On December 1, the Assembly Select Committee on Technology and the Future of California’s Agricultural Workforce met to discuss challenges and opportunities in the years ahead. CDFA Secretary Karen Ross provided the following statement.

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Mr. Chairman and members of the select committee – thank you so much for inviting me to speak before you today. I regret being unable to appear in-person, but I wish to share a few thoughts about the very important issue you are considering today.

The history of California agriculture is one of innovation and progress. Public investment in agricultural research and the extension of research results to farmers and ranchers has helped achieve a remarkable record of productivity, efficiency, and environmental stewardship. As the world’s population grows rapidly, there is an urgent need to produce healthy, nutritious food amidst a changing climate with less arable land and increasingly scarce water supplies. We must continue to invest in science and technology to improve sustainable production practices, reduce inputs, and improve the economic viability of farmers at all scale. We must also be clear-eyed about meeting the needs of historically underserved farmers and farmworkers in the transition that is necessary.

I’m not just talking about drones and robots – although labor scarcity is driving significant investment in innovation. Technological progress also includes such things as remote sensors to assist in applications of water; advanced harvesting, processing, and sorting systems; artificial intelligence and data analytics for better real-time decision making; managed aquifer recharge for water conservation and efficiency; innovations to reduce impacts of synthetic fertilizer and pesticide use with the development of more effective biological pest management solutions; technology to reduce, recycle and repurpose waste streams and food production byproducts into useful products with revenue streams; the acceleration of on-farm renewable energy generation; and controlled-environment food production systems. It will be possible for California farmers and ranchers to lead with solutions for a bio-based economy only with a commitment to continued funding for research, extension, and workforce development.

The agricultural jobs of the future will be different than we have seen historically. The workforce will require skills in math, science, technology, and engineering — equipping workers to successfully navigate not only the innovation before us presently, but the wondrous advancements that are surely coming. It is important to understand the impacts to the current workforce and prepare for a just transition and the jobs of the future. One challenge for agriculture is the lack of understanding of what the agricultural jobs of the future will be and for agriculture to be viewed as an attractive career opportunity. The focus on STEM starting at young ages and with an emphasis on the diversity of our major agricultural and historically underserved communities is critical to the future success of California agriculture. Technology is the bridge to fire the imagination of those who are not familiar with agriculture and food production and engage them in helping to solve the challenges we face to build climate smart resilient agriculture and food chain systems with desirable career opportunities in the most meaningful work we can undertake: to nourish people for optimal health with the best environmental stewardship of our precious natural resources!

The agricultural workforce will also require continual learning and training, and a key to achieving that is California’s community colleges. I applaud the leadership of Western Growers, which has launched an impressive collaborative effort, the Global Harvest Automation Initiative, as well as AgTechX, a partnership with community colleges, the California State University system and the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources to further develop these essential research and educational programs.

There are many challenges and opportunities ahead for agriculture in the 21st century. We can successfully meet them as only California can! It will require strong partnerships, collaboration, and the best of the state’s innovation sector joining with the most progressive farmers in the world. I believe we are well on our way.

Yours truly,
Karen Ross
Secretary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK7rUG4cIwk

From Morning Ag Clips

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced the investment of $32 million in grants awarded to 167 meat and poultry slaughter and processing facilities to support expanded capacity and efficiency through the Meat and Poultry Inspection Readiness Grant (MPIRG) program.

“(This) investment supports local and regional meat and poultry processors as they recover from the pandemic and also work to expand capacity,” Vilsack said. “Achieving a Federal Grant of Inspection or operating under a Cooperative Interstate Shipment program allows meat and poultry processors to ship products across state lines, pursue new market opportunities, and better meet consumer and producer demand along the supply chain.”

With this grant funding, meat and poultry processing businesses can cover the costs for improvements such as expanding existing facilities, modernizing processing equipment and meeting packaging, labeling, and food safety requirements needed to achieve a Federal Grant of Inspection under the Federal Meat Inspection Act or the Poultry Products Inspection Act, or to operate under a state’s Cooperative Interstate Shipment program. These changes will allow these facilities to serve more customers in more markets.

Three California companies are among the recipients:

1. Bud’s Custom Meats Inc, Penngrove — $191,000 for facility and labeling upgrades as well as HAACP compliance (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point).
2. Buckhorn Cafe Inc, Winters — $200,000 for facility expansion for improved processing of value-added products.
3. Hoang An Inc — $200,000 for facility improvements

MPIRG, a new program authorized by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, is jointly administered by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) and Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). The program was part of USDA’s comprehensive funding package to help small and very small processing facilities weather the pandemic, compete in the marketplace, and get the support they need to reach more customers.

CDFA is pleased to announce a new grants webpage. The page is a central portal for all CDFA grant programs and will improve access to information for farmers, ranchers, technical assistance providers, researchers and other grantees.

Features of the page include:

• All open solicitations listed at the top right of the page
• A sortable schedule at the top of the page that allows users to see upcoming events and application periods for all CDFA grants
• Full catalogue of all CDFA grants

Both the schedule and the catalogue of grants include a listing of who is eligible for each program and a categorization of program subject matter.

This central space for CDFA grant information will be updated in real time and new features may be added to improve accessibility. Those interested in CDFA’s grant programs are encouraged to check back regularly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2h2D1FU-MQ

By Lorena Anderson, UC Merced

Just because there has been rain lately doesn’t mean California is drought-free.

A new $1.5 million research grant from the California Department of Food and Agriculture is supporting School of Engineering Professor Josué Medellín-Azuara, collaborating engineering professors Joshua Viers and John Abatzoglou, and engineering and policy expert Alvar Escriva-Bou from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) in developing economic analysis and decision support tools for agriculture during droughts.

“In every drought in modern times, California has seized opportunities to build the institutional infrastructure and technical tools to be better prepared for the next drought,” Medellín-Azuara said. “This research will contribute to close the shared water-systems-management gaps between California’s prominent and highly adaptive agriculture and our rural communities to increase climate resilience.”

Recent California climate extremes have included among the most severe multi-year droughts on record, highlighting rapidly changing conditions that affect water supplies for agriculture and the state’s growing population. Incremental water management and institutional learning at all levels have provided building blocks to better manage water shortages.

But California is the largest agricultural producer in the nation, generating more than $50 billion in commodity gross revenue in 2019. Farms underpin the economy of much of rural California, and the state’s nearly 70,000 farmers and ranchers produce more than 400 agricultural commodities, according to the state’s budget report.

Agriculture is threatened by the effects of climate change, including extreme climate events such as droughts and floods, increases in pests and stressed ecosystems. The COVID-19 pandemic and emerging drought conditions have disrupted the food supply chain and created additional challenges for the agricultural sector. To address these challenges, farmers and ranchers continue to innovate by adopting agile technology, expanding in local and global markets, and developing sustainable, climate-smart agricultural practices, the state said.

At the same time, communities connected to agriculture share, to varying extents, multi-year drought impacts such as water shortages and high temperatures and their lingering effects, including dry wells, increased fire risk, and degraded air and water quality.

Some promising avenues point to flexible allocation schemes, managed aquifer recharge, coordinated operation of surface and water reserves and conveyance, and institutional reforms such as the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) to preserve the state’s most valuable buffer during droughts.

The researchers will enhance cloud-based collaborative modeling tools to assess drought impacts and promising adaptations. This will facilitate collaboration among agencies, academics and other stakeholders to identify drought vulnerabilities, and provide policy recommendations for ongoing and future droughts.

“Our goal is to advance state-level drought early-warning systems to give decision-makers opportunities to mitigate drought impacts,” Abatzoglou said. “It wasn’t a question of if there will be another multi-year drought like the San Joaquin Valley endured in 2012-2016, it was a matter of when — and here we are. Our goals are to use data and decisions to improve drought outcomes for these events.”

Policy and decision makers will be able to better understand the impacts of drought — with distributional effects — on disadvantaged communities and the potential for dry wells.

“By developing tools to understand the consequences of our management actions, we will be able to inform policy decisions to improve socio-economic outcomes, and to avoid undesirable consequences on vulnerable communities,” Escriva-Bou said.

Besides the economic assessment of drought impacts, the team also plans to analyze agricultural water costs, produce a series of reports including forecasts and technical and policy recommendations, and engage with scientific and stakeholder partners through a variety of channels including workshops.

“California is fundamentally challenged by increasing variability in precipitation. Being able to manage this water for all Californians requires that we develop drought management tools that allow everyone to understand the consequences of certain actions, as well as to gain insight into potential remedies,” Viers said. “This investment by CDFA is to create the digital infrastructure needed for better decision making in a water-scarce world.”

Link to item on UC Merced web site

18 projects in tribal communities, counties and cities across the state mark first step in creating open-access middle-mile network to provide missing broadband infrastructure

Part of state’s $6 billion investment to expand broadband infrastructure and enhance internet access for unserved and underserved communities

Advancing California’s commitment to bridge the digital divide, Governor Gavin Newsom has announced that the state has identified 18 projects to begin work on an open-access middle-mile network that will provide missing infrastructure paths to bring broadband to all communities.

As part of the historic $6 billion broadband investment advanced in partnership with legislative leaders earlier this year, the initial project locations are based on known unserved and underserved areas across the state. The projects will connect to the core of the global internet and interconnect to last-mile infrastructure, which is the final leg that provides internet service to a customer.

“California is committed to taking on the challenges laid bare by the pandemic, including the digital divide holding back too many communities across the state,” said Governor Newsom. “These projects are the first step to delivering on our historic investment that will ensure all Californians have access to high-quality broadband internet, while also creating new jobs to support our nation-leading economic recovery.”

The initial 18 projects represent a range of geographic locations and technical approaches. Projects are being initiated in the following tribal communities, counties and cities: Alpine County; Amador County; Calaveras County; Central Coast; Coachella Valley; Colusa Area; Inyo County; Kern County; Kern/San Luis Obispo Area; Lake County Area; Los Angeles and South Los Angeles; Oakland; Orange County; Plumas Area; Riverside/San Diego Area; San Bernardino County; Siskiyou Area; and West Fresno.

A map and additional information on the initial projects can be found here.

“A reliable broadband connection makes the difference between having access to full-service health care, education and employment or sometimes going without,” said State Chief Information Officer Amy Tong. “Through a historic partnership between our Governor, the Legislature, state agencies and a third-party administrator, we are taking immediate action to improve connectivity for Californians in the northern, central and southern parts of the state.”

Evaluation of project areas included consideration of public comments, prioritization of unserved or underserved areas of the state, and inclusion of tribal communities, cities and counties. An unserved or underserved area has households that do not reliably have download speeds of at least 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) and upload of at least 3 Mbps.

State partners implementing the middle-mile initiative include the California Department of Technology, California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and Caltrans. GoldenStateNet was selected as the Third-Party Administrator (TPA) to manage the development, acquisition, construction, maintenance and operation of the statewide open-access middle-mile broadband network. As the TPA, GoldenStateNet will partner with key stakeholder groups across the state to investigate the best technical, financial and operational models to meet the needs of the project sites.  

Read more here

By Brad Hooker

Speaking last week at the Methane Pavilion at the UN Climate Conference, Air Resources Board Chair Liane Randolph and CDFA Secretary Karen Ross discussed the state’s methane goals. California is the only jurisdiction in the world that has a law to reduce short-lived climate pollutants, according to Jorge Daniel Taillant, director of the Center for Human Rights and Environment, an Argentina-based NGO.

The Newsom administration is working with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on a methane satellite to spot “the worst actors,” explained Randolph. The regulatory agencies will use that to “take action” and inform new and existing policies.

Ross attributed the success in reducing emissions to the voluntary approach incorporated into the SB 1383 framework, along with cap-and-trade investments for incentives grants.

“Really the magic here is the low-carbon fuel standard,” said Ross. “It’s very powerful if we can rededicate [the emissions] to replacing fossil fuels.” The most challenging area, she explained, is enteric emissions from cows, since no “magic solutions” exist yet.

Ross added that—contrary to outcry from environmental justice groups—data has not shown that dairy digesters are leading to increased cow numbers and more air pollution. Having a large number of cows in condensed areas, she explained, means the state’s dairies have the smallest environmental footprint for every gallon of milk produced.

She stressed that the Newsom and Brown administrations have made significant investments in bringing community-based organizations to the table as “trusted messengers” for hard-to-reach communities.

Link to Agri-Pulse

From a USDA news release

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced is awarding $25 million to conservation partners across the country for 18 new projects under the Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) On-Farm Conservation Innovation Trials program.

On-Farm Trials projects support widespread adoption and evaluation of innovative conservation approaches in partnership with agricultural producers. This year’s awarded projects increase the adoption of new approaches and technologies to help agricultural producers mitigate the effects of climate change, increase the resilience of their operations and boost soil health.

“Farmers, ranchers and forest landowners play a crucial role in charting the course towards a climate-smart future,” said Terry Cosby, Chief of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). “On-Farm Trials enable partners to work with producers to test and adopt new climate-smart systems on their operations that support agricultural production and conserve natural resources, while also building climate resilience.”

Awarded Projects:

• Climate-smart Irrigation for Drought, Fertility, and Structural Resilience in Almond Systems (California) University of California, Davis will incentivize almond growers to adopt deep root irrigation, pressure compensated subsurface drip irrigation and Hybrid Pb.
• Decision Support System for Irrigation with Limited Water (California, Oregon) Irrigation for the Future will demonstrate an advanced decision support system designed to calculate the productivity of water and optimize the economics of irrigation management field-by-field.
• Regional LoRa Networks to Improve High Elevation Flood Irrigation Water Management (Colorado) Trout Unlimited will work within Colorado’s Gunnison River and Rio Grande basins, working with eight producers to deploy the use of Long-Range Low Power Area Networks (LoRa) to improve wild flood and furrow irrigation water management on irrigated mountain valleys above 5,500 feet elevation.
• Converting Wasteful, Flood-Irrigated Fields to Low-Cost, Gravity-Powered Drip Irrigation with Decision-Support Technology: A Water-Smart, Enhanced Crop Yield Agriculture Solution for Colorado River Indian Tribes and Other Producers (Arizona) N-Drip will work with approximately 20 producers of the Colorado River Indian Tribes to implement a drip irrigation system on flood irrigated fields.
• Beyond Yield: A Comprehensive Evaluation of Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizers for Reducing Nitrous Oxide Emissions and Ammonia Volatilization in Corn Systems (North Carolina) North Carolina State University will provide critical information on the efficacy of reducing nitrogen and using inhibitors on emissions and corn yield in the low soil carbon, hot and humid conditions of the southeast.
• Trialing Dietary Interventions to Mitigate Enteric Methane Emissions in Dairy Cattle (Michigan, Wisconsin) The Nature Conservancy will evaluate different dairy feed management strategies, including emerging feed additives. The goal of the project is to better inform greenhouse gas mitigation strategies for cattle, NRCS programs and the development of protocols for measuring enteric emissions.
• Regenerative Egg Farming Project (Kentucky) Handsome Brook Farm will support five beginning farmers in adopting climate-smart regenerative egg practices. This on-farm trial will establish on-farm manure management, storage and distribution systems designed to reduce GHG emissions, and reduce on-farm soil erosion and drastically reduce watershed pollution through pasture enhancements and investments in housing infrastructure.
• Stacking Climate-Smart Agriculture and Pollinator Conservation to Leverage Market-Based Incentives (California, Maine, Montana, Oregon, Washington) Xerces Society will demonstrate, evaluate, and quantify conservation practices designed to maximize the dual goals of climate-smart agriculture and pollinator conservation at the farm level
• Reimagining Modern Crop Fields: Delivering Economic, Environmental, and Societal Benefits through Increased Adoption of Precision Conservation (Iowa, Minnesota) Pheasants Forever will explore a financial assistance model that promotes the adoption of precision agriculture and precision conservation strategies and tools on a farm-wide scale to identify opportunities for conservation and inform decision-making.
• Inland Northwest Farmers Leading Our United Revolution in Soil Health (FLOURISH) (Washington, Idaho, Oregon) Palouse Conservation District will work with crop producers of the inland Pacific Northwest to demonstrate farming practices that build soil health and increase the resilience of dryland cropping systems. The overall goal of this project is to support widespread adoption of soil health management systems −specifically cover cropping, interseeding and cover crop-livestock integration.
• Addressing Barriers for Historically Underserved Producers in California’s San Joaquin Valley to Implement Combined Soil Health Practices through Participatory Planning and Evaluation on Diversified Farms (California) The Regents of the University of California will address barriers faced by small-scale historically underserved producers to adopt soil health practices and systems. The project will build flexibility for producers to adapt practices to the unique circumstances of their operations and to test the performance of various practice combinations.
• Bale Grazing: A Practical, Low-Cost, and Environmentally-Sound Management Strategy to Winter Beef Cattle (Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, New York, Virginia, West Virginia) The University of Kentucky Research Foundation will increase adoption of bale grazing to improve winter feed management for beef cattle farmers by demonstrating the practical, economic and ecological benefits of this strategy.
• Utah Soil Health Partnership: Utah Soil Health Network (Utah) Many of Utah’s dryland producers still practice summer fallow with frequent full width tillage through the fallow period. The Utah Association of Conservation Districts will increase the adoption of soil health practices in Utah with this on-farm trial focused on diverse farming systems.
• Grazing for Soil Health (Montana) Piikani Lodge Health Institute will work with Tribal Nations to support greater adoption and implementation of regenerative grazing practices on rangelands and irrigated pastures.
• Diversifying Appalachia’s Pastures to Improve Soil Health (West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania) WVU Research Corporation will promote and evaluate pasture diversification through reseeding as an innovative conservation strategy.
• A Colorado Soil Health Program: Supporting Producers and Conservation Districts to Improve Drought Resilience and Water Utilization (Colorado) The Colorado Department of Agriculture will encourage the widespread adoption of soil health practices to achieve water quality, water conservation and on-farm economic benefits.
• Promoting Climate-Smart Agricultural Practices Among Underserved Small-Scale farmers in Arizona using Farmer Participatory Research (Arizona) This on-farm demonstration trial will promote climate-smart and soil health agricultural practices among small-scale farmers. The University of Arizona and collaborating farmers will use farmer participatory research to promote climate-smart agricultural and soil health management systems.
• From Farmers to Soil Health Managers – Participatory Design of On-Farm Trials to Stimulate Adoption of Innovative Conservation Techniques by Historically Underserved Farmers in the Puget Sound Region (Washington) Grow Food will engage historically underserved farmers to conduct trials of innovative Soil Health Management Systems techniques and demonstrate the benefits of adoption through environmental, social and economic evaluation of the on-farm trials.

For details on the awarded projects, visit the NRCS website.

With COP26 concluding today, Secretary Ross appeared on the Farm to Table Talk podcast to share her thoughts from her trip to Scotland, and the challenges and opportunities ahead with respect to climate change, telling host Rodger Wasson, “It’s not going to be one state, or one country, or one sector. It’s going to take all of us working together, and I’ve seen more collaboration than I’ve ever seen in my very long career. And I feel optimistic because people are focused on implementation…How do we transition to carbon neutrality?”

Listen in for more