The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) and National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) have announced a partnership through the Agricultural Marketing Service Technical Assistance (AMSTA) Project to conduct workshops that will help potential grant applicants understand, develop, and submit their federal grant applications for the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program.

“The Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program is a key to USDA’s efforts to revitalize rural economies by supporting local and regional food systems,” said AMS Administrator Anne Alonzo. “The grant workshops will ensure that more communities and businesses across the country can participate in the competitive grant process with proposals that create real economic opportunities and help meet the growing demand for locally and regionally produced food.”

Cooperative Extension System educators will provide training in all regions of the country, and NIFA will conduct outreach to raise awareness of AMS grant opportunities and increase participation in the programs. The AMS and NIFA collaborative effort for this innovative national training project will be directed by Dr. Stephan J. Goetz of the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development based at Penn State University.

A list of upcoming grant workshop dates and locations can be found at http://www.amsta.net. More workshops will be added soon, and the State representatives listed on the website can be contacted for additional information about upcoming workshops. Some of the workshop sessions will be recorded and available for online viewing for those not able to attend in person.

With $30 million authorized annually by the Agricultural Act of 2014 (Farm Bill) through fiscal year 2018, AMS’s Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program awards competitive grants to develop new market opportunities for farm and ranch operations serving local and regional markets. The Farmers Market Promotion Program supports farmers markets and other direct producer-to-consumer activities, while the Local Food Promotion Program supports enterprises that aggregate, store, distribute and process local and regional food.

USDA’s Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Initiative (KYF2) coordinates USDA’s support for local and regional food systems. Projects aligned with these efforts can be found on the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Compass. For more information on AMS visit www.ams.usda.gov, and for more on NIFA visit www.nifa.usda.gov.

Link to news release

By Katie Orr

California’s urban water conservation rate reached 22 percent in December, exceeding the 20 percent conservation goal set by Governor Jerry Brown. Heavy rain led to reduced outdoor watering. But the State Water Board’s Katheryn Landau says nature isn’t the only explanation for the savings.

“It also indicates that the water conservation efforts that we’ve taken, such as turning off the outdoor sprinklers, not over watering our lawns and etc, are having a really positive impact on our conservation efforts,” she says.

The water board reports daily water use is also declining statewide. In December the average person used about 67 gallons of water per day. That’s down from about 89 gallons in November.

But an exceedingly dry start to 2015 has officials reminding Californians they must continue conserving. Governor Jerry Brown says while California is doing its part to save water, the drought is far from over.

The water board says it is likely emergency conservation regulations will be extended and possibly tightened. Water board staffer Eric Oppenheimer says local regulations vary widely.

“Not all mandatory restrictions are created equal,” he says. “And some of these mandatory restrictions are limits on, you know, you can’t water during the day. While others go as far as limits on days of the week and minutes per station.”

The current emergency regulations expire in April.

Link to article

US Trade Representative Michael Froman

On Monday, February 2, US Trade Representative Michael Froman spoke to the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture at its Winter Policy Conference. 

Link to speech

Excerpts of speech:

…”American agriculture creates positive ripple effects through the whole economy, value added at every step between farm and table. In 2012, for example, every dollar of agricultural exports stimulated another $1.27 in business activity elsewhere in the economy.

“This positive ripple effect is precisely why our record-setting ag exports have been such an important driver of our overall economic comeback. Since 2009, U.S. ag exports have increased roughly 40 percent. In 2013, which is the most recent year we’ve got full-year data for, exports hit nearly $150 billion, the record high, and we’re still waiting on the data for 2014, but we expect that those numbers will be even higher. Taking all these exports together, U.S. exports contributed one third of our overall recovery since 2009.

“It’s not just the macro figures, not just the GDP contribution, it’s the kind of jobs these exports support. In total, our exports supported 11.3 million jobs, an increase of 1.6 million jobs since 2009. And ag exports supported over a million jobs. We know that on average, export-related jobs pay up to 18 percent more than non-export related jobs. So we’re supporting more jobs, and these are good, high-paying jobs helping to increase wages for millions of Americans. At a time when so many Americans haven’t seen a bump in their paychecks in far too long, our trade policy has an important role to play in increasing wages and strengthening the middle class across the country.

“In 2009, there were 525 million middle-class consumers in the Asia Pacific region. That number is expected to grow to over 3 billion in by the year 2030. Put differently, in just 15 years, two out of every three middle class consumers in the world will call the Asia Pacific their home.  And we know that the first thing that middle class consumers want is more protein, better nutrition, and safer foods.

“So to win in the future, we need to serve not only tables here at home, we need to get into the markets where 95 percent of the global consumers live outside the United States.

“As President Obama said recently, we’re now into the fourth quarter of his presidency, and as we saw last night (Sunday night – the Super Bowl), exciting things happen in the fourth quarter. With the contours of a final TPP agreement coming into focus and strong expressions of bipartisanship support for increasing ‘Made-in-America’ exports, it’s looking like some of that excitement will be in the area of trade policy.

“An important part of our fourth-quarter push involves working with Congress to secure Trade Promotion Authority- to renew that, update it, make it relevant for the 21^st century. Beginning with FDR and the New Deal Congress, Democrats and Republicans have worked together for decades to forge trade deals that support good jobs.

“To borrow from football, TPA is a playbook for putting the national interest above narrow special interests. It’s how Congress helps define our negotiating objectives, how Congress determines how we work with them before and during the negotiations, and how Congress sets out the process by which it will approve or disapprove an agreement when it’s finally done and after it’s been broadly and publicly debated.

“The fact is, Congress hasn’t updated Trade Promotion Authority since 2002, before the digital economy emerged as a major factor in global trade, before state-owned enterprises began to play the role they play in the global economy, and before there was a recognition that labor and environmental standards should be a major part of any trade agreement.  It’s time to update the playbook.”

U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden (USDA) has announced more than $18 million in grants to educate, mentor, and enhance the sustainability of the next generation of farmers. The grants are available through the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) administered by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), which was authorized by the Agricultural Act of 2014 (Farm Bill).

“As new farmers and ranchers get started, they are really looking to their community for support. The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program empowers these farmers and ranchers to bring innovative ideas to the table when it comes to addressing food security, creating economic enterprises, and building communities,” said Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden. “As we celebrate the first anniversary of the 2014 Farm Bill, programs like these are evidence that an investment in beginning farmers and ranchers is an investment in our future”.

The grant announcement was made at Recirculating Farms Coalition in New Orleans. Recirculating Farms received a BFRDP grant to develop training sessions focusing on soil-based production and aquaculture for new and beginning farmers in New Orleans.

The BFRDP program, first established by the 2008 Farm Bill, aims to support those who have farmed or ranched less than 10 years with workshops, educational teams, training, and technical assistance throughout the United States. NIFA awards grants to organizations that implement programs to train beginning farmers and ranchers. Today’s announcement was funded by the 2014 Farm Bill, which continued authorization of this program.

The 2014 Farm Bill mandated at least five percent of BFRDP funding support veterans and socially disadvantaged farmers. Among today’s announcement, more than 15 percent of the funded projects have a substantial component that supports veterans and farming, while about 50 percent of the projects focus mainly on socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. A fact sheet with a complete list of awardees and project descriptions is available on the USDA website.

More information about USDA support for new farmers and ranchers is available at www.usda.gov/newfarmers.

The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program is currently accepting applications for the 2015 grant cycle. Applications are due March 13, 2015.

Link to complete news release

The California State Fair is expanding its commercial competitions for 2015 to include a competition for extra virgin olive oil. Of all the olive oil produced in the United States, California produces 99 percent of it.

Extra virgin olive oils in more than 15 different classes and divisions, including blends and flavored olive oils will be judged during the competition. The entry deadline is April 1, 2015. The California State Fair Extra Virgin Olive Oil Competition is open only to California olive oil producers.

From July 10-26 the State Fair will feature a special California extra virgin olive oil exhibit with the award-winning extra virgin olive oils on display, interactive educational exhibits, free tastings and market research surveys.

On average, the world consumes approximately 2.25 million tons of olive oil each year and annual consumption in the United States has increased from 30 million gallons to nearly 70 million gallons a year over the last two decades.

Producers wishing to enter the Extra Virgin Olive Oil competition should visit CAStateFair.org to view the competition handbook for rules and entry information.

This project is supported by the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program, which is funded by the USDA and administered by CDFA. The goal of the project is to promote the awareness and availability of award-winning California extra virgin olive oils.

By Mike Hornick

An effort to double California grower contributions to food banks is underway.

The California Association of Food Banks and the California State Board of Food and Agriculture have set a goal to increase annual contributions from 100 million pounds to 200 million in 2015, according to a news release.

More than 100 California growers participate in the association’s Farm to Family program, sharing surplus foods or items that are unmarketable. More than 50 fruit and vegetable varieties are donated to food banks throughout the state.

California Grown, which is managed by the Buy California Marketing Agreement, is backing the effort with a campaign aimed at getting an additional 1 million pounds of produce donated to food banks through social media activity. Consumers who share a photo of a product grown in the state on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #CAGrown, will generate a 1-pound donation through a California Grown member.

“We know one in four children and one in six adults in California regularly go hungry, and collaboration between farmers and food banks can help turn those numbers around,” Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, said in the release. “The Farm to Family program is a unique opportunity for California farmers and ranchers to strengthen their communities.”

Interested growers can contact the California Association of Food Banks (http://www.cafoodbanks.org/) which handles donation transportation and logistics. Some growers and ranchers may be eligible for reimbursement of modest picking and packing costs, or for a state tax credit incentive.

Link to story

California’s Strategic Growth Council has approved final guidelines for a new program that will integrate conservation of agricultural land into the state’s efforts to mitigate climate change and prevent urban sprawl. The Sustainable Agricultural Land Conservation (SALC) Program will use cap-and-trade revenue to encourage counties, municipalities, and partner organizations to identify and protect critically threatened farmland at risk of conversion to urban uses.

The program will receive $5 million this year for implementation. Approximately $1 million will be used to fund strategy planning grants from partnerships led by counties and cities to identify critically threatened agricultural lands and specify next steps for protecting these lands. The remaining $4 million will be used to fund conservation easements that will help protect farm and rangelands that may otherwise be developed or converted to non-agricultural uses.

The SALC program will complement the Strategic Growth Council’s Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Program, which will fund projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions through compact infill development, active transportation, and accessibility to affordable housing within California’s urban and suburban communities.

A large antenna shared by radar and radiometer is the most prominent feature for the Soil Moisture Active Passive satellite. It operates like a satellite dish, only is much larger, where a reflector collects all of the radio waves and focuses them into the feed horn. The feed horn collects the echoes from the radar and the surface emissions from the ground and sends them to the radar and radiometer electronics for processing. The feed horn is a large cone visible on the outside of the spacecraft. The antenna reflector is a mesh antenna 6 meters (about 20 feet) in diameter.

By Edward Ortiz

A NASA satellite being launched into space Friday will measure moisture in the top layer of soil, including soil on California farm fields far below.

The Soil Moisture Active Passive project is expected to provide crucial information to Central Valley farmers and water resource managers dealing with the multiyear drought. The mission, which was due to launch Thursday but scrubbed by NASA because of a weather pattern, will begin a three-year mission after liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a Delta II rocket.

The soil moisture information gleaned from the mission can be used by farmers to decide when to plant and harvest crops, said Narendra Das, project leader at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is running the SMAP mission.

“This information will be a great tool for agriculture,” said rice farmer Charley Mathews Jr. Mathews owns a 700-acre rice farm in Marysville. He is an avid believer that more data can help his farming operation.

“For rice growing, it may help is preparing our rice fields,” he said of SMAP. “There are time periods when we prepare the soil or when we have rainfall events, and that is when we want to get our timing right.”

The 128-pound SMAP satellite will map soil moisture globally every two to three days. The SMAP data will be gleaned from space, using radar, with the use of a 19-foot antenna – the largest rotating antenna of its kind ever deployed by NASA.

It will take measurements 1 inch deep. The soil moisture it estimates will be matched to other data to provide accurate information on how much water is in the soil.

Only a tiny percentage of Earth’s total water is lodged in the top layer of soil. However, the water within that tiny layer plays an important role in moving water, carbon and heat between land and atmosphere.

The mission is the latest Earth-looking satellite effort at NASA, an effort that began in 1972 with the launch of the Landsat I.

The mission is the final of a recent slate of five Earth satellite missions to be launched by NASA within the past 11 months that began with the launch of the Global Precipitation Measurement Core Observatory satellite. Each mission is culling data at never-before-attempted resolutions.

NASA said it has partnered with a large California grower, Paramount Farms, on sampling studies and airborne experiments on the run-up to the launch.

Paramount Farms, based in Kern County, is one of the world’s largest growers and processors of almonds and pistachios. Paramount Farms declined to comment on its work with NASA.

Predicting floods and suggesting improved water usage may ultimately be another benefit of the SMAP mission, said Robert Hartman, acting director with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s California Nevada River Forecast Center.

That entity runs climate models for California, Nevada and Southern Oregon. “Once we understand what the data represents and what they mean, it may help us with runoff models,” Hartman said.

Hartman said it remains to be seen how accurate the data from SMAP will be – especially from heavily forested environments. In other areas it may help assess how much moisture exists in a given watershed, especially prior to the onset of winter storms.

“In the fall we’re sensitive to how ready the watershed is to respond to the season’s first rain,” Hartman said. “It can also help us in the period between winter storms when there has been a substantial dry period.”

NASA has also been working with the California Department of Water Resources and expects the department will use the SMAP data to run its water use models.

The DWP is allowing the use of 40 soil sensor stations throughout the state for the SMAP mission. The sensors will help NASA calibrate the SMAP satellite measurements, said Jeanine Jones, DWP interstate resources manager.

Jones said it remains to be seen how useful the data will be to the department’s water management aims.

“Currently in the water supply and flood control business, most agencies do not use soil moisture information,” Jones said. “There are no applications for that kind of data yet. We’ll see if this mission will be the impetus to develop applications for it.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) just kicked off the Organic Survey to gather detailed data on U.S. organic agriculture production. The survey is a complete inventory of all known organic producers that are certified, exempt from certification, and transitioning to certified organic production.

“Total organic product sales by farms and ranches in the United States have continued to grow over the last few years, increasing by 83 percent between 2007 and 2012,” said USDA Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden. “These latest census results show the continued interest in organic agriculture among consumers, producers, and businesses. As we look to the future, the important information we gather will be crucial to capturing the strong private and public sector support to sustain the continued growth of this industry.”

Conducted by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), the Organic Survey is a result of this growing demand for organic agricultural products and data. The survey looks at many aspects of organic agriculture during the 2014 calendar year – from production and marketing practices, to income and expenses. It also focuses on the future of organic production by including producers transitioning to certified organic agriculture.

Producers who receive the Organic Survey are encouraged to respond. The responses will provide important and detailed information to help determine the economic impact of organic production, and this information will help USDA develop programs and services for organic crop and livestock producers

Farmers and ranchers can fill out the survey online via a secure website, www.agcensus.usda.gov, or return their form by mail. Federal law (Title 7, U.S. Code) requires all producers who receive a form to respond and requires NASS to keep all individual information confidential. Recipients are required to respond by mail by Feb. 13, 2015 or online by April 3, 2015.

To learn more about the survey, the USDA Organic Working Group will host a webinar on Thursday, Jan. 29, from 3:30-4:30 p.m. ET. The webinar will consist of a brief presentation from NASS on the Organic Survey and a question and answer session. The webinar is free and pre-registration is not required. To participate:

Step 1 – Dial In by Phone:

Toll-Free (U.S. & Canada): 866.740.1260

Access Code: 7202000

Step 2 – Also Access the Web:

Meeting URL: http://www.readytalk.com

On the left side of the screen, enter

Participant Access Code: 7202000

For more information about the Organic Survey, visit www.agcensus.usda.gov.