Congratulations to the Future Farmers of America, FFA! This is National FFA Week, a tradition that began in 1947 when the National FFA Board of Directors adopted the week of George Washington’s birthday in recognition of his legacy as an agriculturist and farmer.

I was fortunate to be able to meet earlier in the week with this year’s state FFA leadership team.  They are bright, well-informed, optimistic, energetic and inspiring!  I unfailingly come away from my meetings with FFA students reassured that the future of agriculture in all its dimensions is in very good hands. They clearly understand the opportunities and challenges ahead and are prepared to embrace them.  We are all beneficiaries of this outstanding youth leadership development program.

In another meeting this week with members of Coro, a leadership training program for civic leaders, I met a former member of 4-H, another fantastic youth leadership program that fosters future farmers and others who will serve agriculture.  This young woman asked me, as a former 4-Her myself, how I use my heart, my head, my health and my hands in my current job.  It was very thought-provoking, because I have often recited the 4-H pledge invoking those elements at the beginning or end of speeches.  I told her I definitely lead with my heart and that it’s critical for someone in my position to have compassion for all who may be impacted by our programs and our decisions. In using my head I believe I must never stop learning. I read a lot and am accused of being an information hound, because it is important to gather a diversity of perspectives and be inclusive in our decision making. I am dedicated to living a healthy lifestyle through diet and exercise to make sure I can give 100 percent every day. As for my hands, well, I don’t use them much unless I’m operating a keyboard or gesturing while talking, which is ironic given the multitude of hands necessary to plant, nurture, harvest, process and prepare the food humanity depends on!

FFA Week is a good time for all of us to consider the critical need to support our youth and applaud their enthusiasm for agriculture – its future as well as its legacy.

Researchers from UC Davis, CalTrout and Cal Marsh and Farms count, weigh and measure juvenile Chinook salmon that are going into experimental rice fields at Knaggs Ranch on the Yolo Bypass in February 2016. Credit: Carson Jeffres/UC Davis

An annual experiment to “plant” salmon in Yolo County rice fields aims to better explain how floodplains support strong salmon populations. Dubbed the “Nigiri Project” for its sushi-like marriage of fish and rice, the research is a collaborative project among the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, the California Department of Water Resources and nonprofit organization California Trout.

For the first time this year, the agricultural floodplain habitat experiment will compare food web productivity and fish growth in three different kinds of river habitat.

For the course of the experiment, a group of juvenile Chinook salmon will be held in underwater pens on flooded rice fields, as in years past; a second group will be held in pens floating in an agricultural canal; and a third group will be held in floating pens nearby in the Sacramento River. The experiment began on Feb. 19, and the fish will be released after approximately four weeks.

“At this point, we feel confident that giving native fish access to the food-rich environment of the floodplain will play a critical role in recovering imperiled salmon,” said Carson Jeffres, field and lab director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. “Now we are interested in how food made on the floodplain can benefit the entire river and Delta.”

Floodplains a ‘bug buffet’ for salmon

Born in the gravel of mountain streams, Central Valley salmon migrate to the ocean where they grow for one to three years before returning to rivers to spawn. Juvenile fish that are larger and healthier when they enter the ocean have better odds of returning as adults.

“Floodplain habitats are essentially a bug buffet for small fish,” said Jacob Katz, Central California director for California Trout. “Our previous results have shown that the food-rich floodplains appear to act as an important pit stop for juvenile fish, where they can fuel up on their downstream journey to sea.”

Unfortunately for hungry salmon, more than 95 percent of natural floodplain wetlands have been eliminated by the development of the Central Valley for farms and houses. In previous years, the Nigiri Project has shown that off-season agricultural fields can provide critical floodplain habitat for endangered fish.

“Fish have little opportunity to reap the benefits of floodplains because they are nearly all cut off from river channels,” said Louise Conrad of the California Department of Water Resources. “The Yolo Bypass is one of the last remaining active floodplain areas in the Central Valley. Enhancing the opportunity for salmon to access and use its floodplain areas could make a huge difference for salmon while also helping to recharge groundwater and improve flood safety.”

Four years of fast-growing fish

For four consecutive winters, experiments conducted on rice fields at the Knaggs Ranch property on the Yolo Bypass documented the fastest growth of juvenile Chinook salmon ever recorded in the Central Valley. These results suggest that through better planning and engineering, farm fields that produce agricultural crops in summer could also produce food and habitat for fish and wildlife during winter when crops are not grown.

The experiment suggests that floodplains on farmland can also be thought of as “surrogate wetlands” that can be managed to mimic the Sacramento River system’s natural annual flooding cycle, which native fish species evolved to depend upon. Agricultural runoff water is used to flood the fields for the duration of the experiment. This recycled water fuels the floodplain food web before being flushed back into the Delta ecosystem through agricultural canals, adding to the food supply for all fish living in the system. No new water is used to conduct the experiment.

This natural process of slowing down and spreading out shallow water across the floodplain creates the conditions that lead to an abundant food web. Sunlight falling on water makes algae, algae feeds bugs, and bugs feed native fish and birds. In contrast, very little food to support aquatic life is produced when rivers are narrowly confined between levees.

“California’s water supply for both people and fish will be more secure when our water policy works with natural processes, instead of against them,” Katz said. “This work leverages ecology as technology and points us toward efficient and cost effective real-world water solutions that support both fish and farms.”

The project was funded this year by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, California Trout, and California Department of Water Resources.

Link to blog post

California is the nation’s leading agricultural state, with 76,400 farms producing more than 400 commodities with a farm-gate value of $54 billion. The mission of the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is to promote and protect agriculture. It’s a complex job — and one that is getting more complex as the climate changes.

With the current drought in its fourth year, California has already started to experience some of the anticipated impacts of climate change. With drought, we have seen economic losses including job losses, fallowed land, and greater demand for a limited amount of water. A concerted approach is urgently needed to prepare California agriculture for future climate change impacts. One essential approach is embracing and implementing the concept of climate smart agriculture.

Practicing climate smart agriculture means following three principles: developing agricultural systems that are resilient to climate change; reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture; and preparing for climate change in a way that keeps farms productive and profitable.

I heard a lot about climate smart agriculture during a recent visit to the Netherlands with a delegation of agricultural leaders from California. The Netherlands is a leading agriculture distributor in Europe and the world’s second largest (after the United States) agricultural exporter. Climate smart agriculture is already strongly integrated into Dutch economic and food security strategies. Our delegation not only heard about the threats from higher precipitation, but also about how overly dry conditions in the summer threaten the stability of peat dikes, which dry up to the point that they may simply float away, compromising the levee structure in a region where most of the land is below sea level.

In California we can prepare for such multi-faceted impacts through our own climate smart agriculture initiatives. At CDFA, we have a variety of programs and efforts underway to support agricultural sustainability, build resilience to climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions:

The State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program (SWEEP) is an emergency drought program implemented at the direction of Gov. Jerry Brown to assist farmers in moving to efficient water irrigation systems that save water, conserve energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To date, SWEEP has funded 233 projects totaling almost $18 million with $10.5 million in matching grower funds. The program is built on a strong scientific foundation and supported by a collaborative partnership involving other agencies, resource conservation districts, the California State University (CSU) system and UC ANR Cooperative Extension (UCCE). The academic institutions play a key role in providing technical evaluations of applications for water savings and reductions in energy consumption.

More-efficient irrigation technologies — like this drip system in an almond orchard in Yolo County — save water, conserve energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Dairy Digester Research and Development Program, launched in 2014, provides incentives for dairy operations to install manure digesters. Digesters capture methane from dairy lagoons, allowing the gas to be used to generate electricity. Methane is a short-lived climate pollutant that is 28 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. In 2015, CDFA awarded $11.1 million for the development of five digesters at California dairies. Matching funds by developers totaling $19 million were allocated to these projects. The digester program is supported by several scientific experts from the University of California as well as a technical advisory sub-committee. The program highlights the many opportunities to use agricultural byproducts for multiple benefits, including the generation of electricity.

Manure from dairy cows — like these in Fresno County — is typically collected in lagoons, which generate the potent greenhouse gas methane. Dairy digesters capture the methane produced by microbial manure decomposition so that it does not escape to the atmosphere and can be used as a source of renewable energy.

The Fertilizer Research and Education Program</em> has a long-standing collaboration with UCCE to provide growers with cost-effective practices to improve the efficient use of fertilizer and minimize environmental impacts. Improving the timing and rate of nitrogen fertilizer application can help to prevent leaching and runoff as well as emissions of nitrous oxide (N₂O), another potent greenhouse gas. Efficient use of fertilizer also reduces the amount applied, saving money for the grower.

Under the Healthy Soils Initiative, Gov. Brown has directed CDFA to lead an interagency collaboration to promote the development of healthy soils that sequester carbon on working lands. The health of agricultural soil influences its ability to build and retain adequate organic matter via the activity of plants and soil organisms. Adequate organic matter helps to enable the soil to function as a vital living ecosystem and provide the foundation for sustainable agricultural productivity. Carbon sequestration has been difficult to quantify in soils given the long time period for the accumulation of stable soil carbon pools. However, recent work by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has yielded results that allow for the scientific estimation of greenhouse gas reductions associated with several soil management practices ( comet-planner.com/). These management practices can be implemented on a wide range of croplands and rangelands. We are eager to collaborate with UCCE, NRCS, resource conservation districts and other researchers to advance this important work as part of climate smart agriculture.

No-till and cover cropping strategies help to build soil organic matter and sequester carbon, while also improving soil quality and retaining soil moisture. In a no-till field that will soon be planted to processing tomatoes, Fresno County UCCE advisor Dan Munk uncovers the residue from a winter cover crop of triticale.

These are a few examples of practices that can reduce greenhouse gases and increase climate resilience on our farms and ranches. Gov. Brown’s 2016–2017 proposed budget signals California’s ongoing support for these initiatives, including $20 million for SWEEP, $35 million for the dairy digester program and $20 million for the Healthy Soils Initiative. In addition, the proposed budget includes $40 million for the Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation Program, overseen by the Strategic Growth Council and administered by the Department of Conservation, and which supports the protection and sustainable management of California’s agricultural lands through planning and conservation via agricultural easements.

Going forward, CDFA’s climate smart agriculture initiatives will be coordinated through the newly created Office of Environmental Farming and Innovation.

There is no doubt we can do more in the climate smart agriculture arena. As we continue to expand our work in this area, CDFA will continue to work closely with our partners, including the scientific and technical experts at the CSU and UC systems. We are fortunate in California to have such expertise available to support our food production system with sound research, an extensive technical support infrastructure and an enormously accomplished agricultural extension service.

Link to web site

Late last year the FDA published the final Produce Rule, which is a key component of new federal food safety laws under the Food Safety Modernization Act, or FSMA.

Video courtesy of the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement.

Link to Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement blog post

CDFA’s Border Protection Station along I-10 at Blythe.

By Hailey Branson-Potts

State officials have announced the arrest of a Baldwin Park trucker who they said hauled more than $13,000 worth of out-of-state bottles and cans into California in a case of recycling fraud.

On Jan. 15, agents with the Department of Food and Agriculture arrested Daniel Rosales, 45, after inspecting his 53-foot semi-trailer, the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) said in a statement. Rosales had been stopped at a border checkpoint in Blythe, officials said.

(Learn more about CDFA’s Border Protection Stations)

Inside Rosales’ truck, which was marked as BNS Trucking out of Baldwin Park, agents discovered 6,622 pounds of aluminum and 2,606 pounds of plastic beverage containers with a potential California Redemption Value of $13,550, according to CalRecycle, which has administrative authority over the state’s beverage container recycling program.

Rosales produced a bill of lading — a document issued by a carrier that details a shipment of merchandise — that indicated he was hauling bottle caps, officials said. He was unable to produce an imported materials report, which is legally required for anyone transporting used beverage containers into California, CalRecycle said.

Rosales entered the state from Arizona, according to Michelle Gregory, a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Justice, which investigates and prosecutes criminal cases on behalf of CalRecycle.

Rosales was arrested and his truck impounded, officials said. He was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Riverside County Superior Court in Indio on charges of felony recycling fraud and attempted grand theft. He faces six months to three years in prison if convicted, CalRecycle said.

“Truck drivers need to understand that CalRecycle will not tolerate recycling fraud, which essentially steals money from the honest Californians,” CalRecycle Director Scott Smithline said in a prepared statement.

Consumers pay California Redemption Value (CRV) when they purchase beverages from a retailer, and receive CRV refunds when they redeem the containers at a recycling center.

“Anyone who helps these criminal organizations haul out-of-state used beverage containers into our state to make fraudulent CRV redemptions will be caught and punished,” Smithline said.

In 2015, CalRecycle and its enforcement partners (including CDFA) arrested eight drivers who brought 85,646 pounds of out-of-state used beverage containers into California, with a potential redemption value of more than $108,000, said Lance Klug, a CalRecycle spokesman.

Link to story

The USDA has announced a joint agreement with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to increase employment opportunities in the agricultural sector for military veterans and their spouses.

The agreement establishes a new partnership between USDA and Hiring Our Heroes, a program that helps military veterans, transitioning active duty personnel, and their spouses and partners with training and opportunities to find meaningful employment when entering the civilian workforce.

Since 2009, USDA has provided $466.8 million in farm loans to help more than 6,868 veterans purchase farmland, buy equipment, and make repairs and upgrades. Microloans offering smaller amounts of support to meet the needs of small or niche-type farm operations have also grown in popularity among veterans. Since it was launched in January 2013, USDA’s microloan program has provided more than $25.8 million in support to help veterans grow their farming businesses.

Recently, USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) also expanded its collaboration with the Department of Defense to better reach the nearly 200,000 service members transitioning from military service to civilian life each year. Through a career training and counseling program, called the Transition Assistance Program, or TAP, USDA provides information on a wide variety of loans, grants, training and technical assistance available for veterans who are passionate about a career in agriculture.

For more information on how USDA can help military veterans transition into agriculture as a career, visit www.usda.gov/veterans.

A riparian corridor along the Russian River in Sonoma County.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and partners across the nation together will direct up to $720 million towards 84 conservation projects that will help communities improve water quality, combat drought, enhance soil health, support wildlife habitat and protect agricultural viability. These projects make up the second round of the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) created by the 2014 Farm Bill.

California is receiving more than $30 million of the funding, including $8 million for conservation projects in Sonoma County to protect agricultural lands and ecosystems. The project is focused on four resource concerns: insufficient water, water quality degradation, soil quality degradation and inadequate habitat for fish and wildlife. Conservation activities will focus on developing landowner plans; acquiring easements; layering multiple practices in key riparian corridors, groundwater basins and floodplains; and implementing riparian corridor restoration, water conservation measures and floodplain enhancements to achieve sustainable water quality and quantity, soil health and functional ecosystems.

Through the 2015 and 2016 rounds, USDA and partners are investing up to $1.5 billion in 199 strategic conservation projects. Projects are selected on a competitive basis, and local private partners must be able to at least match the USDA commitment. For this round, USDA received 265 applications requesting nearly $900 million, or four times the amount of available federal funding. The 84 projects selected for 2016 include proposed partner matches totaling over $500 million, more than tripling the federal investment alone.

RCPP draws on local knowledge and networks to fuel conservation projects. Bringing together a wide variety of new partners including businesses, universities, non-profits and local and Tribal governments makes it possible to deliver innovative, landscape- and watershed-scale projects that improve water quality and quantity, wildlife habitat, soil health and other natural resource concerns on working farms, ranches and forests.

Water quality and drought are dominant themes in this year’s RCPP project list with 45 of the 84 projects focusing on water resource concerns.

USDA is committed to invest $1.2 billion in RCPP partnerships over the life of the 2014 Farm Bill. Today’s announcement brings the current USDA commitment to almost $600 million invested in 199 partner-led projects, leveraging an additional $900 million for conservation activities in all 50 states and Puerto Rico.

See the full list of 2016 projects.

Link to news release

Salinas third-grader Miranda Lopez was the lucky winner of the annual Bonnie Plants cabbage-growing contest, intended to spark children’s interest in agriculture and the origins of their food. More than 67,000 California third-graders received cabbage plants to take home, nurture and grow.  Miranda’s 23-pound specimen won her $1,000 from Bonnie Plants for her future education and a letter of congratulations from Secretary Ross!

Miranda Lopez

c/o Jacqueline Terrazas, Principal

Madonna del Sasso School

20 Santa Teresa Way

Salinas, CA 93906

Dear Miranda:

Congratulations on being the California State winner of the 2016 Bonnie Plants’ 3^rd Grade Cabbage Program!  As Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, I know how much effort and dedication it must have taken to grow such an impressive cabbage.

Through this work, you have learned what it takes for our farmers to grow the food that eventually ends up on the plates of families all throughout the land.  I hereby grant you the title of “honorary farmer” and know that you are always welcome to stop by the Department if you are ever in Sacramento.

Growing a cabbage takes investment, faith, commitment and practice, all values that will serve you well in life and in pursuit of your education.  The $1,000 award will help you in this effort and I look forward to hearing about your future success in whatever profession you decide to pursue.

Again, congratulations on your accomplishment and best wishes for the future.

Yours truly,

Karen Ross

Secretary