The Growing California video series, a partnership between CDFA and California Grown produced in association with California State University, Sacramento, has been recognized with three 2014 Telly Awards, a video competition now in its 35th year. Growing California also won three Tellys in 2013.

Two of the segments that won, “Blossom Buddies (parts 1 and 2)” and “From Service to Harvest,” were honored in the category of Online Video – Information. The third video, “Onion Power,” was recognized in the category of Social Responsibility.

Growing California is an in-depth look at the many ways farming and ranching touches our lives – going beyond food production, although that is certainly featured prominently. The series also highlights food access, the diversity of California agriculture, and protection against invasive species. The winning videos are below.

About the Growing California video series.

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Cora Barrera, a CDFA inspector, uses a magnifier as she searches for Asian citrus psyllids in a citrus grove in Fresno.
ERIC PAUL ZAMORA — THE FRESNO BEE

By Robert Rodriguez

Armed with magnifying glasses and bug-sucking aspirators, state agriculture technicians are in Fresno, checking residential citrus trees for any signs of the Asian citrus psyllid and the tree-killing disease it can carry.

The psyllid poses one of the greatest threats to California’s nearly $2 billion citrus industry and officials want to keep it from gaining a foothold in the central San Joaquin Valley.

Inspectors will spend several weeks in the Fresno area and then move into Tulare County — the largest citrus producer in the state.

“We don’t want this disease here,” said Cora Barrera, a state technician. “It would be a disaster.”

Barrera recently checked several trees at a home near Fresno Pacific University in southeast Fresno. Using her magnifying glass, she looked for tell-tale signs on the tree’s leaves: dull orange-yellow nymphs and the waxy tubules that push honeydew away from their body. She also looked for adult psyllids that are about 1/8 of an inch and brownish.

When Barrera finds a psyllid, she catches the insect using an aspirator and drops it into a glass tube. Any bugs caught will be tested for the disease.

A team of about six state technicians, including Barrera, will visit thousands of homes in the city.

Jennifer Romero, an environmental scientist with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, said that so far no psyllids have been found nor any sign of the disease they carry, huanglongbing, also known as citrus greening.

Citrus farmers fear the disease because there is no known cure. Infected trees produce bitter-tasting fruit and eventually die. In Florida, the nation’s orange juice capital, the disease has caused $1.3 billion in lost revenue over the past several years.

So far, the disease has only been found in one residential tree in the Hacienda Heights area of Southern California. But the psyllids have spread throughout the region, and a massive quarantine prohibits the movement of citrus fruit and trees out of the area.

Despite the regulatory net, the bug has hitchhiked its way to the Valley, having been caught in insect traps in Fresno and Tulare counties. To keep the psyllid in check, farmers have sprayed their groves and the state has treated residential trees where the psyllids have been caught.

A quarantine also has been put in place that covers 870 square miles of the Valley’s citrus belt.

But all that still isn’t enough, experts say. One key lesson learned from Florida’s losing battle with the disease is early detection and prevention.

Door-to-door residential inspections have been used in Southern California since the discovery of the disease in 2012.

Using a method developed by U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist Tim Gottwald, the survey targets specific areas with potential risk factors. The factors are many, but include proximity to commercial citrus groves, roads used by trucks transporting citrus and flea markets.

Experts say citrus trees at flea markets and swap meets are sold without the benefit of government inspection and should be avoided.

So far, the state’s inspectors have surveyed more than 1,000 homes in Fresno and hundreds more remain.

Romero said fortunately for the inspectors most residents don’t mind the visits.

“We really have not had any problems and it helps that people are aware of the disease,” she said. “They also don’t want to lose their own trees.”

If the resident isn’t home, the state will leave an information sheet about the bug and disease and information for setting up a future home visit.

Gene Hannon, entomologist with the Fresno County Department of Agriculture, urged owners of citrus trees to be vigilant about checking their own trees. He also said that people should avoid bringing home any citrus from the Southern California area; buying citrus trees at flea markets; or grafting trees from Southern California or any other region with the disease.

“The more people are aware, the better able we are to keep this disease out of our area,” Hannon said. “We don’t want to have this problem.”

Link to story

While in Mexico City last week, Governor Brown met with Secretary Navarrete Prida of the Mexican Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare and signed a letter of intent to address labor rights issues for temporary Mexican workers in California – a matter of high importance, of course, for California’s farmers and ranchers. Moving forward from that promising development, we are working to create a pilot program than connects at least one California agricultural employer with Mexican officials to establish a set of protocols. Our objective is to help curb migrant worker abuse on a national and international basis, and provide stronger assurances to California agricultural employers that migrant labor employed within a H-2A program are not subject to illegal fees, misrepresentation of employment terms, fraud and other issues.

California, the U.S. Department of Labor, and a network of cross border nongovernmental organizations would work with Mexico to establish a bi-nationally available register of certified labor recruitment agencies. In addition, Mexico would develop a system for monitoring, verifying and supervising the activities carried out by recruitment agencies. In California, the state would identify agricultural employers that voluntarily commit to using certified recruiters.

In the absence of a national immigration solution, This pilot program can be a great benefit to California’s agricultural community and strengthen our bi-lateral ties with Mexico.

By Jeffrey Mount and Jay Lund, UC Davis, and Emma Freeman, PPIC

Water in California is shared across three main sectors. Statewide, average water use is roughly 50% environmental, 40% agricultural, and 10% urban. However, the percentage of water use by sector varies dramatically across regions and between wet and dry years. Some of the water used by each of these sectors returns to rivers and groundwater basins, and can be used again.

Environmental water use falls into four categories: water in rivers protected as “wild and scenic” under federal and state laws, water required for maintaining habitat within streams, water that supports wetlands within wildlife preserves, and water needed to maintain water quality for agricultural and urban use. Most water allocated to the environment does not affect other water uses. More than half of California’s environmental water use occurs in rivers along the state’s north coast. These waters are largely isolated from major agricultural and urban areas and cannot be used for other purposes. In the rest of California where water is shared by all three sectors, environmental use is not dominant (33%, compared to 53% agricultural and 14% urban).

Agricultural water use is holding steady even while the economic value of farm production is growing. Approximately nine million acres of farmland in California are irrigated, representing roughly 80% of all human water use. Higher revenue perennial crops—nuts, grapes, and other fruit—have increased as a share of irrigated crop acreage (from 27% in 1998 to 32% in 2010 statewide, and from 33% to 40% in the southern Central Valley). This shift, plus rising crop yields, has increased the value of farm output (from $16.3 billion of gross state product in 1998 to $22.3 billion in 2010, in 2010 dollars), thereby increasing the value of agricultural water used. But even as the agricultural economy is growing, the rest of the economy is growing faster. Today, farm production and food processing only generate about 2% of California’s gross state product, down from about 5% in the early 1960s.

Despite population growth, total urban water use is also holding steady. The San Francisco Bay and South Coast regions account for most urban water use in California. These regions rely heavily on water imported from other parts of the state. Roughly half of urban water use is for residential and commercial landscaping. Despite population growth and urban expansion, total urban water use has remained roughly constant over the past 20 years. Per-capita water use has declined significantly—from 232 gallons per day in 1990 to 178 gallons per day in 2010—reflecting substantial efforts to reduce water use through pricing incentives and mandatory installation of water saving technologies like low-flow toilets and shower heads. Coastal regions use far less water per capita than inland regions—145 gallons per day compared with 276 gallons per day in 2010—largely because of less landscape watering.

The current drought exposes major water use challenges. In the Central Valley, where most agricultural water use occurs, the failure to manage groundwater sustainably limits its availability as a drought reserve. The increase in perennial crops—which need to be watered every year—has made the region even more vulnerable. In urban areas, the greatest potential for further water savings lies in reducing landscaping irrigation—a shift requiring behavioral changes, not just the adoption of new technology. Finally, state and federal regulators must make tough decisions about how and when to allocate water to the environment during a drought. They are faced with balancing short-term economic impacts on urban and agricultural water users against long-term harm—even risk of extinction—of fish and wildlife.

Link to item on PPIC web site

The latest segment in the Growing California video series, a partnership with California Grown, is “Wine Connections.”

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The annual National Farmers Market Week is being observed this week (August 3-9).  It’s a time worth celebrating because of the key role farmers’ markets play in connecting consumers to the people who produce their fresh fruits and vegetables. At a time when there is more interest and questions than ever before about the origins of food, these markets have the answers, thanks to producers with plenty of information to share with their customers. Additionally, many of the markets do outreach on nutrition, provide help with food access, where needed, and offer a great way for people to buy California Grown!

California leads the nation with more than 800 certified farmers markets, serving as venues for an estimated 2,200 certified agricultural producers selling high-quality produce directly to consumers. CDFA created the Certified Farmers Market Program in 1977—the first in the nation—to provide consumers with the assurance that they are buying directly from producers. In California, many of the markets operate year-round due to the availability of local produce.

Please join us in celebrating National Farmers’ Market Week by visiting a certified farmers’ market near you.

Antelope Valley Fair
8/15/2014 to 8/24/2014
Lancaster, CA

Butte County Fair
8/21/2014 to 8/24/2014
Gridley, CA

Eastern Sierra Tri-County Fair
8/28/2014 to 8/31/2014
Bishop, CA

Humboldt County Fair
8/13/2014 to 8/24/2014
Ferndale, CA

Inter-Mountain Fair of Shasta
8/29/2013 to 9/2/2013
McArthur, CA

Lake County Fair
8/28/2014 to 8/31/2014
Lakeport, CA

Los Angeles County Fair
8/29/2014 to 9/28/2014
Pomona, CA

Mariposa County Fair & Homecoming
8/29/2014 to 9/1/2014
Mariposa, CA

Modoc District Fair
8/22/2013 to 8/25/2013
Cedarville, CA

Monterey County Fair
8/27/2014 to 9/1/2014
Monterey, CA

Nevada County Fair
8/6/2014 to 8/10/2014
Grass Valley, CA

Orange County Fair
7/11/2014 to 8/10/2014
Costa Mesa, CA

Plumas-Sierra County Fair
8/13/2014 to 8/17/2014
Quincy, CA

Redwood Empire Fair
7/31/2014 to 8/3/2014
Ukiah, CA

Santa Clara County Fair
8/1/2014 to 8/4/2014
San Jose, CA

Siskiyou Golden Fair
8/6/2014 to 8/10/2014
Yreka, CA

Solano County Fair
7/30/2014 to 8/3/2014
Vallejo, CA

Sonoma County Fair & Exposition
7/24/2014 to 8/10/2014
Santa Rosa, CA

The Valley Fair
8/15/2014 to 8/26/2014
Lancaster, CA

Trinity County Fair
8/8/2014 to 8/10/2014
Hayfork, CA

Ventura County Fair
7/30/2014 to 8/10/2014
Ventura, CA

Yolo County Fair
8/13/2014 to 8/17/2014
Woodland, CA

Yuba-Sutter Fair
7/31/2014 to 8/3/2014
Yuba City, CA