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

 From Morning Ag Clips

For years more than 15 bacterial species have ruined millions of dollars worth of onion crops across the United States. That is bound to change, as a group of 24 researchers from 12 states across the country, including one researcher from South Africa, plan to take on these bugs, armed with more than $8 million over the next four years.

The USDA Specialty Crops Research Initiative recently announced the award of $4 million to the group in their project entitled, “Stop the rot: Combatting onion bacterial diseases with pathogenomic tools and enhanced management strategies” (Award No. 2019-51181-30013). The project comes with a match of $4.2 million match from onion growers, universities and seed companies all recognizing the severity of bacterial diseases on America’s onion crops.

“They all have skin in the game,” said Lindsey du Toit, principal investigator for the project and a professor and extension plant pathologist with the Department of Plant Pathology at Washington State University. “This is a stakeholder-driven need. It’s not driven by academics in their ivory towers thinking they need money to fund their pet projects.”

“For five to six years, I’ve been jotting down notes about key things that could be looked at, in relation to hearing many stories about losses due to bacterial diseases,” du Toit said. “I became increasingly aware of the need to pull together a team to really focus on how we can do a better job, and the importance of the stakeholders being involved in that planning.”

The project could help reduce the annual $16 million-plus losses to America’s onion industry through this coordinated, multi-state evaluation “to determine how specific production practices, environmental conditions, and inoculum sources can be managed using practical, economically viable and environmentally-sound strategies to limit losses from bacterial rots,” du Toit said.

America’s onion farmers and researchers have yet to fully get a handle on bacterial rots, which can affect an onion at all stages of growth. Typically the only way to eliminate these pathogens is through getting rid of the affected onions. Sometimes an entire load of onions can be affected but not detected until that load has shipped across the country, which can devastate smaller, family-run farms, the backbone of America’s agriculture industry.

At present, onion growers do not have highly effective bactericides to rely on to eliminate bacterial diseases.

“These diseases are not easy to manage,” du Toit said. “If they were, growers would have figured it out by now. They’re ingenious and pretty creative.”

An important aspect of this research will be on the use of cultural practices to manage the problem such as modifying irrigation practices. Part of this project also will be identifying ways of screening for resistance in onion varieties to develop stronger cultivars.

“We know from experience that cultural practices can make a big difference at increasing or reducing the risk of these diseases,” du Toit said. “A lot of it comes down to managing irrigation, nitrogen levels, the timing on when you undercut the onions, and how you cure then in the field and manage the soil.”  In turn, that may be the most economical tool in this war on bacteria.

Researchers had to wage a herculean effort to get this project off the ground. Though they were notified in January that the pre-proposal submitted in December was accepted for submission of a full grant, they weren’t aware of the new reinstatement of a 10-year-old requirement for a 100 percent match in funding, authored under the new Farm Bill. The researchers had just three months to figure out how to come up with at least $4 million in funding to match the federal funding requested in the proposal.

Those involved dug deep, and from in kind donations of farming and implement costs as well as professor’s and other staff and student salaries or assistantships, they were able to come up with it, du Toit said. About $2 million of that came from growers alone.

“They looked at the value of their projected in-kind contributions to the project, whether it be land, the value of the crop used for trials, and the cost of the farm work done to maintain the trials, and tallied all that up to come up with their matches,” du Toit said.  “This is the perfect example of the kind of problem this Specialty Crops Research Initiative program was developed to address.”

The Co-Principle Investigators in the project are Bhabesh Dutta, University of Georgia; Christine A. Hoepting, Cornell University; Brian Howard Kvitko, University of Georgia; Mark Uchanski, Colorado State University; and Brenna J. Aegerter, University of California.

The Specialty Crops Research Initiative is a part of the USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture, and addresses the critical needs of the specialty crops industry by awarding grants to support research and extension that address key challenges of national, regional, and multi-state importance in sustaining all components of food and agriculture, including conventional and organic food production systems.

Link to story in Morning Ag Clips

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 continue with the Centennial Reflections video series, featuring CDFA employees remembering their histories, and the agency’s.

After Terry Garrett witnessed his ailing brother lose the ability to pursue his love of gardening, he took it upon himself to ensure that anybody—regardless of whether they are confined to a wheelchair—could keep their green thumbs in the dirt.

Garrett is the mastermind behind the Elevated Garden: a tabletop garden that has been designed specifically for people in wheelchairs. The idea for the elevated garden was born after his brother was diagnosed with Stage IV chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

“He loved gardening but could no longer handle the physical demands of traditional gardening,” says the veteran. “I designed and built my first elevated garden… and by the end of the year, my brother was taking care of 40 units and growing all his produce for the winter.”

“I saw how it benefited him with an improvement in his quality of life, and an increased sense of self worth and accomplishment,” he continued.

“This spurred me on to developing, patenting, and trade-marking what we are currently manufacturing and marketing.”

Standing at just 30 inches tall, the gardens have been used in nursing homes and assisted living facilities because they limit the amount of bending and physical activity that is typically required by traditional gardening.

The components are made and manufactured in Tennessee, by the veteran’s company, T&L Group. Additionally, the mobile gardens are built on wheels so they can be used indoors through all seasons.

Garrett, who was recently named a “Horticultural Hero” for his design, is now looking to develop handicap-accessible gardening tools so his company can continue to uplift disabled and geriatric patients who want to garden ‘outside the box’.

Link to story

California farmers and ranchers affected by wildfires in 2018 and 2019 can apply through the Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program Plus (WHIP+). Sign-up for this U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) program is underway.

WHIP+ will be available for eligible producers who have suffered eligible losses of certain crops, trees, bushes or vines in counties with a Presidential Emergency Disaster Declaration or a Secretarial Disaster Designation (primary counties only). Disaster losses must have been a result of hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, typhoons, volcanic activity, snowstorms or wildfires that occurred in 2018 or 2019. Also, producers in counties that did not receive a disaster declaration or designation may still apply for WHIP+ but must provide supporting documentation to establish that the crops were directly affected by a qualifying disaster loss. 

A list of counties that received qualifying disaster declarations and designations is available at farmers.gov/recover/whip-plus. Because grazing and livestock losses, other than milk losses, are covered by other disaster recovery programs offered through FSA, those losses are not eligible for WHIP+.

Eligible crops include those for which federal crop insurance or Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) coverage is available, excluding crops intended for grazing. A list of crops covered by crop insurance is available through USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) Actuarial Information Browser at webapp.rma.usda.gov/apps/actuarialinformationbrowser.

The WHIP+ payment factor ranges from 75 percent to 95 percent, depending on the level of crop insurance coverage or NAP coverage that a producer obtained for the crop. Producers who did not insure their crops in 2018 or 2019 will receive 70 percent of the expected value of the crop. Insured crops (either crop insurance or NAP coverage) will receive between 75 percent and 95 percent of expected value; those who purchased the highest levels of coverage will receive 95-percent of the expected value.

At the time of sign-up, producers will be asked to provide verifiable and reliable production records. If a producer is unable to provide production records, WHIP+ payments will be determined based on the lower of either the actual loss certified by the producer and determined acceptable by FSA or the county expected yield and county disaster yield. The county disaster yield is the production that a producer would have been expected to make based on the eligible disaster conditions in the county.

WHIP+ payments for 2018 disasters will be eligible for 100 percent of their calculated value. WHIP+ payments for 2019 disasters will be limited to an initial 50 percent of their calculated value, with an opportunity to receive up to the remaining 50 percent after January 1, 2020, if sufficient funding remains.

Both insured and uninsured producers are eligible to apply for WHIP+. But all producers receiving WHIP+ payments will be required to purchase crop insurance or NAP, at the 60 percent coverage level or higher, for the next two available, consecutive crop years after the crop year for which WHIP+ payments were paid. Producers who fail to purchase crop insurance for the next two applicable, consecutive years will be required to pay back the WHIP+ payment.

Additional information about WHIP+ program eligibility and payment limitations can be found at farmers.gov/recover or by contacting your local USDA Service Center.

Additional Loss Coverage 

The Milk Loss Program will provide payments to eligible dairy operations for milk that was dumped or removed without compensation from the commercial milk market because of a qualifying 2018 and 2019 natural disaster. Producers who suffered losses of harvested commodities, including hay, stored in on-farm structures in 2018 and 2019 will receive assistance through the On-Farm Storage Loss Program.

Additionally, producers with trees, bushes or vines can receive both cost-share assistance through FSA’s Tree Assistance Program (TAP) for the cost of replanting and rehabilitating eligible trees and WHIP+ will provide payments based on the loss value of the tree, bush or vine itself. Therefore, eligible producers may receive both a TAP and a 2017 WHIP or WHIP+ payment for the same acreage. In addition, TAP policy has been updated to assist eligible orchardists or nursery tree growers of pecan trees with a tree mortality rate that exceeds 7.5 percent (adjusted for normal mortality) but is less than 15 percent (adjusted for normal mortality) for losses incurred during 2018. 

For more information on FSA disaster assistance programs, please contact your local USDA service center or visit farmers.gov/recover. For all available USDA disaster assistance programs, go to USDA’s disaster resources website.