Opinion piece by Kelsey Nederveld and Patrick Mulvaney

*Note – the Sacramento City Unified School District received $376,500 in 2021 and $466,570 in 2022 through CDFA’s California Farm to School Incubator Grant Program to source local produce and help students identify and cook with the produce. Stay tuned for the next round of CDFA farm to school funding opening soon!

For many of the students in the Sacramento City Unified School District, school meals are their biggest meals of the day. When California passed School Meals for All in 2021 in response to increasing child hunger, we became the first state in the nation to provide every student — regardless of income — free, nutritious breakfast and lunch, with more emphasis on fresh local ingredients. As the quality and nutrition of school meals improves, clear benefits are emerging, and more kids and families are participating.

The value of more kids enjoying school meals together is becoming evident every day in our kitchens and cafeterias. The stigma and shame that came with being very obviously a “free lunch kid” is diminishing; and the sense of community that comes with more kids eating together from the same menus not only ensures that all kids eat more nutritious food, but also improves campus culture and relieves the strain on families as food costs skyrocket.

Our efforts to transition more of the 40,000 meals we serve each school day from prepackaged, highly processed foods to fresher, healthier, tastier food for kids demands continued investment in kitchen equipment and culinary training.

California’s Kitchen Infrastructure and Training (KIT) program provided $4.8 million dollars to Sacramento City Unified in 2022. This funding has allowed the district to create more efficient and welcoming cafeterias and provide training for its 400 nutrition employees in order to serve more locally sourced, freshly prepared food. The district now has three chefs on staff, is training staff to freshly prepare more menu items and has elevated many front-line workers to kitchen leads, providing rewarding and viable career paths.

The school district’s back-of-house operation includes a 50,000 square foot warehouse with capacity to store refrigerated, frozen and dry goods that are purchased locally as well as 14 delivery trucks which make daily deliveries to our 80 school sites. We procure locally grown and produced ingredients from local producers including fresh, raw chicken breasts and drumsticks from Foster Farms, mandarins from Penryn and apples from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Local sourcing saves us money as food costs have soared: We save $90,000 a year in delivery costs by picking up our own apples rather than buying apples grown and shipped from outside the region or state. Buying local ingredients that don’t need to be overly packaged and transported long distances is also climate smart, especially when hundreds of farmers and local producers are within a few miles.

KIT funding has been used by districts throughout the state to meet the rising demand for free, nutritious meals which increased in the 2022-23 school year to 826 million meals served — up 2 million from 2018-19. Statewide, 92% of eligible local school districts opted-in to receive the 2022 KIT funds, demonstrating how much pent-up demand exists to replace inefficient and aged kitchen equipment, and to train and increase the skills of our school nutrition workforce.

It is critical that these investments continue so all schools can fully implement the benefits of California’s groundbreaking School Meals for All and Farm to School programs, dependent on KIT funding for continued success. We are making great strides toward making access to healthier food equitable in Sacramento schools and throughout the state, but we need KIT funding to ensure that we can expand these programs.

The benefits of healthy, locally sourced, free meals for all our kids are undisputed — improving academic performance and long-term health, fighting child hunger, boosting the local economy and giving school nutrition staff the tools and support they need to provide meals made with care and intention.

Sacramento is known as the Farm-to-Fork Capital of America and is increasingly gaining media attention on a national level. But the gift of our home grown foods shouldn’t only be enjoyed by those who dine in our restaurants; it should be shared with the thousands of kids in our schools.

Kelsey Nederveld is the assistant director for nutrition services for Sacramento City Unified School District. Patrick Mulvaney is the head chef and owner of Mulvaney’s B&L, a leader in Sacramento’s Farm-to-Fork movement and co-founder of the “Train the Trainer” program at American River College.

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By CDFA Secretary Karen Ross

This was an especially notable year for the Cal Poly Universities at the Rose Parade — the 75th anniversary of their first float entry!

It is always a treat to be a part of the festivities in Pasadena leading up to the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day.  In the past, this was a tradition started by CA GROWN and the CA Cut Flower Commission to include California Grown certification of floats displaying at least 85 percent of flowers, greens and other organic ag materials grown in the Golden State. While challenges brought by COVID and supply chain interruptions caused a pause in that process, two floats sponsored this year by the Tournament of Roses, representing the schools participating in the Rose Bowl football game, were certified CAGROWN.

All the floats are beautiful!  What makes Cal Poly’s annual entry distinctive is that it’s the only one student-designed and built on two different campuses, and it’s the perfect example of Cal Poly’s “Learn by Doing” approach, which is core to the curriculum inside and outside of the classroom. This year’s float, “Shock and Roll: Powering the Musical Current,” featured floral products plus a creative use of agricultural products such as citrus, pomegranates, rice, onion seed, carrots, lentils, mushrooms, cabbage, corn and eggplant.

The float won the Crown City Innovator Award for the most outstanding use of imagination, innovation and technology, including the use of pneumatic, hydraulic and electrical systems to power the float’s elements.

Congratulations to Cal Poly on such a richly deserved achievement! And a big thank you to California Grown and the Tournament of Roses leadership for developing and maintaining such a meaningful connection to the Rose Parade.

Five distinguished CDFA leaders are set to retire this month, with each having served a pivotal role in steering the agency through many years of committed public service. “As they embark on a new chapter, I applaud and thank them for all their tremendous support and hard work,” said CDFA Secretary Karen Ross. “They have served Californians with dedication, leadership, and mentorship.”

Kristin Macey

Kristin Macey joined CDFA in 2007, first serving as a branch chief in the Division of Measurement Standards (DMS), then becoming the agency’s County/State Liaison before being named Director of DMS in 2010. Her work has directly contributed to the development of uniform measurement standards, which serve as the basis for laws and regulations currently adopted by every state in the US.

Rob Peterson

Rob Peterson has served the State of California since 2014. He joined CDFA in 2016 and will retire this year as Agency Chief Information Officer. Rob has been responsible for guiding and helping mentor CDFA’s enterprise IT programs, along with managing the agency’s large and complex IT operation.

Clark Cooney

Clark Cooney joined CDFA’s Division of Measurement Standards (DMS) as the Enforcement Branch Chief in 2015, overseeing areas that include device regulation, automotive products and weighmasters. He has served the public promoting marketplace equity through the weights and measures profession for more than 37 years.

Kim Quan

Kim Quan joined CDFA’s Inspection Services Division in 1990 as an office assistant. In 2006, she joined the agency’s Departmental Services/Telecommunications Unit as a Telecommunications Systems Analyst. She concluded her state career as a Telecommunications Systems Manager (Specialist) with the Office of Information Technology Services.

Lucy Valenton

Lucy Valenton has concluded a 43-year career at CDFA. Her entire time as a state employee was spent here. During her time with the Department she worked in Marketing Services, the Executive Office, and the Legal Office. For many years she was the sole support staff in the Legal Office and provided indispensable support to the legal team.

By Karen Ross, Secretary
California Department of Food and Agriculture

One thing I’ve learned in more than a decade as California Agriculture Secretary is that the work we do at CDFA is personal. So many tasks in the modern workplace focus on computer screens and mobile devices – but at CDFA, the core of our work is still person-to-person and often done in the field, or in a lab, a packing house, a border station, or even on the doorstep of a farmer or a resident whose farm or home is part of one of our programs. Many of our expert employees physically touch the plants, produce, animals, and even the insects and microscopic organisms that are central to our work: protecting and promoting agriculture. It takes people, with knowledge, experience and creativity to get it all done.

Our Executive Team tries to visit fields offices, labs and border stations as we travel to different parts of the state for meetings and events. And, at the end of each year, I love to visit our employees at several Sacramento-area worksites during the holidays. It is a good time to share some holiday camaraderie and more importantly a chance to let our stellar employees know how much I appreciate what they do every day, all year long. The talent and the professionalism of our employees continually impresses me. Over and over again, our CDFA staff rises to the challenge, never more evident than in emergency responses like large-scale invasive pest eradications; animal disease outbreaks; food safety incidents; or, natural disasters that require all hands on deck! 

To all CDFA employees throughout every corner of the state, THANK YOU for what you do!  I am so fortunate to work with you.  I wish you all the very best this holiday season and look forward to continuing our work together in 2024 for California’s agricultural community and the great state of California!

California State Veterinarian Dr. Annette Jones has granted a 24-hour permit for nine reindeer scheduled to visit California on the evening of December 24 and in the early morning hours of December 25.

The application was filed with Animal Health Branch staff by a rotund, jolly man with a red suit, white beard, and a pocketful of candy canes. The signature on the application reads, “K. Kringle.”

“Although Santa’s reindeer are special and very magical, we are grateful that every year he ensures they meet and exceed our animal health requirements to come into the State because he really cares about protecting the health of our farm animals and wildlife,” said Dr. Jones.

The permit was granted with two conditions: the nine reindeer listed,  Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph, may not fraternize with other reindeer in the State of California, and the sleigh must be checked before entering California to ensure no agricultural pests are hitching a ride. “Mr. Kringle’s veterinarian has assured us that the reindeer are healthy and fit again this year. They are ready for a busy night,” said Dr. Jones.  “We are excited to welcome them into our State where they are sure to find plenty of yummy fresh vegetables to renew their energy,” 

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross thanked Department staff for their hard work, recognizing their commitment to maintaining animal health and safe and abundant California-grown food to share with all our visitors this holiday season. “We are delighted to issue this permit to Mr. Kringle,” said Secretary Ross. “We wish him safe travels and plenty of California milk and cookies as he and his reindeer deliver presents to the children of our state.”

As the holiday season continues, CDFA is asking for help from Californians in fruit fly quarantine zones — rather than moving homegrown fruits and vegetables from their property, please enjoy the produce with friends and family at home.

There are presently fruit fly quarantines in seven California counties: Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Contra Costa, Santa Clara and Sacramento. More information may be found on CDFA’s fruit fly information page.

Additionally, Californians are urged to “Don’t Pack a Pest” this holiday season and every season. That means don’t bring fruits and vegetables back with you when you travel, and don’t have items shipped unless they’re inspected according to international protocols for reducing invasive species risk.

Taken from a USDA news release

The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is using emergency funding to respond to threats associated with growing outbreaks of exotic fruit flies in California.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack approved the transfer of $213.3 million from the Commodity Credit Corporation to APHIS to directly support emergency response efforts domestically and internationally to protect fruit, vegetable and livestock industries and producers — $103.5 million of that funding will be provided for invasive fruit fly programs. The rest will be used to combat New World Screwworm detections in areas of Panama and other areas that are critical to preventing the pest from spreading back into North America.   

“Increasing our response efforts to exotic fruit fly and New World screwworm outbreaks is critical to minimizing their potential impact on our nation’s agriculture and trade,” said USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Jenny Lester Moffitt. “This funding will enable us to swiftly prevent both populations’ further spread before they become established and harder to eradicate.”

Exotic fruit flies are among the most destructive fruit and vegetable pests in the world.  APHIS will use this funding to address known outbreaks of fruit flies in California and increase preventive activities in other susceptible areas in the United States. APHIS will also use the funding to address the increasing numbers of fruit fly incursions in areas of Guatemala and Mexico, where APHIS and cooperators maintain a buffer against northward spread of the Mediterranean fruit fly.

“We greatly appreciate our long and productive partnership with the USDA,” said CDFA Secretary Karen Ross. “We have had a very difficult year with invasive fruit flies in California, and this investment puts us in a stronger position to eradicate infestations as quickly as possible while evaluating commerce pathways and other factors to better understand why detections have increased.”

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