Fresh produce distributed at the SF-Marin Food Bank. Photo courtesy of the CA Association of Food Banks

California produces one half of the nation’s fruits, nuts and vegetables and is also the largest dairy producing state. Yet in California, the nation’s largest agricultural producer, one in four children and one in six adults regularly go hungry. Join the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the California Association of Food Banks, and CA Grown  in combating hunger. This is why December is ‘Farm to Food Bank Month’. It is an opportunity to not only recognize the great work that is occurring on an ongoing basis – Ag Against Hunger, Hidden Harvest, Young Farmers and Ranchers, and Farm to Family – but also provides a chance for California farm families to give back to their communities. For a look at how this helps needy families, please view a video from our Growing California series at the bottom of this post.

CDFA is working in collaboration with its State Board of Food and Agriculture to try to increase annual farm-to-food bank donations to 200 million pounds by next year.

Help join the cause and participate at our upcoming Farm to Food Bank event on Wednesday, December 3^rd from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Second Harvest Food Bank in San Jose.  Let’s work to end hunger in California!

For those within the agricultural family, please consider making a product donation or a 2015 future food pledge today – contact Steve Linkhart, California Association of Food Bank  at (510) 350-9916.

For our foodie friends and food lovers – tweet, Instagram or Facebook  – #CAGrown with a pic of California Grown produce and a pound of food will be donated to a local food bank. A tweet a day is all we ask…

The next segment in the Growing California video series, a partnership with California Grown, is “Urban Growth,” a story about improving food access in the Southern California community of Compton.

This video content is no longer available.

By Neela Banerjee

Climate change driven by the burning of fossil fuels is already affecting life on every continent and in the oceans, and the window is closing rapidly for governments to avert the worst damage expected to occur later this century, scientists warned in one of the loudest alarms yet sounded by the international scientific community.

The report, (issued Sunday November 2), arrives as international negotiators prepare to meet in Lima, Peru, in December to establish parameters for an eventual agreement on cutting heat-trapping emissions, a goal that has eluded the international community since talks began more than 20 years ago on the necessity of action. Negotiators are aiming to sign a deal in Paris in December 2015.

Written by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, which regularly reviews and synthesizes the latest climate research, the report says there are more heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere than at any time in at least the last 800,000 years, and that most of them came from the combustion of fossil fuels since the advent of widespread industrialization in the late 1800s. The effects of global warming are already being felt in rising sea levels, ocean acidification and more extreme weather events, especially heat waves and droughts, which have begun to affect crop yields and water availability.

The steps taken so far by countries to reduce or mitigate emissions are not enough, the scientists said, and under the business-as-usual scenario, the world runs the risk of consequences so grave that they are irreversible and cannot be adapted to.

“Without additional mitigation efforts beyond those in place today, and even with adaptation, warming by the end of the 21st century will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread and irreversible impacts globally,” the report says.

The IPCC assessment is one of the bluntest to date after years of reports that have warned the global community about climate change. Actions by the world’s governments over the next year will reveal whether the science has ignited meaningful action on cutting emissions. In crafting the report, a key summary of findings that would have made it easier to understand was cut because the governments that sign off on the document could not agree on what should be included. That raises questions about whether they can agree on something much more complex, such as reductions in pollution.

“This is the strongest statement yet of the risks of climate change and the steps we need to take,” said Tim Profeta, director of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University. “But at what point does the stridency of the report affect policymaking, so that we take steps commensurate with the risks? Will it change the debate in Peru and in Paris?”

In the United States, proponents of cutting heat-trapping emissions welcomed the forceful report.

“We can’t prevent a large-scale disaster if we don’t heed this kind of hard science,” said Secretary of State John F. Kerry. “The longer we are stuck in a debate over ideology and politics, the more the costs of inaction grow and grow.”

Two weeks ago, the State Department’s top climate envoy, Todd Stern, said the U.S. was considering a proposal to combat climate change that would require countries to offer plans for curtailing greenhouse gas emissions on a certain schedule but would leave it to individual nations to determine how deep their cuts would be.

Earlier approaches taken by the international community to mandate certain levels of emission cuts got little buy-in from large polluters such as the United States and China. But some countries fear that with the approach the U.S. now backs, countries will not make the kinds of reductions needed to keep the average global temperature from rising beyond 2 degrees on the Celsius scale, or 3.6 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale, from pre-industrial levels. The 2-degrees-Celsius threshold is the point beyond which scientists estimate certain catastrophic, irreversible changes would occur.

Link to story

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross (center) helps demonstrate the five F’s of agriculture–Food, Fiber, Flower, Forests and Fuel–at a California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom event this month in Santa Cruz. The picture depicts the impacts of forests, showing that they help provide housing.

More than 220 California educators and volunteers attended an annual California Agriculture in the Classroom Conference earlier this month to learn about agriculture and connecting Common Core to California crops. The conference, hosted by the California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom (CFAITC), was held October 16-18 in Santa Cruz County and provided participants with free resources and valuable avenues for teaching Common Core, STEM, and school garden/nutrition lessons.

The program, designed for educators, administrators, and community volunteers, presented opportunities to explore the agricultural industry and enhance existing curriculum with examples and scenarios about food and fiber production. California Secretary of Agriculture Karen Ross welcomed the group of educators along with Dr. Jim Painter, professor emeritus at Eastern Illinois University. Renee Shepherd, owner of Renee’s Garden, also spoke to the educators and Michael Marks, Your Produce Man, closed the conference with trivia about the more than 400 crops grown in California. Conference participants were able to experience the variety of agriculture at the conference and were able to learn directly from leading agricultural experts.

In her comments, Secretary Ross shared the importance of California agriculture, emphasizing the many things that stem from from agriculture, and helped teach the educators the 5 F’s of agriculture – Food, Fiber, Forests, Flowers, and Fuel.

From cut flowers and strawberries to artichokes and timber, Santa Cruz County is the smallest agriculture producing county in California in land mass and one of the most diverse.

The California Ag in the Classroom conference empowers attendees to return to their classrooms and school communities confident and capable of sharing the importance of agriculture’s significant impact on California and its economy with their students.

CFAITC is a 501(c)(3) organization that works with K-12 grade level teachers, students and community leaders, to enhance education using agricultural examples. The organization’s mission is to increase awareness and understanding of agriculture among California’s educators and students. The ultimate vision of the organization is an appreciation of agriculture by all.

Link to CFAITC news release

A quick quiz:  If you could be a student anywhere in the nation during National School Lunch Week, which state would you choose? Easy answer, right? California!  Students across the nation celebrated this annual observance last week, October 12-18, and of course the California kids had the best spread to choose from. But then, we’re allowed to be a bit biased about things like that at CDFA – in fact, we’re proud of it.

To show our pride, California is taking National School Lunch Week one step further today (October 23) with “California Thursdays,” a partnership at schools throughout the state seeking to serve more healthy, freshly prepared, California-grown fruits and vegetables in cafeterias. The project is a collaboration by the Center for Ecoliteracy (CEL), partner school districts and allied organizations; and will make each Thursday a focal point for featured California-grown menu items at our schools. It’s a great way for students to learn that their state’s agriculture is something to take pride in – and something to take part in as well.

CDFA has provided support for the program with a Specialty Crop Block Grant, and our Office of Farm to Fork is helping participating schools source directly from California growers. I’m pleased to note that Office of Farm to Fork employees will be in Turlock today for the “California Thursdays” event there.

California’s innovative growers, our Mediterranean climate, our rich and varied soils, and all of the other ingredients that our state boasts help to make this the very best place for a student to get a tasty, healthy, nutritious, energy-infusing school lunch. We also have a lot of dedicated, hard-working cooks, chefs, nutritionists, food service professionals and school staff throughout this state who make it their business to put California produce on the menu at our schools. From farmers to administrators, servers and students, it takes all of us to get the job done.

There will be “California Thursdays” rollout events in 15 different school districts: Alvord, Coachella Valley, Conejo Valley, Elk Grove, Hemet, La Honda-Pescadero, Lodi, Los Angeles, Monterey Peninsula, Oakland, Oceanside, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, and Turlock. We look forward to seeing that list grow in the future.

These events are wonderful ways to feature California-grown produce, enrich the lives and the nutrition of our students, and emphasize the natural link between health and education.

The USDA has launched a Climate Hubs web site. The new site provides a portal for farmers, ranchers, forest landowners, and others to find useful, practical information to help cope with the challenges and stressors caused by a changing climate. The site provides resources related to drought, fire risks, pests and diseases, climate variability, and heat stress, and links users to the network of USDA conservation programs and resources that provide producers with technical and financial assistance to manage risks.

Each region also has its own site. For more information, see the “USDA Climate Hubs Website: Connecting Stakeholders to the Hubs” blog.