By Dale Kasler

On the Changala family farm in Tulare County, the past and future are separated by a dirt road and a barbed-wire fence.

On the south side sits a wheat field. On the north, a solar farm, built three years ago, sending electricity to thousands of Southern Californians.

Alan Changala sees little difference between the two.

“We’re still farming the sun,” he said.

Farmers in the San Joaquin Valley are finding a lucrative new cash crop: solar electricity. As they struggle to cope with the Valley’s chronic water shortages, they’ve increasing turned to solar as a means of supplementing their revenue and keeping the remainder of their farming operations afloat. An estimated 13,000 acres of Valley farmland already have been converted to solar farms, said Erica Brand, the California energy program director at the Nature Conservancy.

And now solar energy is about to swallow even larger patches of Valley farmland.

Beginning in January, California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA, will require farmers across the state to gradually reduce the amount of groundwater they can extract from their wells. In the Valley, where groundwater basins have been seriously depleted by decades of over-pumping, the Public Policy Institute of California predicts that at least 535,000 acres of Valley farmland could be permanently retired over the next 20 years as farmers curtail their water consumption.

The institute estimated that 50,000 idled acres could go solar, converting some of the world’s most productive tomato farms, pistachio orchards and dairies into vast fields of teal-colored photovoltaic panels, delivering electricity to the four corners of California’s power grid.

But the solar rush won’t rescue the Valley’s struggling economic base from the ravages of the groundwater law. Simply put, solar farms create few permanent jobs. They’re major employers when they’re under construction but turn into ghost towns once the solar panels become operational.

When panels were being installed on the Changala farm in 2015 and 2016, workers were everywhere. “They brought them in, in school buses,” Changala said.

Now, however, the site is a job-free zone, except for the occasional maintenance employee who arrives to make repairs. The day-to-day work is performed remotely, out of Southern California.

The scarcity of permanent employees is a drag on the economy. In Kern County, where thousands of acres of land have been converted to solar, farmland that’s been taken out of production “doesn’t pay for libraries,” said Lorelei Oviatt, the county’s planning and natural resources director. “We have 900,000 people who live in Kern County who need jobs and services and quality of life.”

Local government officials also say solar doesn’t pay its way as a tax generator. They are dismayed about a tax break, bestowed years ago by the Legislature, that lets project owners avoid paying property taxes on the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of solar panels they’ve installed on their facilities. In other words, the properties are taxed as if they’re still being used for agriculture. The tax break is in effect until 2025.

“It’s no longer an infant industry. Fifteeen years later, solar is doing very well, thank you very much,” said Paul Smith, vice president for government affairs at Rural County Representatives of California. “It’s a concern for the long-term health of counties.”

Solar does nourish California’s insatiable hunger for renewable energy, however. California utilities get one-third of their power from renewable sources and, by state law, have to raise that figure to 60 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2045.

Solar could be a big part of the solution.

“You could theoretically see the San Joaquin (Valley) single-handedly be able to meet California’s renewable energy goals,” said Daniel Kim, a vice president at Golden State Clean Energy, which plans to develop one of the world’s largest solar projects on farmland that was retired years ago near Naval Air Station Lemoore in Kings County.

“From a region that has relied primarily on agriculture, you could create the hub for new energy, and the new economy,” Kim said.

Con Edison, the big New York utility, spent $1.6 billion last year buying solar farms in multiple states, including at least five in the Valley. The Wonderful Co., the pistachio mega-grower controlled by Southern California billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick, earlier this year announced plans to build three solar farms on a total of 157 acres it owns in Kern and Madera counties. All of the electricity produced on the solar farms will be used to power Wonderful’s farming operations.

Golden State Clean Energy — backed by the financial muscle of Los Angeles real estate investment firm CIM Group — expects to break ground later this year on the 4,000-acre first phase of its project, known as Westlands Solar Park. Kim said the project eventually will consume 20,000 acres of land in Kings County, about half of which is owned by Westlands Water District, the big farm-irrigation agency serving the west side of the Valley.

Link to story in the Sacramento Bee

The California Department of Food and Agriculture is celebrating its 100^th anniversary as a state agency in 2019. Throughout the year this blog will feature a number of items to commemorate this milestone. Today we have an encore from our Centennial Reflections video series, featuring CDFA employees remembering their histories, and the agency’s.

By Dana Goldstein

It will take huge efforts, according to experts, to avert disasters related to climate change. Commitments from reluctant leaders to reform the global economy. Shifts in the daily routines of citizens. And research from the world’s greatest minds — lots of it.

To help pay for that research, the billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick are set to announce on Thursday the second-largest donation ever to an American university: $750 million to the California Institute of Technology for environmental study, much of it focused on technological solutions to combat climate change.

The Resnicks own the Wonderful Company, whose brands include Fiji Water, Pom Wonderful, Wonderful Pistachios and Teleflora, the flower delivery service. Their businesses are large consumers of water and plastic, and have at times been criticized by environmentalists.

The donation comes less than a week after millions of young people took to the streets in climate strikes across the globe, demanding faster action to address the warming planet. Climate change is also a growing focus in the Democratic presidential primary.

But Mr. Resnick, who described himself as a moderate who currently leans Democratic, said he did not see the donation as political. He said he and his wife were committing money to protect future generations — including their own children and grandchildren — and because they had seen the devastating impact of climate change in their own business, growing fruits and nuts.

“No one likes to deal with something that is unpleasant if they can kick it down the road,” Mr. Resnick said. But “no experts are saying take your time. It’s happening now.”

The money will be used to build a research center and to support a broad range of projects. Among them are attempts to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the ocean; capture and reuse rainfall; make plants more resistant to drought; and create plastics that are easier to recycle, according to Thomas F. Rosenbaum, president of Caltech.

Mr. and Mrs. Resnick have been active philanthropists in California’s Central Valley, especially in providing aid to the families of their employees. They have founded charter schools and health clinics, distributed college scholarships and given to cultural institutions.

But the Resnicks’ business practices have sometimes come under fire from environmental activists.

The bottled water industry is not considered sustainable given the plastic waste it produces and the energy used to ship water long distances across the world, often to consumers who have access to free, safe water just by turning on a tap.

The Wonderful Company also grows and sells pistachios and almonds, which are especially water-hungry crops. A Mother Jones investigation in 2016 found that the Resnicks’ businesses were California’s largest consumers of water during a time of drought.

Mr. Resnick responded to those critiques by saying large-scale farming was more efficient and less wasteful. “You can’t grow healthy food without water,” he said. “We use that water to create crops that create food and jobs for people.”

Research funded by the Caltech donation could make global agriculture more sustainable, he added. In a sense, the gift — the largest since Michael R. Bloomberg gave $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins University in November — could go toward mitigating some of the very problems the Resnicks’ companies are accused of perpetuating.

“If we had an alternative to plastic we would use it,” Mr. Resnick said of his bottled water business — a problem Caltech researchers may try to solve. He said Fiji Water had committed to using 100 percent recycled plastic by 2025.

Mr. and Mrs. Resnick previously contributed nearly $38 million to Caltech, the university said. About $100 million of the new $750 million donation will go toward construction of a building called the Resnick Sustainability Resource Center. An additional $250 million will finance research immediately, while $400 million will be placed into the university’s endowment for future environmental research.

The scholars funded by the Resnicks will retain complete independence over their work, said Dr. Rosenbaum, the Caltech president.

The federal government spent about $9 billion on the research, development and use of clean energy technology in 2017, according to the Government Accountability Office.

David Hart, director of the Center for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy at George Mason University, said private donations could be most helpful in finding real-world applications for new technologies — ones that can make daily activities, like farming or using air-conditioning, less damaging to the climate.

Donors should “foster new ideas that could turn into companies,” Professor Hart said. “Ultimately, we need clean energy to be really cheap and really easy to use, and help people live lives they want to live.”

Link to story in the New York Times

Hundreds of people from throughout the state celebrated the history of California’s Native Americans at the 52^nd Annual Native American Day event that took place at the west steps of the State Capitol.

California Governor Gavin Newsom spoke at the event shortly before issuing a proclamation declaring today Native American Day.

CDFA joined nearly a hundred state departments and agencies in hosting a booth to provide information about various programs and services, including its Tribal Affairs liaison, Office of Grants Administration, and its Plant Health and Pest Prevention Services Division, which shared important information about invasive species that threaten agriculture and the environment.

College student Andrea Levinson applied for a summer internship this year at the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to gain hands-on experience in her field of study. After three months at the agency’s Division of Inspection Services (ISD), her greatest takeaway is a better understanding of CDFA’s wide range of projects and programs.

“The average Californian may not realize the reach of this agency,” Levinson said. “CDFA inspects our produce, regulates the movement of invasive plants or pests, makes sure consumers get what they pay for, provides quality control for fertilizer, and provides leadership in adaptation to climate change. And the list goes on.”

Levinson, a senior, is majoring in environmental studies with a minor in physics at Sacramento State University. She and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo senior Brent Oge were 2019 summer interns at ISD. Oge is majoring in agricultural business with a minor in Spanish.

“CDFA strives to support innovation and agricultural diversity,” said ISD director Natalie Krout-Greenberg. “One way to support these efforts is through working with upcoming generations. The goal of our summer internship program is to engage students in agriculture and equip them to become future agriculture ambassadors. We find the program also serves as a recruitment opportunity for CDFA.”

Offered annually, the ISD internship/mentorship program matches interns with rank-and-file staff members as mentors. Staff apply to be mentors to gain leadership experience. The selected mentors help with application review, interviewing candidates, and coordinating with division and branch leadership to determine intern projects.

Field tours are a highlight of the program, and this year’s tours included the Division of Plant Health and Pest Prevention Service’s Truckee Border Station, a visit to pear processing facilities under the auspices of ISD, and shadowing a fertilizer investigator from the ISD Feed, Fertilizer and Livestock Drugs Regulatory Services (FFLDRS) branch.

“My favorite day in the field was observing a fertilizer inspector during reviews of a compost producer, an organic fertilizer manufacturer, and a synthetic fertilizer retailer,” Oge said. “After gaining a better understanding of fertilizer materials in the office, I was able to apply that knowledge to what I was seeing.”

Oge interned with the Fertilizer Research Education Program (FREP). His project was to discover how FREP-funded research could get into more growers’ hands. Oge conducted various interviews and learned that farmers often are interested in learning about the beneficial practices highlighted by FREP. His findings, made during a presentation at the end of his three-month tenure, included a recommendation that FREP should continue to increase its exposure to California farmers through strategic and personal connections that incorporate social media.

Levinson interned at ISD’s Center for Analytical Chemistry (CAC) branch. With a background in computer coding, her project was to redesign the layout and accessibility of a CAC Standards Repository database created in 1992. Levinson’s success was shown during a presentation at the end of her internship.

College students interested in being a 2020 summer intern for the CDFA Division of Inspection Services should look for a position announcement of Agricultural Technician I (Seasonal) to be made around January, with applications accepted through the middle of February.   

By Nancy Matsumoto

EXCERPTED

Anthony Myint vividly recalls the moment he encountered the idea that would shift his life’s path. In 2014, the San Francisco chef and his wife and business partner, Karen Leibowitz, visited California carbon ranching pioneer John Wick at Nicasio Native Grass Ranch in Marin County.

“He had a bunch of whiteboards out and he was just wrapping up a talk with some U.N. people,” Myint recalls. Wick had been working on the Marin Carbon Project, the now well-known collaboration with U.C. Berkley scientist Wendee Silver that examined whether or not several “carbon farming” practices—such as managed grazing and adding a thin layer of compost to the land—could in fact pull greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Wick talked about the difference between durable carbon—deposited and locked into the ground for up to centuries by plant roots and decaying and dead microorganisms—and carbon that routinely circulates from above to below ground. Hearing of the work the couple was doing helping restaurants offset their greenhouse gas emissions, Myint recalls, Wick “told us we weren’t thinking big enough.” Atmospheric carbon wasn’t just something to avoid emitting, or to pay others to scrub from one’s environmental footprint, Myint and Leibowitz now understood: farming itself could regenerate the land.

That day, Myint and Leibowitz joined a much larger movement to bring regenerative agriculture to the mainstream and help farmers, chefs, and eaters understand the value of healthy soil. “We’re in the midst of a massive cultural change in response to global warming, and farming and healthy soil are probably the most practical and biggest solutions we have,” says Myint.

Myint and Leibowitz have spent the last five years figuring out how to help the competitive, thin-margin, high-burnout world of creative chefs, restaurants, and their fickle diners play a role in regenerative agriculture. Their first effort was the nonprofit Zero Foodprint, which helped restaurants offset their greenhouse gas emissions. Their recently shuttered restaurant, The Perennial, sought to serve food produced regeneratively and educate consumers about the role food plays in absorbing carbon.

“We assumed people would be excited about optimistic solutions, and would line up for the Tesla of food,” says Myint. But the public wasn’t ready. They learned that “we couldn’t rely on one consumer, one chef at a time to create system change.” They needed, as Wick encouraged them, to think bigger.

Now, under their nonprofit The Perennial Farming Initiative (PFI), Myint and Leibowitz have started laying the groundwork for a program, Restore California. Participating restaurants add an optional “1 percent for healthy soil” surcharge to customer tabs. PFI has already signed 30 restaurants up for the Restore California surcharge; if 1 percent of the state’s restaurants follow suit, the group estimates it could generate $10 million per year in funding for healthy soils.

The project is a collaboration between the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the California Department of Food and Agriculture, and PFI; when it is fully up and running, proceeds will go directly to farms and ranches working to improve soil health as a complement to the state’s Healthy Soils Program. 

Read more on the Civil Eats web page