CDFA Undersecretary Jim Houston this week at the Lomo Station peach orchard in Live Oak, in Sutter County. California is the largest peach producing state in the country, and Sutter County alone, with production of more than 184,000 tons at a value of nearly $70 million, out-produces the second and third ranking states, South Carolina and Georgia. So the time has come to start talking about “the Sutter Peach.”
State Climatologist Michael Anderson issued the following statement on potential El Niño conditions:
“California cannot count on potential El Niño conditions to halt or reverse drought conditions. Historical weather data shows us that at best, there is a 50/50 chance of having a wetter winter. Unfortunately, due to shifting climate patterns, we cannot even be that sure.”
Additional background:
The current drought has resulted in observations of new, record-high temperatures and record low snowpack for California. Five of the lowest 10 snowpacks on record have occurred in the last decade, including the past four years. The seasonal snowpack is a key element to California’s water resources management, modulating winter precipitation into spring runoff for beneficial use through the dry summer.
As California heads into a new water year (October 1 to September 30) with a potential fifth year of drought and expectations of El Niño impacts in play during the winter, questions mount on what can be expected of winter temperatures, precipitation and snowpack for California.
Unfortunately, a historical look at past years with similar El Niño conditions as currently forecasted provide little guidance as to what California might expect this winter. Of the seven years since 1950 with similar ENSO signals (1958, 1966, 1973, 1983, 1988, 1992, and 1998) three were wet years, one was average and three were dry (with water year 1992 perpetuating a drought). Past years were cooler than the temperatures we are experiencing now which will impact the rain/snow boundary for any storms that materialize this winter.
For more detail and information on the unpredictable nature of the El Niño phenomenon, visit: http://water.ca.gov/waterconditions/docs/Drought_ENSO_handout4.pdf.
As this nearly 60-year-old video shows, times have changed, but the need for an accurate system of measurement has not. The demands of California’s sealers of weights and measures are the same as for English practitioners in 1956 – take the necessary steps to ensure fair commerce. For more information visit CDFA’s Division of Measurement Standards web page.
Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 65, legislation by Senator Lois Wolk, D-Solano, changing an outdated labeling law that enabled olive oils to say they were produced in California, or a region of California.
“As California’s olive oil industry continues to grow, it is critical that labels accurately reflect the product consumers are buying,” Wolk said, who chairs the Agriculture Subcommittee on Olive Oil Production and Emerging Products. “If olive oil uses ‘California’ on the label, then 100 percent of the oil must be from olives grown in California. If a reference is made to a specific region in California, then that’s where the majority of that olive oil should have been grown. There must be truth in labeling.”
In addition to requirements relating to the use of “California” on labels, SB 65 requires that if an oil’s label references a specific region in California, then at least 85 percent of the oil, by weight, must be from olives grown in that specific region.
Additionally, if reference is made to a specific estate within California, then at least 95 percent of the oil, by weight, must be from olives grown on that specific estate.
SB 65 reflects new standards set by the Olive Oil Commission of California, established by a law Wolk authored in 2013. The commission engages in olive oil quality and nutritional research and recommends grading and labeling standards to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
Using aquaponics at urban farms.
By Katie Shepard
As California moves through its fourth summer of drought, cutting back on water use means shorter showers, fuller dishwashers and drier lawns for most people living in urban areas.
But for small farms nestled between city streets, saving water means recycling it — and finding new ways to keep plants alive without wasting the precious liquid.
The Growing Experience in Long Beach uses some of the latest drought-conscious growing techniques for urban agriculture.
Unlike the large industrial farms that give California its reputation as the salad bowl of the nation, urban farmers don’t have to let fields sit fallow to reduce water use. The small-scale operations leave room for more creative approaches to drought-friendly growing practices. For those producing and selling food in the city, the drought has provided opportunities as well as obstacles.
“In a way it’s been even good for us because people are more inclined to see we’re doing a good thing,” Jimmy Ng, program director and manager at the Growing Experience in Long Beach, said. “People can see that to some extent and appreciate how much less [water and resources] it takes to get this food to market.”
Romaine lettuce, watercress, basil, mint and bok choy grow in vertical towers between pieces of sponge-like growing material instead of dirt. The plants are watered through a closed-loop system that pumps water to the top of each column and collects whatever drips down to the bottom to recirculate into large holding tanks. Fish swim inside the tanks, adding nutrients the plants need to survive. Then the water is pumped back up to the top of the towers to trickle down through the plant roots and back to the fish again.
The system, known as aquaponics, uses less water than traditional soil planting because very little water is lost to evaporation and none is absorbed into the ground. Four times as many plants can grow in one square foot because the columns provide extra space for the leaves and roots to spread upward.
Some Los Angeles City Council members hope there will be more urban farms filling their own city’s empty lots in the near future. Councilman Felipe Fuentes said his district has properties that have been blighted for years, but the landowners won’t improve them. Fuentes and Councilman Curren Price have proposed a measure to offer tax incentives for property owners who rent or donate their land for agricultural purposes for at least five years.
Because Los Angeles’ watering restrictions apply only to grass lawns, urban farmers would be able to establish flourishing new gardens.
Not only would these urban farms replace ugly, empty lots, but they also would create community spaces that encourage activity, healthy eating and potential economic growth, Fuentes said.
“These farms speak to a lot of opportunity for Los Angeles,” he said. “They can fortify the nutritional balance of peoples’ lives.”
Municipalities can place regulations on urban farms — which are often not zoned as agricultural sites — as if the farm were a home or a store. And the water costs the same as the liquid running through the tap at home, which is often more expensive than water specifically allocated to agriculture.
The Growing Experience waters its plants just twice a week because of Long Beach regulations, and it is experimenting with other methods to reduce water use.
In a corner of the 4.5-acre farm, space is reserved for native California and drought-resistant plants. These crops are watered heavily in the first few weeks to anchor roots in the ground and give seedlings plenty of hydration. But for the rest of the season, the plants get water only from whatever rain falls on the lot. The technique is called “dry farming.”
Reduced watering can produce smaller fruits and vegetables than shoppers are used to. But the smaller food is no less tasty, Ng said.
The Growing Experience’s subscribers agree to accept smaller produce in drought years. But when the dry spell breaks, they will be sent larger fruits and vegetables every week, Ng said.
By Katie L. Strong
Humans love Sriracha sauce, and the pleasurable, painful sensation that makes us want to slather tacos, rice and barbecue with it and other spicy condiments comes down to one molecule: capsaicin.
Professors Jie Zheng and Vladimir Yarov-Yarovoy at UC Davis, in collaboration with researchers in China, recently got an unprecedented, close-up view of this molecule, as well as what happens inside our bodies when we eat the spicy foods that contain it.
Cracking the code on how this spice affects the body could do more than satisfy culinary curiosity: It could help scientists design medication for a broad array of ailments, such as those related to cardiac dysfunction, neurological disorders and chronic pain.
“We can eventually use this method in the future to design new, more selective drugs that would have less side effects for patients,” Yarov-Yarovoy said. “That’s where we’re going.”
“People have known for many, many years that capsaicin works on this channel to open it, but there is no structural understanding of how capsaicin binds to it and how capsaicin opens the channel,” said Fan Yang, a post-doctoral researcher in Zheng’s lab.
To determine why capsaicin causes the sensation of spiciness, researchers created a video based on computational modeling of the tiny, atomic interactions between capsaicin and the channel it interacts with.
“The capsaicin molecule in the binding pocket is not staying there stationary,” Zheng said. “In fact, a part of the molecule, the tail as we call it, is waving about like seaweed in water. If the tail is waving about, it is just like when you take a picture of somebody who is moving. You get a fuzzy picture, and we had a fuzzy picture of capsaicin.”
Results from this work help explain why capsaicin from hot peppers causes a burning sensation, but sweet peppers do not. The chemical compound in sweet peppers, called capsiate, has an oxygen where capsaicin has a nitrogen. This chemical difference, although small, determines how our heat sensor reacts. On the Scoville scale for chemicals, which measures pungency of spicy foods, capsiate has a rating of 16,000 Scoville heat units, while capsaicin comes in 10 times stronger.
The study also helps elucidate why humans are sensitive to capsaicin, but other species, such as birds, are insensitive. In fact, humans are the only species in the world that intentionally seek out the enjoyable pain of spiciness.
Capsaicin’s spiciness provides a protective element to pepper plants, but if this protection were extended to birds, it would stop birds from helping to spread its seeds. Birds have the same ion channel that we do, but there are small differences where capsaicin interacts, meaning that birds do not feel spiciness like we do.
Ion channel dysfunction is related to diseases of the heart, brain, muscles and other essential components of our body, meaning that this work may help pave the way for more effective medications that treat a variety of ailments.
A number of drugs exert their effects by interacting with ion channels. The epilepsy medication carbamazepine (Tegretol) influences an ion channel in the brain, while the anti-arrhythmic drug flecainide (Tambocor) targets an ion channel in the heart. The commonly administered drug lidocaine (Lidoderm) behaves as an anesthetic by blocking a specific ion channel related to pain.
Structural modeling done in the Yarov-Yarovoy and Zheng labs, which is allowing us to visualize the ion channels as never before, is focused on developing new, effective drugs for ion channels like those already approved.
“Even though there are a lot of details that we still need to figure out, we start to see the picture, and this is the most beautiful thing to us,” Zheng said.
I am happy to announce the launch of the California Farmer Marketplace, www.cafarmermarketplace.com, by the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Office of Farm to Fork. The Marketplace is a free statewide website that will feature fresh California produce, grains, meats, eggs, and dairy products for sale directly to institutions and other consumers. This project was made possible with funding from the USDA’s Specialty Crop Block Grant Program, with additional support from the California Department of Education, and the California Department of Public Health.
The Marketplace will improve food access for California public schools and expand market opportunities for food and agricultural industries. Through a simple registration process, California farmers and ranchers can link directly to any consumer, including institutions, community groups, and individuals. The service will streamline direct connections with school food service directors to further statewide farm-to-school efforts and the amount of California grown and produced foods on our children’s school lunch trays. To date, the National School Lunch Program is the most effective method of reaching the more than 3 million California school children who eat school lunch every day.
Though the connection between farms and schools may seem simple, creating a consistent language and manner of communication has been a huge barrier. The Office of Farm to Fork worked directly with farmers and food service directors to develop a site that meets their needs. California schools participating in the National School Lunch program spend over $2 billion annually. This spending represents a large and consistent market opportunity for farmers and ranchers looking to broaden and accommodate our diverse and growing food systems. As a strong supporter of our state’s agricultural industries and child nutrition, I urge you to register on the California Farmer Marketplace and to share the site with your colleagues and extended networks. Please visit www.cafarmermarketplace.com to register today!
NOTE – California was one of eight states selected to participate in USDA’s Pilot Project for the Procurement of Unprocessed Fruits and Vegetables. This pilot program allows schools to use their entitlement dollars to purchase fruits and vegetables directly from farmers and can be a great way for farmers to expand into school markets.
On August 13, at 11 a.m., the USDA will host a webinar for farmers on the pilot and review the eligibility requirements and application submission process. The USDA will also cover how the pilot can leverage existing relationships between farmers and schools and encourage formation of new partnerships. We highly encourage food producers to join the webinar and find out more about this opportunity. Registration at http://bit.ly/FVWebinarCP081315.
A breakdown of jobs available in agriculture, natural resources and the environment
During the next five years, U.S. college graduates will find good employment opportunities if they have expertise in food, agriculture, renewable natural resources, or the environment. Between 2015 and 2020, we expect to see 57,900 average annual openings for graduates with bachelor’s or higher degrees in those areas.
According to our projections, almost half of the opportunities will be in management and business. Another 27% will be in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Jobs in sustainable food and biomaterials production will make up 15%, while 12% of the openings will be in education, communication, and governmental services.
The projections in this report are based on data from several sources. The Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts a 10.8% increase in the U.S. labor force between 2012 and 2022 due to job growth and openings from retirement or other replacements. We expect employment opportunities in food, agriculture, renewable natural resources, and environment occupations to grow more than 5% between 2015 and 2020 for college graduates with bachelor’s or higher degrees.
Job opportunities for food, agriculture, renewable natural resources, and environment graduates in STEM areas are expected to grow. Expect the strongest job market for plant scientists, food scientists, sustainable biomaterials specialists, water resources scientists and engineers, precision agriculture specialists, and farm-animal veterinarians.
We expect to see a strong employment market for e-commerce managers and marketing agents, ecosystem managers, agriscience educators, crop advisors, and pest control specialists.
Growth in job opportunities will vary. Employers in some food, agriculture, renewable natural resources, and environment areas will struggle to find enough graduates to fill jobs. In a few areas, employers will find an oversupply of job seekers. Employers will continue to seek to hire a diverse workforce reflective of society as a whole.
An average of 35,400 new U.S. graduates with expertise in food, agriculture, renewable natural resources, or the environment are expected to fill 61% of the expected 57,900 average annual openings. Most employers prefer to hire graduates with this expertise. However, because we anticipate more annual job openings than can be filled by these graduates, employers will need to look to other areas such as biology, business administration, engineering, education, communication, and consumer sciences to fill the remaining 39% of openings.
College graduates with expertise in food, agriculture, renewable natural resources, and the environment are essential to our ability to address the U.S. priorities of food security, sustainable energy, and environmental quality. Graduates in these professional specialties not only are expected to provide answers and leadership to meet these growing challenges in the United States, but they also must exert global leadership in providing sustainable food systems, adequate water resources, and renewable energy in a world of population growth and climate change.
A contestant on Oxfam’s ‘Female Food Heroes.’
By Samantha Cowan
Some of America’s most popular competition shows feature dozens of women vying for the attention of one man, singers attempting to impress judges who can’t see them, and celebrities trying to keep up with professional dancers. Tanzania’s popular reality series stars female farmers.
More than half of the country’s 45 million people tune into Mama Shujaa wa Chakula, or Female Food Heroes, by way of TV, YouTube, radio recaps, and newspaper articles, according to PRI. The newest season, set to shoot for three weeks in August, features 18 women in a village sharing farming techniques, attending training sessions, and, of course, competing in challenges. The winner is chosen from a combination of viewers’ votes and a panel of judges.
Antipoverty organization Oxfam created the series to educate female farmers on progressive agriculture techniques, demonstrate their abilities to their peers, and grant them a larger voice in their communities. Oxfam estimates that 75 percent of farmers in Tanzania are women, but gender bias leaves their contributions overlooked and undervalued.
Farms helmed by women are often less successful owing to difficulties in securing land rights, as well as unequal access to resources and laborers. This problem persists across Africa, where almost half of all agricultural workers are women—and it makes their farms less productive, according to a 2014 study by the World Bank. In Tanzania, female farmers produce 14 percent less than their male peers. Lower yields hurt both men and women; the report determined that if women were treated equally in agriculture, farm yields would increase by up to 30 percent, feeding 150 million more people daily.
While only one woman is named the winner, each contestant heads home with a prize perhaps even more valuable than $10,000 in cash and farming supplies: respect. The show’s popularity turns them into celebrities in their communities, and with that higher status, they have a voice to make change. Past contestants have gone on to attend global conferences on women’s rights, manage their own stores, and sit on ordinarily male-dominated local councils.
CDFA’s Division of Measurement Standards (DMS) often deals with the application of new technology as it evaluates the accuracy and suitability of new measuring devices for commercial service. Over the years, we have encountered many new commercial instruments and software-interfaced systems for which there is no existing weights and measures code. Fortunately, California law facilitates the use of new technology in commercial applications. A Temporary Use Permit may be issued to a manufacturer after successful initial testing for accuracy. This authorizes legal use while CDFA and the applicant work through the other necessary technical requirements for a Certificate of Approval.
The latest recipient of such a permit is Uber Technologies, Inc. The company’s software application is used in smart phones with the iOS or Android operating systems, and it provides on-demand transportation services with fares determined using the Global Positioning System to measure time and distance. This is far different from a traditional taxi meter, which uses electric pulses generated by a sensor attached to the cab’s transmission.
We safeguard the proprietary information of all our applicants, but I can say that the Uber app was tested for accuracy under the most rigorous conditions and passed our tolerance tests. We tested the app in a variety of challenging environments; through tunnels, among skyscrapers and tall buildings, on courses with altitude changes, and even on San Francisco’s Lombard Street, one of America’s crookedest streets.
In issuing the twelve-month Temporary Use Permit, Uber is afforded additional time to complete its type-evaluation. This also provides time for CDFA to develop new specifications and technical requirements through its rule-making process.
This is an example of how DMS and CDFA adapt to the many innovations of the New Economy. As technological advancements continue to open-up new frontiers, our mission is to keep pace and make certain that commerce is fair and accurate for all concerned.
