This month the Planting Seeds blog is featuring stories on food security and nutrition. CDFA’s Office of Farm to Fork is committed to helping all Californians access healthy and nutritious California-grown food by connecting consumers, school districts, and others directly with California’s farmers and ranchers. 

UC Merced is relaunching its branch of the Blum Center for Developing Economies with a focus on food security, with a hope to make it a hub for food-security-related research and outreach.

Economics Professor Kurt Schnier, with the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, and Karina Diaz Rios, a nutrition specialist in the UC Cooperative Extension, will lead the rejuvenated Blum Center, with administrative help from the Health Sciences Research Institute (HSRI).

“We want to create a community on campus to address issues of food security,” Schnier said. “We want to help engage students, faculty members and the community to have a direct effect on people’s lives.”

Merced County’s economy is largely based around agriculture, yet many people there do not have food security. The food insecurity rate in the area is 15.5 percent, according to the Merced County Food Bank, compared to a statewide average of 13.9 percent. Nearly 30 percent of those considered food insecure in Merced County are children. Food insecurity is defined as a lack of reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.

The Blum Center at UC Merced started in 2013 and is affiliated with the Blum Center at UC Berkeley, which was founded by a gift from investment banker and UC Regent Richard C. Blum.  There are Blum Centers on several other UC campuses, including UCLA, UC Davis and UC Berkeley, the school from which Blum graduated. Each center has a slightly different focus, though all work toward the betterment of the global society.

Link to UC Merced blog post

Recent snowfall in the Sierra.
Photo by Michael Macor, San Francisco Chronicle

By Peter Fimrite

The blizzards that ravaged the Sierra Nevada in the past month wiped out more than a third of the California snowpack deficit that built up over five years of drought, a team of scientists said Monday, while encouraging state residents to continue conserving water.

The storms deposited roughly 17.5 million acre-feet of frozen water in the Sierra, or 37 percent of what’s called the “snow water deficit” in the state, according to a study by the University of Colorado and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“This winter, from my viewpoint, dropped an impressive amount of snowfall and made a significant dent in the water deficit, but it certainly didn’t come close to relieving the total deficit for the entire drought period,” said Noah Molotch, a research scientist at the NASA Laboratory and director of the University of Colorado’s Center for Water, Earth Science and Technology.

The snow water deficit is defined as the amount of frozen water below what is normal for a period of time. California’s average yearly deficit during the drought was 10.8 million acre-feet, according to the study, or 54 million acre-feet from 2011 to 2016, said Molotch, who led the study.

One acre-foot of water is enough to cover an acre of land in a foot of water — generally enough to supply a single family with water for a year.

The storms in January dumped enormous amounts of rain and snow, breaking records and filling almost every major reservoir. In the northern Sierra, more rain has already fallen this winter than during an entire average year. The water content of the snowpack across the Sierra is now about 180 percent of normal for this time of year.

The heaping snow drifts prompted the government’s Drought Monitor to classify 49 percent of California as free of drought last week, a recovery from the 5 percent figure a year ago. All of the Bay Area, except for a tiny portion of Santa Clara County, was drought-free, according to the federal index, as was the northern half of the state, from San Francisco to the Oregon border.

The problem, Molotch said, is that California pumped huge amounts of groundwater to keep people and crops hydrated during the drought, depleting what is essentially a water savings account.

“It’s pretty clear that we aren’t going to be able to put water back into that savings account as fast as we were able to take it out,” he said. “For three weeks’ worth of snowfall it was pretty amazing, so there is reason for optimism, but one snowy winter will not be able to reverse multiple years of drought.”

Link to story

In 2015 California’s farms and ranches received approximately $47 billion for their output. This represents a decrease of nearly 17 percent compared to 2014. California remains the leading US state in cash farm receipts.

California’s agricultural abundance includes more than 400 commodities. Over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts are grown in California. California’s top-10 valued commodities for 2015 are:

• Milk and Cream— $6.29 billion
• Almonds — $5.33 billion
• Grapes — $4.95 billion
• Cattle and Calves — $3.40 billion
• Lettuce — $2.26 billion

• Strawberries — $1.86 billion
• Tomatoes — $1.71 billion
• Flowers and Foliage — $1.08 billion
• Walnuts — $977 million
• Hay — $945 million

Statistics

California agricultural statistics derive primarily from the United States Department of Agriculture/National Agricultural Statistics Services (USDA/NASS) reports. The California Department of Food and Agriculture also publishes statistics related to California dairy production and, in cooperation with the University of California at Davis, statistics for California agricultural exports. For most timely research into California dairy statistics, please see our dairy pages under Division of Marketing Services. Please see also links in the right hand column for USDA National Agricultural Statistics and Economic Research Service reporting. For county-level reporting please see the CDFA County Liaison site.

Annual crop year reports have been reproduced below for your convenience. Export reports are typically published within the corresponding crop year report. While data is made available throughout the year, crop year and export reports are published typically about one year following the given crop year.

Link to report

CDFA’s State Organic Program (SOP) is pleased to announce a federal funding opportunity of $12.5 Million for eligible applicants under the Organic Cost Share Program (OCCSP).  The SOP has applied to the Farm Service Agency (FSA) under the United States Department of Agriculture to assist in distribution of these funds.  This money assists organic producers and handlers by offsetting costs related to SOP registration, certification, and transitional fees paid to certifiers as producers transition to organic.The cost-share payments May not exceed 75 percent of costs up to a maximum of $750 per producer/handler for each scope (registration, certification, transitional).

The FSA, in addition to administering the program, will also be directly accepting applications for reimbursement of funds. Operations will be subject to the same eligibility criteria and calculation of cost share payments regardless of whether they apply though the SOP or FSA local office.

For producer or handler Applications, FSA county offices will accept applications producers and handlers for FY 2017 starting on March 20, 2017 and ending October 31, 2017.

In fiscal year 2015/16 CDFA processed and distributed a total amount of $1,543,929 to 1,917 producers and handlers.

For eligibility requirements and further details please visit the following website https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/is/i_&_c/organic.html or you may contact the SOP at (916) 900-5030.

The Planting Seeds blog is featuring stories this month relating to animal health issues and the activities of CDFA’s Division of Animal Health and Food Safety Services.

The USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) has announced four grants totaling more than $13.6 million to combat a scourge on the nation’s citrus industry, citrus greening disease, also known as Huanglongbing (HLB). UC Riverside will receive $5,112,000 of that funding for a program to design and identify bactericides that can cure or suppress HLB.

“The economic impact of citrus greening disease is measured in the billions,” said NIFA Director Sonny Ramaswamy. “NIFA investments in research are critical measures to help the citrus industry survive and thrive, and to encourage growers to replant with confidence.”

HLB is currently the most devastating citrus disease worldwide. It was first detected in Florida in 2005 and has since affected all of Florida’s citrus-producing areas leading to a 75 percent decline in Florida’s $9 billion citrus industry. HLB has also been detected in Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas, as well as three residential communities in Southern California. Fifteen U.S. States or territories, including California, are under full or partial quarantine due to the presence of the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP), a vector for HLB.

Since 2009, USDA has invested more than $400 million to address citrus greening, including more than $57 million through the Citrus Disease Research and Extension Program since 2014.  Other projects in the current grant award include:

• Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, $4,274,523
• Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, $2,476,099
• USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Athens, Georgia, $1,821,197

More information on these projects is available on the NIFA website.

Information on efforts to control the Asian citrus psyllid and stop HLB in California is available on CDFA’s web site and the California Citrus Threat web site.

Lake Oroville this year.

By Tim Hearden

Amid what’s shaping up to be one of California’s wettest winters on record, the State Water Project on Jan. 18 upped its anticipated deliveries to at least 60 percent of requested supplies.

The boost from 45 percent is the Department of Water Resources’ second allocation increase in less than a month, and it comes as many of its gauges in the Central Valley have recorded twice the normal rainfall for this time of year.

Still, department spokesman Doug Carlson said it’s too soon to know whether the project’s 29 contracting agencies will get their full allocations for the first time since 2006.

“We still have a ways to go,” he said. “The winter could turn off the spigot as quickly as it turned on. We’ll just have to continue to monitor and assess whether this is a good, wet year.”

It has been so far, he said. In fact, precipitation totals at more than a dozen California Data Exchange Center stations from the northern Sierra Nevada to the San Joaquin Valley are trending higher than at this point in 1982-83, the state’s wettest year on record.

“That just jumps off the page at you,” Carlson said.

The latest allocation increase follows the DWR’s announcement on Dec. 21 it would deliver at least 45 percent of requested deliveries, up from its 20 percent initial allocation in late November.

Under the current allocation, SWP contractors would receive more than 2.5 million acre-feet of the 4.17 million acre-feet they collectively sought. An acre-foot is enough water to supply two typical households for a year.

Reservoirs have risen to the point that water officials have had to make releases to make room for more storms and spring runoff, raising levels of the Sacramento River and other rivers to near their banks.

As of Jan. 18, Lake Oroville, the SWP’s principal reservoir, was holding 79 percent of its capacity and 125 percent of its historical average for the date. Shasta Lake, the federal Central Valley Project’s largest reservoir, was at 80 percent of capacity and 123 percent of normal for the date.

California’s snow water content statewide was 151 percent of normal on Jan. 18 and 183 percent of normal in the southern Sierra, according to the DWR.

The latest allocation means that contractors will likely get at least as much water as they did last season, when a 60 percent final allocation was given. Contractors received 65 percent in 2012 and 80 percent in 2011.

Water officials say a 100 percent allocation is difficult to achieve even in wet years because of Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta pumping restrictions to protect imperiled fish.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation typically makes its first allocation of CVP water in mid-February, though last season’s was on April 1.

Link to article