to discuss the aligned values of California and New Zealand on climate change. This bilateral dialogue led to a signing of a Letter of Intent to lower emissions, expand market opportunities, and further climate resilience in agriculture through research, innovation, agricultural technologies, and nature-based solutions. This builds very positively on a memorandum of understanding signed by Governor Newsom and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in May.

Minister O’Connor and I agree on many things, including the fundamental understanding that we cannot have healthy farms without healthy ecosystems.

We signed the letter as New Zealand announced a pilot project for agricultural emissions pricing, which will make the country the first in the world to establish a financial system to mitigate emissions from livestock.

Other significant topics at the Summit included a discussion with Dr. Moses Amos (Vanuatu’s Minister of Agriculture) and Ms. Temarama Anguna-Kamana (Cook Islands’ Secretary of Agriculture) about the climate impact to Pacific island nations – from sea level rise and ocean acidification to more severe droughts, cyclones and floods. The Pacific island countries have done little to contribute to climate change but face the most dire consequences. The message was clear: “Provide us the opportunity to introduce agri-tech, so we leave no one behind.”

I had the pleasure of being one of the closing speakers for the Oceania Summit and shared the urgency of our need to collaborate on climate, water availability, food security, and energy. Challenges create opportunities, and California’s reality with a hotter, drier climate is a call to action for farmers, academia and governments.

I look forward to the week ahead as our delegation shares information and learns from growers in New Zealand, as we continue to work together to help foster and further innovate a climate-smart, resilient and regenerative food system.

Secretary Ross is in New Zealand this week for an exchange on climate change adaptation. Joining her in the delegation are representatives from agriculture and academia. This mission will serve as an educational program to help secure the long-term competitiveness of California specialty crops and enhance the competitiveness of the industry through more sustainable, diverse and resilient specialty crop systems.

By CDFA Secretary Karen Ross

With themes of collaboration, innovation, and local solutions, the 2035 Oceania Summit in Auckland, New Zealand opened with a traditional Māori Pōhwiri (welcoming), including an emphasis on the wisdom of sharing traditional Baskets of Knowledge from yesterday and today, in order to create new baskets to assist mankind in the future.

The day’s message was clear – climate change is stressing planetary boundaries and requiring action by the global population working in agriculture. To avoid the impact of global warming above 1.5°C, global carbon emissions must fall by 77 percent by 2030. The time for action is now and agriculture must have a roadmap to net-zero emissions from food production.

Day One of the conference focused on scientific advances in the research community, carbon farming, and empowering farmers to adapt to new ways of sustainable agricultural production – through technology, on-farm practices, and associated industry opportunities for reducing emissions. California’s Healthy Soils Program was highlighted as a model of leadership for the role of governments as facilitators for climate action.

The conference, which has more than 400 attendees from the Pacific region, is highlighting the lessons and knowledge necessary for local solutions to lessen global climate impact. California’s participation and engagement in the conference is helping to build bridges on climate action and serve as a foundation to connect New Zealand and California farmers, academia and governments to help achieve net-zero emissions.

Secretary Ross is in New Zealand this week for an exchange on climate change adaptation. Joining her in the delegation are representatives from agriculture and academia. This mission will serve as an educational program to help secure the long-term competitiveness of California specialty crops and enhance the competitiveness of the industry through more sustainable, diverse and resilient specialty crop systems.

The California Underserved and Small Producers Grant Program (CUSP) was created through the 2021-2022 Budget Act and facilitates direct assistance to individual small and mid-scale and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers who are facing challenges related to the current drought.

The program supports community based organizations, Resource Conservation Districts, Tribal governments and the UCANR small farm advisor network to provide direct technical assistance support and relief grants to small-scale socially disadvantaged producers.

In this video, we meet a Central Valley farmer who faces challenges related to the drought and we see the work undertaken by a network of local technical assistance providers to get the farmer the help she needs.

https://youtu.be/78Thbkv0TcE

The current application period for the CUSP program closes on October 31. The Asian Business Institute and Resource Center is the organization administering funds in this application period. To apply, please visit their website at http://fresnoabirc.org or call them at: (559) 402-0067

For more info on the CUSP program and to learn about future application periods, please visit www.cdfa.ca.gov/CUSP/