By Bettina Boxall

Gary Serrato watched as a tractor worked its way across a field of dried-up weeds, slicing the sandy dirt into orderly furrows.

The field was being readied not for a crop but for what he hopes will be a bountiful harvest of floodwater this El Niño winter. “We’re going to capture as much as we can,” said Serrato, general manager of the Fresno Irrigation District.

He was standing in the district’s Boswell Groundwater Banking Facility near Fresno: A complex of 100 graded acres enclosed by low earthen berms. If El Niño lives up to its promise, early next year up to 10 feet of Kings River flood flows will inundate the shallow basins and slowly seep into the torn earth, replenishing growers’ groundwater supplies.

Boswell is one of four groundwater banking projects the district has built in the last decade to supplement supplies from Pine Flat Reservoir and corral periodic floodwaters that would otherwise disappear downstream.

“It’s worked out great for us,” Serrato said. “We intend to build more.”

Deep drought and predictions that climate change will substantially shrink the mountain snowpack that serves as nature’s reservoir are amping up calls for more water storage in California.

Long-standing proposals for costly new dams and reservoirs remain in play. But interest is also surging in projects such as the Boswell bank that are rewriting the standard storage script.

When the California Water Commission this year surveyed water agencies about storage proposals that might qualify for funding under Proposition 1, the 2014 water bond approved by state voters, half the responses involved groundwater projects, including one from Serrato’s district.

A confluence of factors is focusing attention on stowing supplies underground, which is generally cheaper and less environmentally damaging than building a big dam and reservoir.

A major force is the new state groundwater law that requires Californians over the next two decades to end the chronic over-pumping that has depleted many major aquifers.

Another driver is money. The days when the federal government would sweep in with a blank check for a mammoth storage project are over. And although Prop. 1 sets aside $2.7 billion for storage, the bond legislation specifies that the state will pay for no more than half of a project. That means local backers will have to dig into their pockets.

Though groundwater storage costs can vary substantially depending on the water source, the median price is significantly less than that of major new reservoirs, according to Stanford University researchers. Last year they concluded that the $2.7 billion in bond funding could provide six times more storage capacity if it is spent on groundwater projects than if it goes to the construction of new dams and reservoirs.

Many water experts say California needs more storage to buffer the effects of climate change, which is expected to intensify swings between very wet and very dry years. Global warming also means more precipitation will fall as rain, which creates heavy bursts of winter runoff, and less as snow, which melts slowly and fills reservoirs in the spring just as seasonal demand rises.

“We don’t have the pattern of runoff that we once did when most of our big projects were built,” said Lester Snow, a former secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency and who now heads the California Water Foundation.

“To compensate for that, we need to be able to capture some of the peak flows we’ll have … and get that into long-term storage,” Snow said.

The best way to do that, he argues, is to put it in the ground. “We don’t keep water in reservoirs. It gets used on an annual basis. Groundwater is far superior for putting water away for a long period of time.”

The state Department of Water Resources doesn’t have good figures on how much vacant, refillable space is available in California’s groundwater basins. But a department analysis suggests there is plenty — and more every year as Central Valley growers turn to wells to make up for steep, drought-related cuts in their irrigation deliveries.

From 2005 to 2010, the Central Valley groundwater table dropped an average of 9 feet. According to department estimates, that amounts to 5.4 million acre feet to 13.1 million acre feet of storage space.

In the Southland, a 2011 report for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California concluded the region has 3.5 million acre feet of unused aquifer space. (An acre foot is enough to supply two average households for a year.)

By comparison, the three biggest surface reservoir proposals under consideration would add a total of 3.8 million acre feet to the state’s storage capacity.

Still, there are limits to groundwater projects. The cheapest method of recharge is through spreading basins, which have to be located on relatively coarse-grained soil through which the water can percolate. There has to be a way of getting supplies to the recharge areas, and there has to be a source, whether flood flows, releases from surface reservoirs or recycled water. Compared with how quickly a reservoir can fill up and release supplies, groundwater recharge and withdrawal is a relatively slow process.

Moreover, said Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, “You got to be damn sure somebody else hasn’t dropped a straw” into the hidden reserves, something that is much easier to do with a surface reservoir.

None of that is stopping the long-neglected sibling of more glamorous dam projects from finally getting some attention, especially in the over-pumped San Joaquin Valley. To the south of Serrato’s district, the Semitropic Water Storage District is pursuing an ambitious proposal to revive a portion of historic Tulare Lake.

With the release of the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the California Farm Bureau Federation urged the state’s congressional delegation to support the agreement. The TPP would reduce barriers to trade among the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations.

“We’re glad to have the text of the agreement available, and we expect that to ease concerns people might have about the TPP,” CFBF President Paul Wenger said. “Fairer, more open trade will benefit people in all the countries represented in the agreement and in California, the opportunity to sell more goods in other countries will lead to new opportunities in both rural and urban areas.”

Because of California’s proximity to the Pacific Rim nations participating in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Wenger said the state is “uniquely positioned” to gain from it.

“California-grown food and farm products have a worldwide reputation for high quality, and our ports have the ability to deliver those products efficiently,” he said. “Farm exports provide jobs in rural areas, of course, but also lead to jobs at warehouses, ports, trucking companies and other urban businesses that move farm goods to customers around the world.”

For that reason, he said, California congressional representatives should support the TPP.

“We will be working with our representatives in Congress to describe the benefits of the agreement to their constituents, no matter what part of the state they represent,” Wenger said.

Link to news release

By Diane Nelson, UC Davis

Growers, researchers, policymakers and others can now pinpoint California’s most promising parcels of farmland to help replenish the state’s dwindling groundwater supplies, thanks to a new interactive map developed by the California Soil Resource Lab at the University of California, Davis. The Soil Agricultural Groundwater Banking Index provides site-specific information on millions of acres of California farmland based on previous research led by Toby O’Geen, a UC Cooperative Extension specialist with the UC Davis Department of Land, Air and Water Resources.

Before designing the Web-based map, O’Geen and his team identified about 3.6 million acres of farmland with good potential for groundwater banking, based on how likely the land could accommodate deep percolation with little risk of crop damage or groundwater contamination.

“A lot of growers are interested in learning how they can help improve the groundwater situation in California,” O’Geen said. “The index provides details on the groundwater-recharge potential for any parcel, which you can search for by address or access using your device’s GPS.”

Absorbing El Niño

Water tables have plummeted by more than 100 feet in some areas of California, as growers and others dig more wells and pump deeper into the Earth to replace diminishing surface-water supplies.

If a much-anticipated El Niño arrives this winter, California’s vast acres of farmland may hold the key to groundwater recharge by absorbing rainfall and flood flows.

“During storms and flood-control releases, excess river water could be routed through irrigation canals onto farms, where the surplus would seep underground to replenish groundwater,” said professor Helen Dahlke with the UC Davis Department of Land, Air and Water Resources. “On-farm flooding could also mitigate downstream flood risks.”

Rain check

What can farmers and water managers do in preparation for a potentially wet winter? UC Davis researchers offer these tips:

• Minimize fall applications of fertilizers and pesticides to protect groundwater quality.
• Maximize water infiltration by reducing soil compaction and improving soil structure with cover crops and amendments like mulch, compost, and gypsum.
• Clear and repair irrigation canals this fall, before the storms arrive.
• Clarify water rights as they pertain to capturing and applying large amounts of floodwater to cropland.

This December, Dahlke and a team of scientists will flood almond fields in the Central Valley, building on research that suggests that deliberately flooding farmland in winter can replenish aquifers without harming crops or drinking water.

“Adding an extra few feet of water to even just 10 percent of California’s cropland this winter could add an additional 3 million acre-feet of groundwater,” Dahlke said. “That could go a long way toward replenishing the 6 million acre-feet growers had to pump this year alone to cope with California’s drought.”

Link to article

A historic achievement for California rice – on the final day of the 7th Annual World Rice Conference, hosted this year in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, it was announced that the “World’s Best Rice” award had been won by California Calrose rice.

This is the first time California Calrose has been the sole recipient of the award. In 2013 it tied with Cambodia Jasmine rice.

The winning rice was chosen from a field of entries submitted by delegates from countries around the globe. The “World’s Best Rice” is decided by a panel of experts and international chefs, one of which was Chef Matthew Teruo Sato, whose Sacramento restaurant Ten22 won this year’s “Lord of Rice” culinary competition. The panel inspected the visual aspect of the rice and performed a sensory evaluation (pre-cooked and cooked).

Calrose is a medium-grain white rice that originated in California.  Nearly 2.5 million tons of rice are grown annually in the state, produced by nearly 2,500 farmers. California is the second largest rice growing state in the nation.

California rice is exported to Japan, Korea and Taiwan; the Middle East and Mediterranean markets; and the Caribbean and Pacific Islands. It is widely distributed throughout the United States, to the Korean and Japanese communities; specialty restaurants; and health food markets. Preferred for its processing characteristics, makers of cereals, baby food, rice flour and crisped rice for candy and health bar manufacturing all utilize California rice.

More than 550,000 acres or 98 percent of California’s rice is grown within 100 miles of Sacramento. For the rural Sacramento Valley counties of Colusa, Butte, Sutter and Yuba, rice is a primary crop and provides a substantial contribution to the economy.

Link to item at the California Rice Exchange

The latest segment in the Growing California video series, a partnership with California Grown, is “Farm to Folks.”

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo

By Nick Wilson

The state’s top agriculture leader urged about 250 people — mostly Cal Poly students — Thursday to lead change in the agriculture industry by taking innovative steps to conserve water and encouraging new and efficient ways to farm globally.

“In times of crisis, leadership can take hold and solve problems here and beyond borders,”Karen Ross, secretary of the Department of Food and Agriculture, urged the group in a campus forum at the university’s Chumash Auditorium. “You are going to change the world and for the positive.”

It was her third visit to the university this year to maintain a dialogue with the university on its research. This week, she met with faculty whose expertise includes hydrology and other water issues, animal health, climate change and healthy soils.

“I think the conversation with Cal Poly goes both ways,” Ross said. “There are initiatives that I can learn from and take back home and Cal Poly can be made aware of grants and programs. We’re leveraging our resources.”

Ross spoke to mostly students from the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences for about an hour.

A common thread of the discussion concerned the threat of losing significant amounts of agricultural land in California due to commercial and residential development, taxes associated with inheritance of farm land and a decline in multi-generational farming. Feeding a world population that’s projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050 is a key concern.

The USDA’s agency of Food Safety and Inspection Services is joining the Ad Council and Alvin and the Chipmunks (new movie: The Road Chip) to promote food safety with a video PSA targeted for children.

The PSA discusses the importance of safe food handling through the four steps to food safety: Clean, Separate, Cook and Chill.

By Whitney Forman-Cook

The House Agriculture Committee heard from the private sector Wednesday on how it plans to safely use the “big data” American producers collect with farm equipment during their day-to-day operations.

“Big data has what seems like a boundless potential to improve the efficiency, profitability and competiveness of our nation’s farmers and ranchers,” Chairman Mike Conaway said in his opening statement. But before the benefits of big data can be fully realized, the Texas Republican said, an important question needs answering: How can privacy and private property rights be protected when farmers willingly hand their data over to private companies?

Today’s farmers generate data regularly with their modern tractors, combines, sprayers and planters equipped with computers, sophisticated sensors and GPS. These highly intelligent machines can record data on an inch-by-inch scale, giving farmers precise information they can use to effectively adjust input levels, maximize yields and even reduce sediment and nutrient runoff.

Away from the farm, the same data can be used to inform product development, manufacturing, trade and potentially agriculture policy, if producers allow their information to be sent to a virtual repository known as the “cloud.”

Take AGCO, for instance. Matt Rushing, a vice president for the farm equipment manufacturer told lawmakers at the hearing that the company “encourages growers to share” the data its machines collect to better understand what can be done to improve its product.

And even though the data is transferred to AGCO via cloud computing systems for use by the company, Rushing said the farmer still “owns and should have control and responsibility for the data generated by his or her operation.”

Climate Corporation, the company responsible for the Climate FieldView Platform that uses real-time and historical crop and weather data to make farm management prescriptions, also asks producers to share their data.

“As a company that will utilize our customers’ data in the course of developing these transformational digital tools, we take our commitment to safe-guarding that data very seriously,” said Mike Stern, the president and CEO of the company, which was acquired by Monsanto in 2013. Those safeguards include a guarantee that the farmers’ data will only be used for the services they subscribe to, it won’t be sold or shared with third parties, and that it can upon request be removed from the company system if a farmer decides to cut ties.

Big data could, in theory, end up in the wrong hands however. The witnesses described situations where an investor could use aggregated data gathered by companies for an unfair advantage in the futures markets. And they raised the possibility that regulators could use the data to identify which farms are conservation compliant, and which are no longer eligible for crop insurance or other assistance programs.

Missouri Farm Bureau President Blake Hurst testified that his group, commodity associations such as the American Soybean Association and a number of big agribusinesses, including John Deere, DuPont Pioneer, Monsanto, are committed to developing a framework for the safe and transparent transfer of data that helps and protects farmers. But the government has to stay out of it, Hurst stressed.

“Farmers prefer this teamwork, ‘business-to-business’ approach over a regulatory approach or legislative ‘fix’ because we believe the market will provide the process to address problems if farmers have an equal footing with agribusinesses,” Hurst said. “If we rely on the government to make changes, the undue overhead might irreversibly deter innovation.”

The other hearing witnesses agreed that Congress could play a minor supportive role, but the free market should be allowed to establish its own standardized and secure process for transfer of agricultural data.

Billy Tiller, a fourth generation farmer, has done just that. As the cofounder and director of the Grower Information Service Cooperative (GiSC) – a farmer-owned data cooperative that advocates for grower data ownership and transparency in private sector data handling – Tiller testified that “big data” will only benefit family operations if farmers can safely share their information with other parties.

That’s why GiSC is developing “a secure data platform” that “integrates and stores data from the myriad of technologies adopted by the ag community” and also “allow growers to share data with others” while maintaining ownership.

GiSC said its platform will be called “AgXchange,” and expects its current membership of 1,300 farmers in 37 states to grow once it’s formally deployed.

Link to article

Farms are encouraged to accept flood flows from storms to help recharge groundwater.

From Sustainable Conservation:

After a harrowing string of dry years, California pines for wet weather. With summer in the rearview mirror, our farms, communities, and wildlife sure could use a hydrating boost this winter.

The Golden State’s record-breaking drought has prompted widely voiced concerns about farming’s use of water. At the same time, our agricultural sector helps feed the nation. How can California conserve and protect water while providing sustenance to millions?

Sustainable Conservation has a plan to marry these pivotal actions. Expanding upon our work in the Kings River Basin, we’re mobilizing San Joaquin Valley farmers to accept flood flows from pending storms onto active cropland to help replenish groundwater – California’s underground “savings account” for parched seasons.

And, we’re thrilled to announce a remarkable new partner in our outreach: the Almond Board of California. The key group – which represents nearly 7,000 almond growers and processors on approximately one million acres throughout the state – has committed to being part of California’s groundwater solution with us.

With forecasts calling for strong El Niño rains, we’re just in time. Throughout the arid months of summer and into the fall, Sustainable Conservation has been working diligently to line up willing farmers with the right soils to demonstrate our strategy as soon as precipitation returns.

The technique more closely mimics the natural floodplain process of rivers spreading seasonally across the valley and recharging over-tapped aquifers below. By allowing waterways to stream back onto agricultural lands with sandy, permeable soils and applying water at rates compatible with crop production, we can also reduce the risk of flooding to downstream communities.

“Both the Almond Board and Sustainable Conservation believe that a healthy environment and farming sector can only be achieved through collaboration and uniting around common goals.”
Ashley Boren, Executive Director, Sustainable Conservation

Through nearly 100 innovative Almond Board-funded research projects since 1994, California almond growers have incorporated irrigation practices that reduced the amount of water needed to grow each pound of almonds by 33%*.

As part of our partnership, a team of Almond Board-funded UC Davis researchers will monitor three of the ten demonstration plots we are selecting in the San Joaquin Valley to test on-farm recharge this winter. Findings will assist in identifying the orchard practices and recharge conditions best suited for almond tree health, and the Almond Board will map where additional orchards can be part of replenishing our subterranean stores.

Bold alliances are needed now more than ever, and we’re proud to join forces with this vital industry player to build a powerful buffer against future droughts. Ever the solution match-maker, we’re hoping to unite storm with soil very soon to the benefit of our Golden State’s environment and people.

“Almond growers understand and share the concerns of many Californians about agriculture’s impact on state and local water resources, especially during this prolonged drought. Almond growers are part of the fabric of their local communities, often living on the land that their families have farmed for generations. Their own families, communities, and neighbors are equally impacted by groundwater concerns. These efforts focus on leveraging a significant attribute of the California Almond industry – the land dedicated to growing almonds – to continue our efforts to do our part to realize a sustainable California water supply.”
Richard Waycott, President and CEO, Almond Board of California

Link to Sustainable Conservation