The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s
National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is gathering information about
farm economics and production practices from farmers and ranchers across
California, as the agency conducts the third and final phase of the 2019
Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS).
“ARMS is the only survey that measures
the current financial well-being of California producers and their households
as a whole,” said Gary R. Keough, Director, USDA NASS Pacific Region..
“The results of this survey will help inform decisions on local and federal
policies and programs that affect California farms and farm families.”
In an effort to obtain the most accurate
data, NASS is reaching out to more than 30,000 producers nationwide, including
over 2,500 in California. The survey asks producers to provide in-depth
information about their operating revenues, production costs, and household
characteristics. The 2019 survey includes versions focused on barley, cotton,
and sorghum sector costs and returns.
“In
February, our interviewers will begin reaching out to those farmers who have
not yet responded,” said Keough. “We appreciate their time and are here to help
them with the questionnaire so that their information will continue supporting
sound agricultural decision-making.”
In addition to producing accurate
information, NASS has strong safeguards in place to protect the confidentiality
of all farmers who respond to its surveys. The agency will only publish data in
an aggregate form, ensuring the confidentiality of all responses and that no
individual respondent or operation can be
identified.
The expense data gathered in
ARMS will be published in the annual Farm Production Expenditures report
on July 31, 2020. That report and others are available at www.nass.usda.gov/Publications. More
reports based on ARMS data and more information about ARMS are available at www.ers.usda.gov/arms.
Water is the lifeblood of our state. It sustains communities, wildlife and our economy—all of which make California the envy of the world.
Reliably securing this vital and limited resource into the future remains a challenge, especially with a warming and changing climate.
For more than a year, my Administration has worked to find a comprehensive solution for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta—a path to immediately improve the health of these waterways, create certainty for the 35 million Californians who depend on these water sources, and maintain the economic vitality of the Central Valley.
Historically, disputes over water, or what some call “water wars,” have pitted stakeholders against one another: urban vs. rural; agriculture vs. conservation; North vs. South.
Today, my administration is proposing a path forward, one that will move past the old water binaries and set us up for a secure and prosperous water future.
Guided by science, this new framework will provide the foundation for binding voluntary agreements between government agencies and water users with partnership and oversight from environmental groups.
These agreements will require adaptive, holistic management of enhanced water flows and habitats to protect, restore, and enhance California’s largest rivers and the Delta.
These agreements will be grounded in what is required to achieve scientific and legal adequacy. They will significantly increase the required amount of water flowing through rivers and the Delta. They require a historic addition of 60,000 acres of critical habitat and provide certainty to strengthen the health of our economy and our environment.
If achieved, the voluntary agreements will establish a partnership with environmental conservation groups, water agencies, and governments across jurisdictions.
The water and funding from these stakeholders will provide an unprecedented pool of resources to support the restoration of critical fish habitat and billions of gallons of flow water in our rivers and through the Delta over the next 15 years.
Today, I am committing to achieving a doubling of California’s salmon population by 2050. These agreements will be foundational to meeting that goal.
Over the past year, my administration advanced a number of additional actions that are consistent with this new approach.
Recognizing the urgency of increasing access to clean water, the Legislature last year fast-tracked a bill to my desk that provided emergency relief to communities without access to safe drinking water.
I was proud that this was one of the first bills I signed as governor, and even prouder to have created with the Legislature a first-of-its-kind fund to support long-term access to safe drinking water.
In April, I signed an executive order directing state agencies to develop a set of recommendations to ensure safe and resilient water supplies across our state, including actions to improve water delivery structures and support regional water security projects.
My administration is also working closely with local communities to sustainably manage our groundwater for the first time in our state’s history, and my budget includes a $4.75 billion climate resilience bond to protect communities and natural habitats from the impacts of climate change, such as drought, flooding, wildfires, heat waves, and sea level rise.
While we are committed to collaborating with the federal government where we can, we have not and will not hesitate to stand up to them when they fall short of their responsibilities.
Stewarding California’s natural resources is a responsibility we share with the federal government, and we will continue to utilize every tool at our disposal, including legal action, to ensure the federal government fulfills its obligation.
California agencies are working in real-time with the federal government to ensure adequate protections of endangered fish populations from water infrastructure in the Delta.
Inaction, recalcitrance, and adherence to the status-quo puts our water future at risk. The alternative to the voluntary agreements is a contentious regulatory process that will take many years and require adjudicating a thicket of litigation in every direction before restoring river flows.
Those years will be critical years for salmon populations, which without immediate intervention will further decline. Access to water for tens of millions of Californians will become less reliable, impacting our people and economy. And our communities and businesses will be further threatened by the impacts of climate change. These outcomes are unacceptable.
The world is changing and we have to change with it. Creating a water future our children can be proud of will require us to reject the old binaries of the past. This time of unprecedented challenge demands unprecedented partnership. Let’s work together to meet this moment.
Wise old oak trees may hold an extract that citrus growers can use to protect their fruit trees from the deadliest citrus crop disease the world has known.
The plant disease is called huanglongbing, or HLB, also known as citrus greening. The disease shows its presence when leaves turn lighter shades of green.
According to University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Science’s (UF/IFAS) officials, HLB is responsible for a 90 percent reduction in the production of Florida’s most valuable crop. (Note – it has also led to quarantines in several southern California counties).
“Research scientists work with a sense of urgency to contain the pathogen and to manage HLB’s impact on our important crop,” said Lorenzo Rossi, assistant professor of plant root biology at the UF/IFAS Indian River Research and Education Center (IRREC), located in Fort Pierce, at the center of the Indian River District. The district is known for its peerless grapefruit quality, where it borders the state’s central east coast, from its northernmost point in Micco, Florida, to its southernmost point in northern Palm Beach County.
For several years, growers across the state have noted that citrus trees that stood under oak tree canopies, or alongside oak trees, are healthy. However, grapefruit trees in a row or two away from the oak trees showed signs of HLB.
Rossi, along with his UF/IFAS and U.S. Department of Agriculture colleagues, works to develop management tactics for production of fruit on trees affected by HLB. Marco Pitino and Robert Shatters with the U.S. Department of Agriculture U.S. Horticultural Agricultural Service in Fort Pierce, along with Rossi, were responsible for design of the experiment and preparation of the manuscript. Liliana Cano, a plant pathologists with UF/IFAS, and Kasie Sturgeon, Christina Dorado and John Manthey were responsible for planning, conducting the experiment, and analysis of data and preparation of the manuscript.
Rossi’s co-workers who study citrus horticulture and hydrology developed water and nutrition management practices. Irrigation and plant nutrition remedies help HLB-affected trees tolerate the disease and extend their production years. Projects funded by the Citrus Research Development Foundation and the USDA are underway.
Rossi and his collaborative research scientists have also been conducting research experiments to test the growers’ field observations, which they found to be a positive option to help the growers manage operations with infected fruit trees. The scientists’ work appears in this month’s issue of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, an internationally prominent science journal. “Quercus leaf extracts display curative effects against Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus that restore leaf physiological parameters in HLB-affected citrus trees,” is the publication title. Quercus is Latin for oak; Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus is the scientific name for HLB.
“We found that the application of oak leaf extracts in a greenhouse provides substantial inhibitory effects against the bacterium that causes HLB,” said Rossi.
The researchers’ findings were that citrus leaves treated with oak extracts showed a decrease in the presence of bacteria. Other research results were increased chlorophyll content and plant nutrition. The HLB-affected citrus plants treated with oak leaf extract were better able to uptake nutrients than were the citrus plants treated with only water.
“This study suggests that oak leaf extract will provide a new management treatment program to protect trees that have HLB,” said Rossi. “We will continue to develop a protocol for growers to produce our high-value citrus crops and to reduce the symptoms of HLB on the trees.
California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross (right) and Undersecretary Jenny Lester Moffitt hosted Atwater FFA student Michael Bray today for his Agricultural Economics class’ annual job-shadowing event.
As California contends with drought, wildfires and other impacts of climate change, a small yet passionate group of residents are attempting to lessen these effects and reduce the state’s carbon emissions. They are ranchers – but not the kind that most people picture when they hear that term.
These first-generation ranchers are young, often female and ethnically diverse. Rather than raising beef cattle destined for feedlots, many are managing small grazing animals like sheep and goats. And they are experimenting with grazing practices that can reduce fire risk on hard-to-reach landscapes, restore biodiversity and make it possible to make a living from the land in one of the most expensive states in the country.
Our research focuses on food systems, rangelands and livestock production. In our recent work, we found new ranchers in California using innovative strategies that they believe can mitigate fire risk to communities and improve soil through grazing.
We see an opportunity for the public and government agricultural agencies to support these producers, who are reframing livestock production systems in ways that could benefit the environment.
A hard industry to enter
Ranching is a family operation in California, with the vast majority raising beef cattle. The primary ranchers on traditional operations are mostly male, mostly white and generally in their late 50s to early 60s. They typically work together with their children, which lets younger generations draw on decades of knowledge and experience, as well as long-term connections to the land and to rural communities.
Because land in California is expensive, there are few independent first-generation beef cattle ranchers. Several first-generation ranchers whom we interviewed relayed stories of friends leaving the state to find places with cheaper land and fewer regulations. One explained that expanding urban edges and more profitable land uses are rapidly transforming rural landscapes and making it difficult, if not impossible, to “make a go of it” as a new rancher.
New ways to ranch
Climate change is challenging farmers and ranchers across the U.S. in many ways. On western rangelands, climate variability has increased the magnitude and number of extreme wildfires that occur each year. Wet years cause vegetation to thrive, while subsequent severe droughts turn it into deadly fuel.
Our research team wanted to understand how first-generation ranchers were adapting to California’s changing climate. Our preliminary research indicated they were less prepared for future droughts than more established ranchers, and they were less likely to use drought adaptation strategies, such as raising fewer animals than their land can support in good years. This approach hedges against the risk of bringing animals to market during dry years, when prices are less favorable.
But we soon discovered a new generation of ranchers who are creating different and often entirely new types of production systems in response to California’s climate extremes and high costs. Because they are starting from scratch, many of them do not view their practices as adapting, we learned. Rather, they see these techniques as central elements of a new kind of ranching.
For example, we interviewed one young first-generation cattle rancher who is experimenting with “mob grazing” – putting animals on small areas of land in dense groups for periods as short as a few hours, then moving them to new plots. Moving his herd as a close-knit unit across pastures mimics the natural movements of historical elk herds that use to roam coastal California.
His goals are to increase soil carbon storage and native vegetation by using hoof trampling to break up and incorporate residual plant matter into the soil after grazing. Then the pasture receives a long rest, which allows the soil and grass to recover.
An emerging model
New ranchers are spread throughout the length of California, from grassy foothill regions of the Sierra Nevada along the state’s eastern edge to the Pacific coast ranges. Many established California ranching families have large land holdings in multiple locations, but new ranchers tend to have smaller and fewer parcels of land.
Diversification is a key economic and ecological strategy. The average new rancher raises two types of livestock, and one-third of them also produce crops. The majority of these new ranchers (53%) are managing sheep, while less than half (47%) are raising beef cattle.
Many of these new ranchers view improving the environment with grazing animals as a way to positively affect the world. Like millennials in general, they want their work to be purpose-driven and are seeking work-life balance.
Although many are struggling to survive economically, these emerging ranchers believe they are providing a public service to communities. Some of them suggested to us that California should reconceptualize ranchers as ecosystem stewards who use grazing animals to restore watersheds and habitats, creating more resilient communities.
These services are valuable in California, where active management of landscapes can foster and enhance the state’s incredible biodiversity. It also reduces grasses and other forages that are potential fuel for devastating fires.
Beyond beef
So far, however, new forms of ranching have received little public buy-in or assistance. While this type of ranching has been gaining popularity, many policymakers and agricultural agencies still tend to equate livestock production with California’s US$3.19 billion beef cattle industry.
We see a critical opportunity for the public and government agencies to actively support ranchers who are working to mitigate the climate crisis. Several new and expanding funding streams could provide public support to new producers, including California’s Healthy Soils Program and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program.
However, without an increase in outreach and support, the future of these new ranchers is uncertain. Help from university researchers and agricultural and natural resource extension advisers is crucial to increase the number of new ranchers who begin and stay in ranching. And partnerships among universities, government agencies and nonprofits can help the next generation pursue innovative solutions to offset carbon emissions and reduce wildfire risks.
California State Veterinarian Dr. Annette Jones was honored with the US Poultry and Egg Association’s Lamplighter Award yesterday at the International Poultry Production and Processing Expo in Atlanta. The award is given to individuals for “sustained and exemplary service.” Dr. Jones’ leadership in responding to poultry diseases like virulent Newcastle disease and avian influenza was noted.
During the next few weeks, beekeepers will finish moving some 2.5 million honeybee colonies into California orchards to pollinate the state’s 1.2 million bearing acres of almond trees.
“We’re working really hard to supply a good supply of bees for the almond growers and doing everything that we can to keep up with their increase in production,” Butte County beekeeper Buzz Landon said.
As another 300,000 almond acres come into production in the next few years, beekeepers and farmers say an additional 600,000 beehives will be needed for pollination. Achieving that could be somewhat daunting, as beekeepers report annual bee losses due to challenges such as reduced forage, the Varroa mite and pesticide-related issues.
At the annual conference of the American Honey Producers Association and Canadian Honey Council, held recently in Sacramento, state Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross said California border stations cleared 1.82 million beehives to enter the state in 2019.
Going into this season, Ross reminded beekeepers to register movement of beehives in and out of orchards to protect the apiaries from theft and from applications of crop protection materials. The state’s BeeCheck program requires beekeepers to register beehive locations with county agricultural commissioners. Last year, agricultural commissioners added BeeWhere, a software program to assist beekeepers in registering beehives.
Beekeeper Valeri Strachan-Severson of Yuba City said many out-of-state beekeepers oppose the registration program, but said, “It’s important. This has been on the books for 30 years.”
Daren Williams, senior director of communications for the Almond Board of California, said he expects almond production to grow from the current 2.3 billion pounds to the 3 billion-pound mark.
“For at least the next three to five years, most experts are projecting that this industry is going to continue to grow in acreage and in pounds. Of course, the pounds that we produce are very dependent upon pollination,” Williams said.
Last week, the Almond Board announced a new, five-point Pollinator Protection Plan aimed at protecting bees. The plan includes new collaboration with the nonprofit Pollinator Partnership; educating farmers and pollination stakeholders; improving communication; increasing on-farm floral diversity; and supporting bee health research.
At the honey producers conference, almond grower Ryan Cosyns of Madera, who used to manage honeybees, addressed pollination prices during a panel discussion.
“We need beekeepers that are pricing their product at a price that warrants what they had put into it,” Cosyns said. “The minimum price this year should be about $200 a hive. If you’re pricing under that, you’re doing yourself an injustice.”
In turn, beekeepers warned growers to watch out for “fly-by-night bee brokers,” who they said undercut the business with less than standard-quality bees.
Pollination services, Williams pointed out, represent “a significant input cost for growers, about 15 to 20% of a grower’s total production costs.”
Farmers have experimented with a self-fertile almond variety, Independence, which requires fewer bee colonies for pollination. Cosyns said the trees are only a fraction of the state’s total almond acres, and that planting of the variety has slowed because it does not have the same flavor as nonpareil, the top almond variety.
Many beekeepers at the conference had their minds on getting out and checking bees they had moved into bee yards or orchards.
Stanislaus County beekeeper Matt Beekman said he stored his apiaries in a bee yard in anticipation of bloom.
“For my growers, we’re doing some supplemental feeding in preparation for almond pollination, and we’re expecting to start moving bees either this week or the following week, depending upon the weather,” Beekman said.
A few miles away in Ballico, Merced County almond grower Eric Harcksen, who also brokers honeybees, said things are getting busy in the orchards.
“We have beekeepers from Indiana who are here in our almonds right now,” Harcksen said, adding, “We broker their bees; they bring them in from Indiana and then I put them into the almonds for them and take them out.”
During the honey conference, Iowa-based beekeeper Alex Ebert said he tripled the number of beehives he brought to California this year.
“After we get done with the conference, then we go take a look at how the bees are doing and get ready for almond pollination in February,” Ebert said.
Tulare County beekeeper Steve Godlin, who lost 100 beehives to theft last year at this time, said people in rural areas should be aware of the possibility of beehive thefts and suspicious activity.
“If you live near an almond orchard and see somebody loading bees onto a truck and out of the orchard, they are likely being stolen, so please call law enforcement,” Godlin said. “Get a license plate number or photo and report it.”
Hilmar Farm Watch, a rural-watch group working with law enforcement, reported 32 beehives allegedly stolen Jan. 7 from the Stevinson area of Merced County.
They’re growing more than grapes and produce at Shone Farm in Forestville — they’re growing farmers, too.
The 365-acre parcel is both a working farm and an outdoor learning laboratory, the place where students in Santa Rosa Junior College’s Agriculture and Natural Resources department get hands-on experience. The property is one of the largest college farms in the country, according to the American Association of Community Colleges. It also is one of the most diverse field-teaching labs in the country — a place where students study to become grape growers, winemakers, farmers, park rangers and pest-control specialists.
The farm opens to public visitors at least once a month for nine months of the year.
On these free-admission public days — dubbed Pick & Sip days — visitors are welcome to come, marvel at livestock, pick and buy in-season produce and grass-fed beef, taste wine and olive oil made from estate grapes and olives, and interact with students and professors alike.
The events themselves have a festival atmosphere: music playing, people talking and laughing, the products center stage as the stars of the show. Lynn Ellerbrock, sales and marketing coordinator, said in addition to fruits, veggies, wine and olive oil, the farm sells house-made value-added products such as strawberry preserves, Gravenstein apple syrup and dried heirloom beans.
“If we grow it or make it here, you can pick it up on one of our Pick & Sip days,” she said, noting that roughly 300 people attend each of the open-to-the-public events. “We feel this is a great way for outsiders to come, visit and get to know the farm.”
Ellerbrock added that free tastes of student-brewed craft beer also will be available on Pick & Sip days starting this summer after the farm resuscitates its brewery program in the spring semester.
There’s also a Fall Festival every harvest, which includes u-pick pumpkins and strawberries, hay rides, and more.
In addition to about 40 acres of buildings, the farm comprises 120 acres of forest, 100 acres of pasture, 90 acres of vineyard, 12 acres for crop production, and 4 acres of olive and apple trees. There also is open space around the farm’s perimeter that serves as wildlife corridors and habitat — this is home to a natural resources program that focuses on forestry, watershed restoration and wildlife habitat enhancement.
Taken as a whole, Shone Farm is one of the largest agriculture sites in the California Community Colleges system.
Students who complete coursework on-site are taught commercial production techniques that they can apply in the workplace or parlay into additional studies after transferring to a four-year university. The largest program, SRJC’s on-site Wine Studies Program, attracts 300 to 425 students each year.
During public days, though some of the action takes place in the fields adjacent to the parking lot, most of the event unfolds in the Warren G. Dutton Jr. Agricultural Pavilion, a sprawling building with an expansive patio that looks out on the Russian River Valley American Viticultural Area.
Go early enough in the day and from the patio you can look down on morning fog in the valley below.
“It really is a beautiful spot,” Ellerbrock says. “Beautiful and productive.
