CDFA Secretary Karen Ross joined the California State Fair and state agricultural leaders this week for the annual Ag Heritage Breakfast, a fair-sponsored event that recognizes the pioneers of California agriculture – Ag operations in business for 100 years or more.

The Ag Heritage tradition dates back to the 1940’s, beginning as a 100-year club and expanding its horizons as time passed.

“These farms, ranches and ag organizations were there at the beginning, helping to create the miracle of California agriculture we see today,” said Secretary Ross. “They’re also an essential part of our future as they’re committed to keeping their operations productive for generations to come. They have found the measures of resiliency and flexibility necessary for success, and they’re a shining example for all who have followed. ”

The following farming and ranching operations, and ag organizations were honored at the breakfast:

• Bert Owens Ranches
• California Cattlemen’s Association
• Davis Lumber and Hardware Co.
• Fillmore Farms
• Fresno County Farm Bureau
• Gomes Ranch
• Hine Ranch
• Jackie Baker
• Kern County Fair
• Kern County Farm Bureau
• Los Angeles County Farm Bureau
• MacLean Ranch
• River Vista Farms
• Riverside County Farm Bureau
• Ryan Ranch
• Sacramento County Farm Bureau
• Shasta County Farm Bureau
• S-K Ranch Management LLC
• Sonoma County Farm Bureau
• Tulare County Farm Bureau
• Winton-Ireland, Strom & Green Insurance Agency
• Yerxa Farms

By Karen Ross

All over California, it’s “fair season.”

County fairs are serving up the best that California has to offer and, in our capital city, the California State Fair is in the midst of its Golden Anniversary season at Sacramento’s Cal Expo—the 50th year the fair has been housed there! A half-century of corn dogs, fried foods of all shapes and sizes, and dazzling neon midways. But the State Fair’s value to its community and to the state of California goes much deeper than that, and its complete history is much, much longer.

The State Fair began in 1854 in San Francisco, and was a showcase for agriculture: fruits, vegetables, flowers, grains and livestock. That tradition carries on today and is an anchor at the State Fair as well as many local fairs throughout California.

Livestock competitions are outstanding opportunities for young people; The Farm at the State Fair features a host of crops; the annual wine competition and tasting pavilion showcase California’s world-class vintages; and the State Fair honors its own heritage by celebrating farmers, ranchers and agricultural groups with 100 years of history behind them. Farming and ranching still drive California’s growth and development, and our fairs take pride in highlighting that each and every year.

The fairs are great venues for Californians to demonstrate their skills in a variety of pursuits. A tour of the many exhibits shows impressive talent in art, photography and design, as well as more traditional agrarian pursuits such as canning and baking. It’s inspiring to see that many of those competitive entries come from our young people.

All of California’s fairs serve as community gathering points. Hundreds of thousands of people flock to them annually, and not just for fair runs. They attend concerts, trade shows and sales events. Cal Expo hosts the Global Winter Wonderland during the holiday season, Sacramento Republic FC during pro soccer season, and a year-round monument to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack at the World Trade Center in New York City. California’s fairs believe in service to their communities, and they are committed to the idea that the fair run is just the beginning.

Our fairs also serve as critical emergency shelters. They have housed the homeless during the cold winter months, stood by as cooling centers during periods of extreme heat, and stepped in time and time again to serve as shelters for people and animals in times of natural disaster, as well as command posts for emergency responders working to overcome those disasters.

Just recently, as a devastating wildfire burned near Oroville, the fairgrounds in Chico opened its gates and prepared to work with other emergency organizations to provide a range of services to evacuees. There was also a fire camp set up on the grounds at the Siskiyou Golden Fair in Yreka, and they housed animals at the Calaveras County Fairgrounds  in Angels Camp due to local fires, as well.

A heartwarming example of these disaster-response efforts came earlier this year, when a Northern California couple forced to evacuate due to the threat of collapse at the Oroville Dam went ahead with their planned wedding at their emergency shelter, the Placer County fairgrounds. A squadron of volunteers came together to arrange for a tuxedo and dress, food and drink, and even a limo and wedding night lodging. At the San Diego County Fair, there is an annual event, “My Big Fair Wedding Day,” featuring couples getting hitched at the fair’s annual garden show.

As fairs move into the future, they will continue to look for ways to fully integrate in their communities in a year-round fashion. It’s important to remember they are bona fide public assets and essential institutions that serve Californians in many significant ways.

Link to Ag Alert

By Tyler Hersko

Ventura County farmers can now buy and sell groundwater on a formal market.

The market, the first of its kind in California, experts say will improve the economic value of farming and boost conservation efforts throughout the region.

The Fox Canyon Water Market and Advanced Metering Pilot was created this year in response to legal and environmental concerns that posed ongoing issues for agriculture businesses, especially during the recent drought when water supplies were tightened for farmers and cities.

Laws and regulations limit farmers’ groundwater extraction and usage, which could create problems of waste and inflexibility for those with an excess water supply.

Conversely, farmers with an insufficient water supply previously lacked a formal system that would allow them to purchase groundwater from other agricultural businesses.

The Fox Canyon project allows farmers with too much groundwater to sell the excess to those who need more.

On one hand, this can allow farmers to make money, as water is a valuable commodity essential to farm work. In addition to its financial impact, the water market can also serve as an important conservation tool for county farms, according to the program’s creators. When water becomes scarcer, its market price will rise, which will presumably increase incentives to conserve.

To complicate the issue, California regulations such as overlying rights indirectly encourage farmers to use their land’s water supply, lest other nearby farmers use it, which creators of the Fox Canyon project say promotes a “use it or lose it” mentality.

As further regulations and restrictions on groundwater extraction are likely to impact the county in the near future, creating a system to manage groundwater was important, said Matthew Fienup, executive director of the California Lutheran University Center for Economic Research and Forecasting (CERF).

Fienup cited regulations such as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, a collection of bills that aims to strengthen local and regional oversight of groundwater conservation, as something that farmers would need to adapt to keep thriving. While such acts are designed to combat poor groundwater management and prevent environmental damage, he stressed they necessitate the creation of a water market to help farmers handle increased legal restrictions.

“The reality is that Ventura County is looking at significant cuts to groundwater extraction in the years ahead largely as a result of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act,” Fienup said. “The really important question is: What tools do we have in order to give water users flexibility and to maintain the viability of ag in the county? Water trading is one of the most promising tools.”

Fienup worked with approximately 50 local farmers, city representatives and environmental experts to create the market, which officially launched on the Oxnard Plain earlier this year. The market, managed by CERF, has been awarded a $1.9 million grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to expand the project in late 2017. Although similar markets exist in areas such as Australia, the Fox Canyon pilot is the first of its kind in California.

The water market has potential to both sustain local agriculture and improve its economic value, said Terry Farms owner and CLU professor Edgar Terry, one of the project’s creators. Terry looked at the water market from a practical perspective and said that as water is a crucial commodity for farmers, the county would benefit from a formal system to trade it.

“Given that we have constraints on how much water we can use as a grower, what if I have excess water and my neighbor needs to buy a certain amount of water?” Terry said. “There was no system in the county to do that, which didn’t make sense. Water is an asset (and) I’ve always believed that assets are more efficient when they can be traded in a robust market.”

Terry noted that his own Santa Paula-based Terry Farms was the kind of agriculture business that would benefit from the project, as greater access to water would improve his ability to farm.

“I want to be able to have the flexibility to go to the marketplace and be able to acquire the water that I may not be able to have but somebody else has so I can finish the crops I’m growing,” Terry said. “That’s how I make my living: I grow crops and this area is not conducive to growing dryland wheat. That’s what the marketplace will allow small growers to do.”

While the system is designed to facilitate access to groundwater, it can also help farms that would otherwise lack the resources to stay in business, Fienup said. He added that though the initial positive impacts of the water market were clear, the program is still in its early stages and would likely prosper further down the road due to potential future drought and additional legal restrictions on groundwater usage.

The water market also has a physical element in the form of an advanced, automatic metering program that is designed provide real-time monitoring of groundwater pumping to project participants. The program, developed by Ranch Systems LLC, aims to help farmers further track their pumping

Agriculture experts such as John Krist, CEO of the Farm Bureau of Ventura County, agree the market could be an economic booster with strong potential for conservation. Without access to groundwater, swaths of farmland would need to be taken out of commission, and programs that could prevent farm closures are essential to the county, Krist said.

“We will have another drought and having (the water market) in place will be even more imperative than it is now,” Krist said. “Anything that can maintain the economic viability of the ag industry contributes to the stability and vitality of the county. You don’t want to see 50,000 acres out of production.”

In the long term, the market’s creators hope to extend the program beyond local farming and believe that the Fox Canyon water market can serve as a model for the state. Currently, the pilot program is limited to farmers near Camarillo, Oxnard and Ventura, though its creators aim to eventually expand it to the rest of the county. Terry also said that Ventura County’s cities could also find value in the program in the future, and referred to the water market’s end goal as having farmers trading water with cities and vice versa.

As the water market is still in its infancy, project leaders are unsure when such expansions could occur, but noted that funds from the $1.9 million United States Department of Agriculture grant would greatly assist its eventual growth. Work on the water market has also been bolstered by a $70,000 grant secured by the Economic Development Collaborative-Ventura County for the project. The Morgan Family Foundation, California Stewardship Network funded the $70,000 grant.

The Nature Conservancy, a Virginia-based environmental organization, will administer the grant and work with CERF staff to permanently establish the water market later in the year.

Link to story

California’s Cap and Trade Program has been in the news a lot lately as elected officials consider its future. To further that discussion, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) provides the following summary of activities that are supported by the California Climate Investment Program with funds from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund:

State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program (SWEEP)

In 2016-17, the Department was awarded $7.5 million in Greenhouse Gas Reduction Funds to provide financial assistance in the form of grants to implement irrigation systems that reduce GHGs and save water on California agricultural operations. Now in its fourth year, this program has funded a total of 577 projects totaling $57.5 million. As of July 3^rd CDFA has announced this year’s 58 award recipients and look forward to projects breaking ground soon.

Healthy Soils Program (HSP)

2017 will mark the first year of incentives available for the Healthy Soils Program. The goal is to build soil carbon and reduce agricultural GHG emissions. This will include funding to support specific management practices and demonstration projects. In 2016-17, the Department was awarded $7.5 million and anticipates a formal Request for Grant Applications to be released by the end of this month. The Department has also partnered with the Strategic Growth Council to offer funding to non-profit organizations, California’s Resource Conservation Districts and California academic institutions to provide technical assistance to potential applicants applying for the Healthy Soils Program. Applications are accepted until the July 20^th deadline.

Dairy Digester Research and Development Program (DDRDP)

The Department’s Dairy Digester Research and Development Program provides financial assistance for the installation of dairy digesters in California, which will result in reduced GHG emissions. In 2016-17, the Department received $50 million from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (AB 1613 Section 13. Item 8570-101-3228) for methane emissions reductions from dairy and livestock operations. This will be the second round of incentives for dairy digester installations or retrofits (the Department awarded $12 million for 6 projects in 2015). The Department plans to allocate $29-36 million from the total $50 million appropriation as incentives to support digester projects on California dairy operations. With the June 28^th closure of the deadline for grant applications, the Department has received 36 applications totaling $75.7 million. The Department anticipates announcing awards after technical review in September of this year.

Alternative Manure Management Program (AMMP)

Milk and dairy products are important protein and nutrient food sources for human health. California leads the nation in milk production and California dairies are some of the most efficient and innovative in the world. One tradeoff is the production of methane, a GHG and a short-lived climate pollutant, from livestock manure. Management practices exist for reducing methane emissions from animal manure through non-digester methodologies.. The Alternative Manure Management Program is currently being developed and implemented by the Department to support non-digester dairy methane reduction practices. In 2016-17, the Department received $50 million from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (AB 1613 Section 13. Item 8570-101-3228) for methane emissions reductions from dairy and livestock operations The Department will allocate $9-16 million from the total $50 million appropriation as incentives to support project development to support the AMMP objective. The Department’s application is currently available for public comment and a final request for applications is expected to be released in August.

To learn more about the Department’s Office of Environmental Farming and Innovation, which houses these programs, please visit https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/oefi/; and to learn more about California’s Climate Strategy, visit http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/.

 

By Ann Hayden

During times of water scarcity, like California’s recent drought, it’s tempting to take on a binary view of the world.  This was definitely the case with agriculture, which appeared to be at odds with everyone: farms vs. fish, farm vs. cities, farms vs. regulators.  As a dominant water user in the state, they were easy targets.

But when one digs deeper, it’s obvious that many in the agricultural community want to move beyond this debate and do things differently. Yes growing food and fiber takes water, but there are plenty of farmers laser-focused on improving efficiency, maximizing multi-benefit solutions and striking a balance between growing crops and preserving the environment.

I recently visited with Cannon Michael, president of Bowles Farming Company, which oversees an 11,000-acre farm near Los Banos in California’s San Joaquin Valley. He is the great, great, great grandson of Henry Miller, “the Cattle King of California,” so farming is in his blood. He has senior water rights, and while he still had to make difficult management decisions during the drought, he ended up with more water than many of his neighbors and found ways to share it, a tremendous display of collaboration in the farming community.

Now Cannon is working with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to create a plan to enhance agriculture and wildlife benefits on his property and serve as a model for others. Below, he shares his thoughts.

Your family has a long and storied history in California agriculture. Did you always know you would follow the family tradition?

I’m the 6th generation of my family to work in California agriculture. But it wasn’t always the career path I was planning on. I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and I often visited the farm as a young boy. I have vivid memories of driving out to the country, opening the car door and running for miles – the freedom was amazing. In high school I worked every summer on the farm and enjoyed learning to irrigate, drive tractors and the value of a hard day’s work. I graduated from UC Berkeley and started down a different career path, but eventually I found my way back to the country. Agriculture is in my blood, and I was destined to be a farmer.

How have you adjusted to less water availability?

We were pretty proactive over a decade ago and installed drip irrigation. To be frank, this wasn’t done over water concerns alone; we saw it as an opportunity to increase yield and improve the quality of our products, especially tomatoes. During the recent drought, we were able to leverage drip irrigation and continue to grow our operations. It also opened up opportunities for us to strategically fallow some ground and transfer water to some of our neighbors who had no supply at all.

To what degree do sustainability and conservation factor in to the management decisions you make on the farm? What drives your conservation ethic?

Farmers inherently know what sustainability is. We must be sustainable if we want to continue to grow good products and stay in business. I don’t see any farmer intentionally wanting to do things that impact their workers, the surrounding environment that they live in or their end consumers. That isn’t a good or logical strategy.

That’s not to say that farmers can’t be doing more. There’s a learning piece to sustainability. I may be able to grow a great crop of tomatoes, but I didn’t know what it took to successfully restore habitat areas on the farm. My core strength isn’t being a biologist or a habitat restoration expert. That’s why it’s nice to have partners, like EDF, and the opportunities presented through the Central Valley Habitat Exchange. That way I can make sustainable, holistic management decisions that benefit my farm and the surrounding environment.

What type of conservation practices or restoration projects have you implemented on your property?

We worked with biologists and habitat restoration specialists to reestablish water fowl habitat and riparian corridors on the property. It really had a profound impact on me when I realized just how much diversity we were supporting. I remember when we got the first bird survey back after we completed the riparian corridor work it said we had 49 different species of bird. Looking at a field of tomatoes, there are variances – but it’s still just a field of tomatoes. So it’s pretty amazing that in the same area there’s also all these species of birds, butterflies and terrestrial species. It adds a richness to the place and brings diversity to the day. I used to find myself looking out of only one side of my truck window at the cropland, but now as I drive, I slow down and focus equally on our habitat.

Farmers and environmentalists have often been at odds when it comes to land and water management. Are you hopeful this dynamic can change?

I think the dynamic is changing because the agricultural community and environmentalists are finding a lot of overlap in our work and shared goals for a healthy environment and reliable water supply. We all recognize the challenges of a limited water supply so everyone is coming to the table to figure out how to cope. It’s important to remember that there are intelligent and motivated people on both sides. The environmental community brings a lot of information and expertise on habitat and riparian restoration. Farmers know how to get projects done, and they know the local context. So there’s a really great synergy happening between the two groups. At the end of the day, we all want a vibrant and healthy environment in California and a reliable and safe food supply.

Link to blog post