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.

Today is the last day of state service for CDFA Deputy Secretary for Administration and Finance Kevin Masuhara, who is retiring after 16 years at the agency.

Masuhara has also served as CDFA’s Director of Marketing Services and as the County/State Liaison, a position that works directly with California’s agriculture commissioners and sealers of weights and measures.

As deputy secretary, Masuhara provided crucial leadership during the COVID-19 crisis, when the agency pivoted to a new workforce paradigm, first remote and then hybrid — and he has helped lead CDFA forward on equity initiatives both inside the department and among stakeholders seeking to participate in agency programs. In addition, he has guided CDFA through the booms and busts of fiscal cycles, and positioned the agency to strengthen its commitments to to leadership development, upward mobility, and succession planning.

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross: “We wish Kevin all the best in retirement but he will definitely be deeply missed. He has contributed significantly to the operations of the agency through leadership development, process improvement, emergency preparedness, and equity advancement; and as a farmer himself, he has been a tireless advocate for California’s farmers and ranchers and through his administrative leadership.”

Congratulations, Kevin!

Santiago Elementary School in Lake Forest (Orange County) is growing the next generation of water-wise Californians by encouraging students to recycle clean water for its school garden. In an Instagram post about the project the school asked, “Do you pour water from school down the drain each evening? When we see alternatives to the kitchen sink, there are lots of great ways to reuse our clean water – like giving it to plants!” CDFA applauds such forward thinking, in step with California agriculture’s water-wise practices, which have helped farmers and ranchers produce 38 percent more food with 14 percent less water over a 35-year period.

For more water-saving tips and ideas like this one, visit California’s Save Our Water website. And for more about what CDFA is doing to support the health and well-being of California students through food-based education and access to healthy foods, visit our Farm to School Program page.

National Apple Day falls in the midst of peak season for Northern California’s Apple Hill. Check out this video to see what’s happening there.

https://youtu.be/73-gongcWOA

By Dale Yurong

The future workforce on Valley farms will include more robots to plant, pick and weed.

The FIRA conference at the Fresno Convention Center features creations like The Amiga by Farm-ng, which offers different applications from towing to seeding.

“It’s really interesting when we bring this to a farmer and they say, ‘Oh, that’s so practical and they just start thinking of all these ideas like this compost spreader,” says CEO Ethan Rublee. “A farmer saw our base platform and said, ‘I want to spread compost with a machine.'”

What happens downtown could have a big impact on the direction the ag industry takes when it comes to automation.

Companies, scientists and visitors from 26 countries are here.

Weeding robots have drawn attention from farmers dealing with labor shortages.

“We’re really glad to see the weeding progress because we feel like that’s the first place the dam’s going to break open,” says Western Growers VP of Innovation Walt Duflock. “That’s the first place the market’s going to say okay, we can really do this at scale.”

Harvest automation has come a long way. Two companies have developed robots, which are picking apples in Washington

“There are two different ways,” says Jeff Cleveringa with the Starr Ranch Group. “One is using a small suction to grab the apple, then spin it and take it back, and then the other is a finger system, so they actually grab the apple and take it back.”

The sight of robots on the farm might worry workers who fear for their job, but Hernan Hernandez of the California Farmworker Foundation says that shouldn’t be the case.

“All of a sudden, you go from 100 individuals that are going to be able to harvest this season to now 10 that will harvest with a machine,” he said. “But the way we look at it is as well, when we talk to farmworkers and engage them, and we look at data, there is also opportunity. We know a lot of the farmworkers want opportunities to further their skill sets.”

The demonstrations will include 16 robots in all.

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During National Farm to School Month, CDFA continues to recognize and thank partners across California helping to improve the wellbeing of students through food-based education and equitable access to healthy food. One such partner is the McFarland Unified School District in Kern County, which is a grantee of the CDFA Farm to School Incubator Grant Program.

In 2021, the school district received funding to provide a healthy food curriculum to all students, exploring where their food comes from and how to make healthy choices. The funding also will help high school Ag Farm students learn how to produce and process almonds through an 80-acre Crop Science Field lab.

The school district is providing field instruction through a strong partnership with the McFarland chapter of Future Farmers of America (FFA). This partnership was recently featured in the PBS series “American Grown: My Job Depends on Ag.” The video highlights how important FFA and ag programs are for helping students gain insight for careers in agriculture.

Click here to view American Grown: My Job Depends on Ag | McFFArland, USA, and see how agriculture in McFarland is shaping young lives and how their world contrasts against other FFA programs in the Valley.

About six miles south of Fresno, in the small town of Easton, California, Yeu Tchieng has tended to a farm since 2007, but he’s been farming for a total of more than 50 years – most of his life. Born and raised in the Southeast Asian country of Laos, he farmed the traditional way, which consisted of slashing and burning vegetation away in the forest to clear the ground for his crops. He used no farming technology in Laos and had no access to any synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. 

Tchieng wanted to pursue a State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program (SWEEP) grant in 2018 to be more efficient with his water use and to make his pump more energy efficient. He was also interested in soil moisture sensors, a flow meter, and a data logger to support improved irrigation water management and to measure the amount of water used each season. 

Tchieng, who grows Opo Squash, Chinese Eggplant, Luffa, Bitter Melon and Sunchoke, has divided his fields into two sections and waters each using the drip system made possible by his SWEEP grant. 

Adapting to Climate-Smart Agricultural Practices 

“Other farms should use the drip system if it becomes available to them to save water and electricity,” Tchieng said.  

The agricultural technology available in California is new to Tchieng but he’s adapted to using it to his advantage. 

Helping Farmers Become Drought Resilient 

While he’s seen more than a couple of dry periods in California, the current and ongoing drought has started taking its toll. 

“The drought worries me, but I have a drip system that is working great,” Tchieng said. “I really like how it helps me save time and have more control when I irrigate different sections of my field.” 

Tchieng said he’d like to see more assistance made available to small farmers, so they can apply for program grants like SWEEP and the Healthy Soils Program, and improve their farms, especially when it comes to water use.  

“The drought is very severe right now, and a lot of small farms use flood irrigation since they do not have the financial capability to install drip irrigation, nor the knowledge on how to use it,” he said. “If all small farmers were able to install drip irrigation with financial assistance from CDFA, the drought would not be solved but less water would be used versus flood and furrow irrigation.” 

Yeu also received a Healthy Soils grant for composting and planting cover crops, with the assistance of the University of California Cooperative Extension, Fresno Small Farms team. The program is improving soil health while also bolstering the biodiversity present in the soil on Tchieng’s farm. Like SWEEP, the Healthy Soils Program helps Yeu reduce greenhouse gas emissions on his farm.