It’s Compost Drop Day at the California State Capitol! Elena Yates of CalRecycle hands a packet of compost and an informational poster to a staff member in the office of Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva (D -Fullerton). The outreach is of part of the first-ever California Soils Week, which continues through Thursday with a theme of “Healthy Soils, Healthy Lives.”
CDFA’s Jaydeep Singh meets with a staff member in the office of Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella).
CDFA Secretary Karen Ross with State Board President Craig McNamara at this morning’s session.
After more than 16 years on the California State Board of Food and Agriculture, with the last 7 years as Board President, Craig McNamara is stepping down from his position on the Board to participate as a 2018 Fellow in the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute program. The fellowship program offers an extraordinary opportunity for individuals to advance social impact at the local, national and global levels.
“Craig has been a visionary leader for the State Board and has been an unwavering advocate for California’s farmers and ranchers to both me and the Governor,” said CDFA Secretary Karen Ross. “I’m happy for Craig in his new pursuit, but will deeply miss his counsel and thoughtfulness on the issues impacting the agricultural community.”
Under Craig’s leadership the Board further advanced the California Ag Vision, helped to double farm contributions to food banks, addressed agricultural immigration issues, and was a critical voice for agriculture in a variety of water discussions related to drought and sustainable groundwater management.
As Craig departs the State Board he leaves behind a legacy of dedication to California’s farmers and ranchers and a reinvigorated Board mission of engagement and representation of the diversity of California’s agricultural sector to the governor and CDFA secretary.
The California State Board of Food and Agriculture advises the governor and the CDFA secretary on agricultural issues and consumer needs. The state board conducts forums that bring together local, state and federal government officials, agricultural representatives and citizens to discuss current issues of concern to California agriculture.
We ended our Climate Smart Agriculture delegation visit last week by visiting the La Serena region of Chile. This region, North of Santiago, is a cool season agricultural region very similar to Ventura and Salinas, California. This region received little rain during the drought and there is an overall downward trend in how much water the region has been receiving over time.
The Government has worked to build several small reservoirs and on-farm irrigation ponds in this region to ensure agricultural needs. One reservoir we visited provides 50,000 acres with water and is capable of holding water to overcome short term droughts and floods that can impact the communities that live in the region. Specialty crops grown here include lettuce, table grapes, grapes for pisco (distilled alcoholic drink) and citrus. At this particular reservoir, operation managers collect weather data and share this information with the growers through smart phone apps. Management of the reservoir was moved from a public project to a privately operated system, after construction, with growers and others paying for operation and maintenance costs.
Manager of the Puclaro Dam outside La Serena speaks to the Climate Smart Agriculture delegation.
The La Serena region is also home to a few of the research stations associated with the Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIA). Very similar to the University of California Research Extension Centers, INIA focuses on on-farm agricultural research and extension services distribution to farmers through field days (irrigation efficiency and pesticide applications were among the top priorities). Grower outreach and on-farm adaptation of new technologies and practices has proved challenging in the small farm community, but INIA remains dedicated to providing assistance to small farmers in helping them adapt to a climate change.
Climate smart agriculture delegation visits INIA and discusses irrigation/water use efficiency and vegetable production research
In reflecting on the California-Chile Climate Smart Agriculture mission, I am very happy at the outcome, humbled to travel with a wonderful group of intelligent and curious stakeholders and look forward to additional information sharing to come through webinars and other activities between California and Chile.
California’s Climate Smart Ag delegation – (left to right) Brooks Ohlson, Jeffrey Creque, Ellen Hanak, Don Cameron, DeeDee D’Adamo, John Chandler, Secretary Karen Ross, Doug Parker, Sebastián Pacheco (Punto Azul), Frank Muller, Paul Robins, Derek Azevedo, Aaron Lange and Josh Eddy
CDFA Secretary Karen Ross joined the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and other partners today to kick-off the first-ever California Soils Week, which is being celebrated from December 4 to December 7.
Secretary Ross led a ribbon-cutting in front of an informational panel display at the State Capitol. With her (L to R) are NRCS acting conservationist for California Raymond Dotson; Michael Dimock, president, Roots of Change; Mary Kaems, principal consultant for California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon; and Brian Shobe of the California Climate and Agriculture Network (CalCAN).
This is California Soils Week (December 4 to December 7). World Soils Day is on December 5.
By Jacques Leslie
The last great hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change may lie in a substance so commonplace that we typically ignore it or else walk all over it: the soil beneath our feet.
The earth possesses five major pools of carbon. Of those pools, the atmosphere is already overloaded with the stuff; the oceans are turning acidic as they become saturated with it; the forests are diminishing; and underground fossil fuel reserves are being emptied. That leaves soil as the most likely repository for immense quantities of carbon.
Now scientists are documenting how sequestering carbon in soil can produce a double dividend: It reduces climate change by extracting carbon from the atmosphere, and it restores the health of degraded soil and increases agricultural yields. Many scientists and farmers believe the emerging understanding of soil’s role in climate stability and agricultural productivity will prompt a paradigm shift in agriculture, triggering the abandonment of conventional practices like tillage, crop residue removal, mono-cropping, excessive grazing and blanket use of chemical fertilizer and pesticide. Even cattle, usually considered climate change culprits because they belch at least 25 gallons of methane a day, are being studied as a potential part of the climate change solution because of their role in naturally fertilizing soil and cycling nutrients.
The climate change crisis is so far advanced that even drastically cutting greenhouse gas emissions won’t prevent a convulsive future by itself — the amount of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere ensures dire trouble ahead. The most plausible way out is to combine emission cuts with “negative-emission” or “drawdown” technologies, which pull greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and into the other pools. Most of these proposed technologies are forms of geoengineering, dubious bets on huge climate manipulations with a high likelihood of disastrous unintended consequences.
On the other hand, carbon sequestration in soil and vegetation is an effective way to pull carbon from the atmosphere that in some ways is the opposite of geoengineering. Instead of overcoming nature, it reinforces it, promoting the propagation of plant life to return carbon to the soil that was there in the first place — until destructive agricultural practices prompted its release into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. That process started with the advent of agriculture about 10,000 years ago and accelerated over the last century as industrial farming and ranching rapidly expanded.
Delegation members Jeff Creque of the Carbon Cycle Institute and Paul Robins of the Monterey County Resource Conservation District check out some Chilean soil.
Irrigation efficiency, water conservation and water management are three terms that resonated over and over as we visited specialty crop farms and talked to water managers during our ongoing visit to Chile. These are important issues that Chile and California share, given that both counties have recently experienced historic droughts with significantly reduced snowpacks and greater reliance on groundwater.
We visited an avocado grower who pumps water approximately 1,600 feet up steep slopes with electrical water pumps for a highly efficient drip irrigation system. With little rain in the San Felipe region (north of Santiago), using efficient irrigation technologies like those incentivized in CDFA’s SWEEP program are critical to ensuring agricultural food production in this region.
Secretary Ross with Chilean avocado grower Gonzalo Bulnes.
Providing growers with access to an adequate water supply is a priority shared south of Santiago, as well. A water management agency in the Cachapoal River-area supplies approximately 100,000 acres of agricultural land with water and is investing in cloud seeding to stimulate additional precipitation. The government of Chile is also participating in this project and is assisting this agency and others in an effort to maintain water deliveries not only to agriculture, but to other sectors such as mining and urban areas.
The delegation visited Escuela Agricola El Carmen De San Fernando, a high school providing irrigation instruction among other courses.
Irrigation efficiency and water management are supported through innovative education pathways in Chile. We visited a high school that focuses on teaching its students about irrigation and public/private partnerships. They get hands-on experience with renewable energy use and water pump improvements. Understanding these technologies and providing growers with human resources and expertise to operate efficient irrigation systems is critical to future food production.
We also saw that if a grower selects the right plant variety, greater on-farm water efficiency can be achieved. A company we visited called SubSole has planted newer varieties that produce double the yield with half the water use. The company produces specialty crops like table grapes, avocados, kiwis, cherries and pomegranates and has invested heavily in sustainability and food safety programs to provide a high level of environmental and social responsibility certifications to buyers and consumers. SubSole uses very little nitrogen fertilizer for its table grapes because it has built organic (carbon) content in soil through the addition of compost and mulching; management practices that will soon be incentivized in CDFA’s Healthy Soils Program.
Many specialty crops farms in Chile are supported by agronomic experts from the Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIA). INIA is a government supported organization whose work is similar to the University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources, Cooperative Extension Services. These extension services are critical to ensuring growers have the right expertise as they invest in efficient irrigation systems and technologies to combat climate change events. What we have learned so far is that Chile is very similar to California and it is working hard to adapt to a changing climate through investment in specific technologies, education and outreach activities.
Secretary Ross is in Chile this week for an exchange on climate change adaptation. Joining her in the delegation are representatives from the agricultural, academic and policy sectors.
CDFA Secretary Karen Ross and a delegation from the agricultural, academic and policy sectors is in Chile this week for an exchange on climate change adaptation. In this video, delegation member Dorene (Dee Dee) D’Adamo, a member of the State Water Resources Control Board, shares what is being learned about specialty crop production, Ag education, and other elements of Chilean agriculture.
Excerpted from executive summary
Farmers over the age of 65 now outnumber farmers under 35 by a margin of six to one, and U.S. farmland is overwhelmingly concentrated in the hands of older farmers. Nearly two-thirds of farmland is currently managed by someone over 55. The National Agricultural Statistics Service estimates that over the next five years—the lifespan of the next farm bill—nearly 100 million acres of U.S. farmland are expected to change ownership and will need a new farmer.
Fortunately, many young Americans are stepping up and launching new farm businesses. For only the second time in the last century, the 2012 Census of Agriculture registered an increase over the previous census in the number of farmers under 35 years old. These young farmers are entrepreneurial and tough, but they are finding that talent and hard work alone may not equate to farm success. There are many structural barriers standing in their way—and the stakes have never been higher.
Young farmers face serious obstacles to launching and growing their farm businesses: they can’t afford farmland; student debt is compromising their ability to capitalize their businesses; adequate labor and support staff are difficult to recruit; and health insurance is unaffordable. Federal and state policies are underserving these needs, and many young farmers are not accessing the programs designed to help.
The survey illustrated a challenging economic picture for young farmers. Sixty-one percent of individual respondents reported needing another job to make ends meet, and fewer than half own all the acres they’re farming. Indicators tracked by USDA also suggest trends in the agricultural economy are hitting young farmers especially hard. According to Dr. Robert Johansson, USDA’s Chief Economist, young farmers and those who rent more of their land tend to be far more in debt relative to their assets.
The top challenges faced by young farmers are as follows:
Chile is a perfect climate analogue to California with its own central valley and an abundance of specialty crops. Like California, it relies on snow melt to irrigate crops, it produces world-famous wines, and it supports vibrant cities like Santiago, the capital. Chile has been identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as having seven of nine characteristics that are vulnerable to climate change, including increased temperatures, a reduction in rainfall, and crop relocation from north to south as increasing temperatures and changing rainfall alter current growing areas.
As we learn how Chile is adapting to climate change, we understand that the challenges they face are the same challenges we experience in California. Given how important agriculture is to Chile, they–like us–are serious about invasive pests. Upon arrival on Sunday, we saw dog teams inspecting luggage and familiar information about not “packing a pest” was clearly evident as we made our way through customs.
Chile asks travelers to leave invasive species at home.
On Monday, the delegation visited with the U.S. Ambassador to Chile, Ms. Carol Perez. Ambassador Perez was well aware of the recent Napa/Sonoma fires as well as the drought conditions that California has experienced. Chile has similar climate change impacts, including an eight-year drought as well as its own fires fueled by strong winds that have devastated agricultural crops and towns. The country is home to several glaciers that are now melting due to a warmer climate.
The morning was completed by visiting the Ministry of Agriculture in Chile and hearing from a wide group of leaders and experts, including those in the UC Davis Chile program working to create a platform for collaborative research between university and Chilean researchers to support life science innovation in both Chile and California.
Climate change is very real to the people of Chile and the government has worked to create climate change adaptation plans that are being implemented at the state, regional and local levels – elements like securing water resources, studying genetic resources such as plant varieties, controlling pests, and providing extensive information to growers. Like California, there are mitigation commitments in Chile for greenhouse gas emissions – the country is targeting a 30 percent reduction from 2007 levels by 2030.
Chilean hydroponic lettuce
We have also learned about programs to make irrigation more efficient, including infrastructure plans to retain up-to 80 percent of the country’s snow melt; and we visited a hydroponic lettuce production operation in Quillota, which is in central Chile northwest of Santiago. The growers use a mostly automated system that produces fresh lettuce in 21 days and yields about 13 harvests per year compared to two or three in soil systems.
Our delegation looks forward to learning more about irrigation technologies and how they are adapting to climate change. Agriculture is eight percent of the Chilean GDP and a major contributor to their export markets. Close collaboration between Chile and California is key to assisting both regions adapt to climate change and continue to produce food that feeds the world.
Secretary Ross is in Chile this week for an exchange on climate change adaptation. Joining her in the delegation are representatives from the agricultural, academic and policy sectors.
