By Lori Pottinger

Farmers use the lion’s share of California’s groundwater, but they also do the most to rebuild depleted reserves of this critically important water source. We talked to Graham Fogg—a groundwater expert at UC Davis and a member of the PPIC Water Policy Center research network—about farmland groundwater recharge.

PPIC: How do farms recharge groundwater?

Graham Fogg: Crops don’t use all the water they get through irrigation—a lot seeps into underlying groundwater. Farms also move water from place to place through leaky ditches. The type of irrigation can affect the amount of recharge. For example, with flood irrigation a large fraction can end up back in the aquifer—commonly as much as a third or more. With micro-irrigation, a larger fraction of applied water is taken up by plants, and less ends up recharging groundwater.

Many farmers have adopted micro-irrigation technology. Farmers prefer groundwater when using drip systems because it’s free of sediment that can clog emitters, and groundwater is available whenever the farmer needs to run the system, sometimes multiple times a week. The result is that drip-irrigated farms may pump more groundwater—and they’re not recharging the aquifer as much. It’s an unintended consequence of more efficient irrigation.

PPIC: Are farmers being encouraged to recharge groundwater?

GF: The drought has helped many farmers realize the importance of better groundwater management, and some are figuring out how they can do more recharging on their land. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act will require better management and balanced water budgets in each basin. This can be achieved with decreased groundwater pumping or increased recharge. In essence, we need to start managing groundwater systems in ways that are similar to surface storage reservoirs and use recharge as a hedge against future drought.

If we continue to rely on irrigation for most of our recharge, it raises questions about groundwater quality. Water that goes through farmland is more likely than non-farm recharge to be tainted with salts, nitrates, and some pesticides.

PPIC: What practices can improve California’s groundwater supplies?

GF: We need to do a variety of things to bank groundwater or face the prospect of having to reduce pumping in dry years and in depleted basins. One solution with high potential is “spreading basins.” These are flat places with the right soils and geological conditions for ponding water so it can infiltrate the aquifer. We need to map these surface and subsurface features and take steps to protect them for recharge purposes.

The Central Valley is not only home to some of our most over-tapped groundwater basins, but also to lands with good potential for fast infiltration. One promising approach is routing excess winter runoff onto farmlands, where irrigation infrastructure can be used to spread the water and recharge groundwater. This practice is gaining much interest from farmers.

We also can manage rivers to encourage recharge, bringing benefits to entire basins. Rivers can recharge groundwater with seepage through their beds. And when rivers overflow their banks, water spreads across the floodplain. Two approaches with high potential to improve groundwater conditions are moving levees back to reconnect rivers with their floodplains, and managing groundwater and surface water as an integrated system. When groundwater systems fill to the point of spilling over, rivers and wetlands stay wet, and there’s a natural exits for groundwater contaminants. Without such exits, these basins will become increasingly polluted over time.

Link to PPIC blog post

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced the availability of $4.7 million in grants for food safety education, training, and technical assistance projects that address the needs of owners and operators of small to mid-sized farms, beginning farmers, socially-disadvantaged farmers, small processors, small fresh fruit and vegetable merchant wholesalers, food hubs, farmers’ markets, and others. The grants, offered through the Food Safety Outreach Program and administered by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), are designed to help these stakeholders comply with new food safety guidelines established by the Food and Drug Administration under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).

“As growing demand for local food creates new economic opportunities for small farms, beginning farmers, and others, we are committed to ensuring that all types of farmers and businesses have the tools they need to be successful,” said Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack. “By supporting projects that offer tailored training, education, and technical assistance for producers and processors of local food, these grants will benefit producers, the entire food supply chain, and consumers.”

This year, NIFA will fund three types of projects to help producers comply with FSMA. Pilot projects will support the development and implementation of new and potentially high-risk, high-impact food safety education and outreach programs in local communities that address the needs of small, specialized audiences from among the various target groups. Community outreach projects will focus on the growth and expansion of already-existing food safety education and outreach programs that are currently offered in local communities. Multistate Education and training projects will support the development and implementation of multi-county, state-wide, or multi-state food safety education and outreach programs where there are common food safety concerns, but the states are not necessarily located within the same regions.

Applications are due June 2. See the request for applications on the NIFA website for more information.

Link to full news release

 

By John Holland

First you steal a truck driver’s identity. Then you show up at an almond processing plant and make off with a semi load worth perhaps $100,000.

That happens more and more these days in the San Joaquin Valley’s nut industry, an expert told a Modesto audience Thursday.

Almond, walnut, pistachio and pecan companies are at risk from sophisticated thieves who know the industry and can elude security measures, said Scott Cornell, a cargo theft specialist with the Travelers insurance company.

“It’s high profit, low risk for them,” Cornell said at a summit on nut theft at the DoubleTree Hotel, sponsored by the Western Agricultural Processors Association and American Pistachio Growers.

The event happened on the same day the state Assembly Committee on Agriculture approved a bill that would create a task force to improve tracking and prosecution of people who steal nuts and other farm products by the truckload. It was introduced by Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen, R-Riverbank.

“Every coordinated and successful attempt at cargo theft is a direct hit on not only the pockets of hardworking farmers and farmworkers in California, but on our state’s economy,” Olsen said in a news release.

More than 30 nut cargo thefts were reported in the last six months, a loss of more than $10 million, said Roger Isom, president and CEO of the processor group.

Cornell said thieves create fake ID cards, insurance certificates and other documents and look for loads to steal on websites advertising per-trip trucking jobs.

“People believe that that (legitimate) guy picked up the load, when in fact it was a bad guy who picked up the load,” he said.

Dave Phippen, an almond grower and processor north of Ripon, said he supports the task force idea. His security measures already include a thumbprint from the hauler, a copy of the driver’s license and a photo of this person taken by one of Phippen’s employees.

“We pretty much interrogate the driver who comes here to pick up a load,” he said.

His company, Travaille and Phippen Inc., has not had a theft since 2006, when two semi containers with a total of about 88,000 pounds of almonds were taken. That time, the thieves broke through a fence.

Almonds, walnuts and pistachios are among California’s top farm products and have an even larger share of agricultural exports. They sell for much more per pound than, say, tomatoes or alfalfa, and global demand has boomed thanks to research on their health benefits.

Food and drink are the largest category for cargo theft at 31 percent, said summit speaker Cameron Roberts, a Long Beach attorney who specializes in transportation. Electronics is second at 12 percent.

Cornell, who is based in Phoenix, said cargo thieves used to ignore some low-value goods, such as pellets used in making plastics and clay used in construction. They have since found markets for them, he said.

Olsen’s measure, Assembly Bill 2805, passed the committee 10-0. It next goes to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

By Ian James

Don Cameron expects farmers will see some of the biggest effects as the climate changes, and he says growers need to take proactive steps to prepare.

For 35 years, he has been the vice president and general manager of Terranova Ranch near Fresno, and he has noticed rising temperatures are starting to push up the times of plantings near the end of the winter. He expects that in the future, climate change will mean less reliable water supplies for farms in California and elsewhere.

Cameron, who is also a board member of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture, manages more than 7,000 acres of farmland growing a variety of crops from tomatoes and peppers to wine grapes and almonds. He is one of several featured speakers at the upcoming One Nation: Climate Change forum at the Sunnylands Center and Gardens in Rancho Mirage.

The April 20 event, hosted by The Desert Sun and the USA TODAY NETWORK, will bring together scientists, policymakers, artists and others to discuss climate change and what can be done to address it. Other speakers will include Steve Beissinger, a professor of conservation biology at the University of California, Berkeley; Kelly Sanders, a water and energy expert from the University of Southern California; and Jeff Grubbe, chairman of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians.

To set the stage for the event, The Desert Sun posed several questions to Cameron by email about climate change and what he thinks can be done to prepare for the impacts on agriculture.

Q: In your experience managing a farm in the Central Valley, how is the warming climate starting to affect agriculture? And in what ways do you think climate change will impact the country’s farms in the future?

A: In managing a farm in Fresno County, one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world, I have seen firsthand the effects of climate change. In 2015, the chilling hours needed for dormancy for pistachios was lacking. In other words, the winter was too warm for the trees to adequately rest during the winter, which disrupted pollination of the trees. The result was that yields were off 35-40% from expected yield. We have also taken advantage of longer, warmer weather in the fall by planting peppers that are not harvested until late October and early November – something unheard of before.

Q:What do you think are the most important steps that should be taken to prepare for the effects of climate change on agriculture?

A: As farmers, we need to be aware of the changes and shift our selections to varieties that are more tolerant to warmer temperatures. There is a wide genetic variety within species and new varieties within crops each year. We need to be looking for varieties that perform well in warmer climates. The selection of crops may have to change as well.

Q: What have you done on your farm to try to prepare for the additional strains that climate change will place on water supplies?

A: In 2011 we initiated a trial for “on-farm recharge” to capture floodwater and place it on actively farmed land with the intent of recharging our underground aquifer. We followed up on the successful trial and now are engaged in a project that when complete will bring up to 1,000 acre-feet of floodwater per day to farmland for recharge of the aquifer. We know that we will see more flood and drought and less snowpack in future years, and that will make our project key to replenishment of groundwater in our basin.

Q: Farms are major water users, and in many areas of the country overpumping of groundwater has led to declining aquifers. What sorts of changes in farming practices or policies do you think hold the greatest potential for helping make agriculture more sustainable in the long run?

A: When we talk about the overpumping of groundwater in California, in 2014 the state legislature passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. What SGMA does is to require local agencies to formulate long-term plans that will be monitored by the California Department of Water Resources to ensure sustainability of their underground water supplies. Simply put, farmers will not be able to pump more water out of an aquifer than can be replaced by either natural recharge or some sort of direct recharge. Replacement of underground pumping with surface water also is possible if surface water is available. However, new sources of surface water are extremely difficult at best to find and have been extremely expensive.

Link to article

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross joined the trade group WUSATA last week for a trip to Vietnam to discuss export opportunities and climate smart agriculture. Here are some of the highlights of the trip.

 

By Adele Peters

Every February, semi trucks packed with honeybees—a fleet of around a million hives in total—heads to California’s almond orchards, where billions of rented bees fly from flower to flower to pollinate the crop. More than a half million local hives join them.

But as bee populations decline, and California farmers plant more acres of almond orchards, the cost of renting those beehives keeps going up. So an increasing number of farmers are planting some almond trees that can handle pollination on their own.

The Independence Almond doesn’t technically need bees to survive. It is cross-bred with a variety of peach tree and can self-pollinate. The tree is now so popular that farmers are on waiting lists as long as two years to get it. “When the pollination time comes, a breath of air will pollinate that crop,” says Harbir Singh, a sales representative for the Dave Wilson Nursery, which sells the Independence almond exclusively.

Honeybees continue to struggle with disease, pesticides, and other stresses. Native pollinators are also struggling; 40% of food-pollinating wildlife now faces extinction. If the number of pollinators continue to drop, could the almond, and other crops that traditionally rely on pollinators, survive by switching to “self-fruitful” varieties?

The short answer: not very well, at least not at this point. Out of the 115 most commonly grown foods around the world, 87 crops use animal pollinators. A salad bar in a world without bees would look pretty sad. (Those foods that don’t need pollinators—like rice and sugarcane—also tend to be less nutritious; one recent study concluded that in some developing countries, as much as half of the population would lack important nutrients like vitamin A if bees no longer pollinated crops).

For 13 crops, including most varieties of squash, cantaloupe, and cocoa, pollinators are essential. Thirty other foods, such as apples, cherries, and avocados, are highly dependent on pollinators, meaning that crop yield could drop as much as 65% without them. The fruit that is produced might also not be as good. Raspberry plants, for example, can pollinate themselves, but the resulting raspberries are tiny without the help of honeybees, bumblebees, or other pollinators.

For the Independence almond, even though the nursery says it could be grown without bees, it’s most commonly used with them—just fewer than usual. “The company is correct in saying that it will set a commercially viable crop, but what we do know is that we will set a much higher crop if we do have bees,” says David Doll, with the University of California Cooperative Extension in Merced. “Some research out of Europe suggests a 30% to 40% increase per crop.” Most farmers use one hive per acre (up to 60,000 bees) with Independence trees, versus two hives an acre with typical almond trees.

Crops without pollinators also don’t always produce the same yields year after year. “You’re never certain, particularly with climate change, with the much warmer January temperatures, whether that’s going to be consistent,” says Thomas Gradziel, who has been breeding self-compatible almonds at the University of California-Davis for decades. “If it’s not consistent, you’ve just lost a major portion of your crop and one of your major years where you should have been using that money to pay back your loan to the bank.”

Right now, most farmers only plant the Independence almond in a portion of their orchards, along with other varieties of trees, to hedge their bets. “We’re at a stage of testing, experimentation, as far as where self compatibility, self-pollination, fits into our cropping system,” says Gradziel.

Most consumers also expect to buy the “nonpareil” variety of almond, which is self-sterile. Other varieties that have been developed may be better at pollinating themselves, but may not taste or look the same. In Spain, for example, most almond varieties are self-pollinating, but they have hard shells and aren’t considered to have the same quality as the typical California almonds.

The result: Even as farmers plant self-fruitful trees, they’re still very aware of how much they need bees. “The majority of almond farmers, if not all the farmers, are very aware of the importance of bees, and have modified their practices in order to make sure that they’re providing a safe habitat and safe ‘working environment’ for bees,” says Doll. “This includes spraying at different times, not spraying when bees are in the field, those types of things.”

Researchers still continue trying to make new self-fruitful and self-compatible varieties of crops; Gradziel uses traditional breeding to work on the almond, while others use modern genetic engineering or gene editing methods to work on crops like walnuts. It’s possible that eventually some varieties might not need bees at all, though Gradziel thinks that shouldn’t necessarily be the goal.

“It’s not only that almonds need bees, but the bees need almonds,” he says. In the current system, commercial honeybees lead a nomadic life, moving from almonds to apples or vegetable crops. “Those bees come to California to pollinate the almond crop, but those bees also come to California because this is the first good pollen source for those beehives. For beekeepers, this is a very important stop to get their hives up to strength and start that season of basically making that pollination throughout the country.”

For wild pollinators, too, like the bumblebee, crops like almonds can be an important source of food. “There’s work here at Davis where they’re looking to reintroduce the bumblebee,” he says. “Then the almond bloom early in the spring would be a huge asset to get these natives back up and running.”

Doll agrees that truly pollinator-independent crops are still a distant goal, and that it’s best to try to protect existing pollinators. “I think that’s the holy grail,” he says of self-pollinating crops. “But the bee is a wonderful insect to commercial agriculture, whether you’re a five-acre grower, whether you’re growing blueberries or almonds. I think there always will be a benefit to having bees around. Now, will we be able to reduce our reliance on bees? Maybe, I think so. But I still believe that the pollinator will be critical to all of agriculture, especially fruits and nuts, for the foreseeable future.”

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