By Kate Munden-Dixon and Leslie Roche

As California contends with drought, wildfires and other impacts of climate change, a small yet passionate group of residents are attempting to lessen these effects and reduce the state’s carbon emissions. They are ranchers – but not the kind that most people picture when they hear that term.

These first-generation ranchers are young, often female and ethnically diverse. Rather than raising beef cattle destined for feedlots, many are managing small grazing animals like sheep and goats. And they are experimenting with grazing practices that can reduce fire risk on hard-to-reach landscapes, restore biodiversity and make it possible to make a living from the land in one of the most expensive states in the country.

Our research focuses on food systems, rangelands and livestock production. In our recent work, we found new ranchers in California using innovative strategies that they believe can mitigate fire risk to communities and improve soil through grazing.

We see an opportunity for the public and government agricultural agencies to support these producers, who are reframing livestock production systems in ways that could benefit the environment.

A hard industry to enter

Ranching is a family operation in California, with the vast majority raising beef cattle. The primary ranchers on traditional operations are mostly male, mostly white and generally in their late 50s to early 60s. They typically work together with their children, which lets younger generations draw on decades of knowledge and experience, as well as long-term connections to the land and to rural communities.

Because land in California is expensive, there are few independent first-generation beef cattle ranchers. Several first-generation ranchers whom we interviewed relayed stories of friends leaving the state to find places with cheaper land and fewer regulations. One explained that expanding urban edges and more profitable land uses are rapidly transforming rural landscapes and making it difficult, if not impossible, to “make a go of it” as a new rancher.

New ways to ranch

Climate change is challenging farmers and ranchers across the U.S. in many ways. On western rangelands, climate variability has increased the magnitude and number of extreme wildfires that occur each year. Wet years cause vegetation to thrive, while subsequent severe droughts turn it into deadly fuel.

Our research team wanted to understand how first-generation ranchers were adapting to California’s changing climate. Our preliminary research indicated they were less prepared for future droughts than more established ranchers, and they were less likely to use drought adaptation strategies, such as raising fewer animals than their land can support in good years. This approach hedges against the risk of bringing animals to market during dry years, when prices are less favorable.

But we soon discovered a new generation of ranchers who are creating different and often entirely new types of production systems in response to California’s climate extremes and high costs. Because they are starting from scratch, many of them do not view their practices as adapting, we learned. Rather, they see these techniques as central elements of a new kind of ranching.

For example, we interviewed one young first-generation cattle rancher who is experimenting with “mob grazing” – putting animals on small areas of land in dense groups for periods as short as a few hours, then moving them to new plots. Moving his herd as a close-knit unit across pastures mimics the natural movements of historical elk herds that use to roam coastal California.

His goals are to increase soil carbon storage and native vegetation by using hoof trampling to break up and incorporate residual plant matter into the soil after grazing. Then the pasture receives a long rest, which allows the soil and grass to recover.

An emerging model

New ranchers are spread throughout the length of California, from grassy foothill regions of the Sierra Nevada along the state’s eastern edge to the Pacific coast ranges. Many established California ranching families have large land holdings in multiple locations, but new ranchers tend to have smaller and fewer parcels of land.

Diversification is a key economic and ecological strategy. The average new rancher raises two types of livestock, and one-third of them also produce crops. The majority of these new ranchers (53%) are managing sheep, while less than half (47%) are raising beef cattle.

Many of these new ranchers view improving the environment with grazing animals as a way to positively affect the world. Like millennials in general, they want their work to be purpose-driven and are seeking work-life balance.

Although many are struggling to survive economically, these emerging ranchers believe they are providing a public service to communities. Some of them suggested to us that California should reconceptualize ranchers as ecosystem stewards who use grazing animals to restore watersheds and habitats, creating more resilient communities.

These services are valuable in California, where active management of landscapes can foster and enhance the state’s incredible biodiversity. It also reduces grasses and other forages that are potential fuel for devastating fires.

Beyond beef

So far, however, new forms of ranching have received little public buy-in or assistance. While this type of ranching has been gaining popularity, many policymakers and agricultural agencies still tend to equate livestock production with California’s US$3.19 billion beef cattle industry.

We see a critical opportunity for the public and government agencies to actively support ranchers who are working to mitigate the climate crisis. Several new and expanding funding streams could provide public support to new producers, including California’s Healthy Soils Program and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program.

Consider the staggering impact of wildfires, which generated $13 billion in insurance claims in California in 2018. Expanding incentive programs for new and beginning ranchers who are interested in fire mitigation and climate adaptation could support California’s land management goals.

However, without an increase in outreach and support, the future of these new ranchers is uncertain. Help from university researchers and agricultural and natural resource extension advisers is crucial to increase the number of new ranchers who begin and stay in ranching. And partnerships among universities, government agencies and nonprofits can help the next generation pursue innovative solutions to offset carbon emissions and reduce wildfire risks.

Link to article on The Conversation web site

Note – Featured farmer Don Cameron is president of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture.

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By Christine Souza

During the next few weeks, beekeepers will finish moving some 2.5 million honeybee colonies into California orchards to pollinate the state’s 1.2 million bearing acres of almond trees.

“We’re working really hard to supply a good supply of bees for the almond growers and doing everything that we can to keep up with their increase in production,” Butte County beekeeper Buzz Landon said.

As another 300,000 almond acres come into production in the next few years, beekeepers and farmers say an additional 600,000 beehives will be needed for pollination. Achieving that could be somewhat daunting, as beekeepers report annual bee losses due to challenges such as reduced forage, the Varroa mite and pesticide-related issues.

At the annual conference of the American Honey Producers Association and Canadian Honey Council, held recently in Sacramento, state Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross said California border stations cleared 1.82 million beehives to enter the state in 2019.

Going into this season, Ross reminded beekeepers to register movement of beehives in and out of orchards to protect the apiaries from theft and from applications of crop protection materials. The state’s BeeCheck program requires beekeepers to register beehive locations with county agricultural commissioners. Last year, agricultural commissioners added BeeWhere, a software program to assist beekeepers in registering beehives.

Beekeeper Valeri Strachan-Severson of Yuba City said many out-of-state beekeepers oppose the registration program, but said, “It’s important. This has been on the books for 30 years.”

Daren Williams, senior director of communications for the Almond Board of California, said he expects almond production to grow from the current 2.3 billion pounds to the 3 billion-pound mark.

“For at least the next three to five years, most experts are projecting that this industry is going to continue to grow in acreage and in pounds. Of course, the pounds that we produce are very dependent upon pollination,” Williams said.

Last week, the Almond Board announced a new, five-point Pollinator Protection Plan aimed at protecting bees. The plan includes new collaboration with the nonprofit Pollinator Partnership; educating farmers and pollination stakeholders; improving communication; increasing on-farm floral diversity; and supporting bee health research.

At the honey producers conference, almond grower Ryan Cosyns of Madera, who used to manage honeybees, addressed pollination prices during a panel discussion.

“We need beekeepers that are pricing their product at a price that warrants what they had put into it,” Cosyns said. “The minimum price this year should be about $200 a hive. If you’re pricing under that, you’re doing yourself an injustice.”

In turn, beekeepers warned growers to watch out for “fly-by-night bee brokers,” who they said undercut the business with less than standard-quality bees.

Pollination services, Williams pointed out, represent “a significant input cost for growers, about 15 to 20% of a grower’s total production costs.”

Farmers have experimented with a self-fertile almond variety, Independence, which requires fewer bee colonies for pollination. Cosyns said the trees are only a fraction of the state’s total almond acres, and that planting of the variety has slowed because it does not have the same flavor as nonpareil, the top almond variety.

Many beekeepers at the conference had their minds on getting out and checking bees they had moved into bee yards or orchards.

Stanislaus County beekeeper Matt Beekman said he stored his apiaries in a bee yard in anticipation of bloom.

“For my growers, we’re doing some supplemental feeding in preparation for almond pollination, and we’re expecting to start moving bees either this week or the following week, depending upon the weather,” Beekman said.

A few miles away in Ballico, Merced County almond grower Eric Harcksen, who also brokers honeybees, said things are getting busy in the orchards.

“We have beekeepers from Indiana who are here in our almonds right now,” Harcksen said, adding, “We broker their bees; they bring them in from Indiana and then I put them into the almonds for them and take them out.”

During the honey conference, Iowa-based beekeeper Alex Ebert said he tripled the number of beehives he brought to California this year.

“After we get done with the conference, then we go take a look at how the bees are doing and get ready for almond pollination in February,” Ebert said.

Tulare County beekeeper Steve Godlin, who lost 100 beehives to theft last year at this time, said people in rural areas should be aware of the possibility of beehive thefts and suspicious activity.

“If you live near an almond orchard and see somebody loading bees onto a truck and out of the orchard, they are likely being stolen, so please call law enforcement,” Godlin said. “Get a license plate number or photo and report it.”

Hilmar Farm Watch, a rural-watch group working with law enforcement, reported 32 beehives allegedly stolen Jan. 7 from the Stevinson area of Merced County.

Link to article on the California Farm Bureau Ag Alert site

By Matt Villano

They’re growing more than grapes and produce at Shone Farm in Forestville — they’re growing farmers, too.

The 365-acre parcel is both a working farm and an outdoor learning laboratory, the place where students in Santa Rosa Junior College’s Agriculture and Natural Resources department get hands-on experience. The property is one of the largest college farms in the country, according to the American Association of Community Colleges. It also is one of the most diverse field-teaching labs in the country — a place where students study to become grape growers, winemakers, farmers, park rangers and pest-control specialists.

The farm opens to public visitors at least once a month for nine months of the year.

On these free-admission public days — dubbed Pick & Sip days — visitors are welcome to come, marvel at livestock, pick and buy in-season produce and grass-fed beef, taste wine and olive oil made from estate grapes and olives, and interact with students and professors alike.

The events themselves have a festival atmosphere: music playing, people talking and laughing, the products center stage as the stars of the show. Lynn Ellerbrock, sales and marketing coordinator, said in addition to fruits, veggies, wine and olive oil, the farm sells house-made value-added products such as strawberry preserves, Gravenstein apple syrup and dried heirloom beans.

“If we grow it or make it here, you can pick it up on one of our Pick & Sip days,” she said, noting that roughly 300 people attend each of the open-to-the-public events. “We feel this is a great way for outsiders to come, visit and get to know the farm.”

Ellerbrock added that free tastes of student-brewed craft beer also will be available on Pick & Sip days starting this summer after the farm resuscitates its brewery program in the spring semester.

There’s also a Fall Festival every harvest, which includes u-pick pumpkins and strawberries, hay rides, and more.

In addition to about 40 acres of buildings, the farm comprises 120 acres of forest, 100 acres of pasture, 90 acres of vineyard, 12 acres for crop production, and 4 acres of olive and apple trees. There also is open space around the farm’s perimeter that serves as wildlife corridors and habitat — this is home to a natural resources program that focuses on forestry, watershed restoration and wildlife habitat enhancement.

Taken as a whole, Shone Farm is one of the largest agriculture sites in the California Community Colleges system.

Students who complete coursework on-site are taught commercial production techniques that they can apply in the workplace or parlay into additional studies after transferring to a four-year university. The largest program, SRJC’s on-site Wine Studies Program, attracts 300 to 425 students each year.

During public days, though some of the action takes place in the fields adjacent to the parking lot, most of the event unfolds in the Warren G. Dutton Jr. Agricultural Pavilion, a sprawling building with an expansive patio that looks out on the Russian River Valley American Viticultural Area.

Go early enough in the day and from the patio you can look down on morning fog in the valley below.

“It really is a beautiful spot,” Ellerbrock says. “Beautiful and productive.

Link to article in San Francisco Chronicle

By Kathy Keatley Garvey

(EXCERPTED)

On a day too cold for honey bees to fly and nearly too cold for bundled dignitaries to speak, officials celebrated the opening of the newly constructed USDA-ARS bee research facility on Bee Biology Road on the UC Davis campus.

Queen bee breeder Jackie Park-Burris, a past president of the California State Beekeepers’ Association and a leader in the industry, snipped the ribbon in 45-degree temperature, joining a group of other stakeholders to open the facility.

“This is the only USDA bee research team in California — where the action is,” said emcee Paul Pratt, research leader of the Invasive Species and Pollinator Health Research Lab. USDA maintains honey bee research facilities in Tucson, Ariz.; Beltsville, Md.; Baton Rouge, La.; and Stoneville, Miss.

“The opening of the USDA-ARS bee lab marks a new opportunity for USDA and UC Davis entomologists to collaborate and investigate serious problems that affect stakeholders,” said Steve Nadler, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. “We are very fortunate that the lab was built at UC Davis.”

Park-Burris, of Jackie Park-Burris Queens, Palo Cedro — her family has worked with UC Davis researchers for more than 80 years — cut the ribbon with four other stakeholders: almond pollination consultant Robert Curtis of Carmichael, former director and associate director (now retired) of Agricultural Affairs, Almond Board of California; Kevin Adee of Bruce, S.D., president of the American Honey Producers’ Association; Brad Pankratz of Can-Am Apiaries, Orland; and Darren Cox of Cox Honey Farms, Logan, Utah, a past president of the American Honey Producers’ Association.

Pratt introduced newly hired research entomologists, Arathi Seshadri and Julia Fine, forming the Invasive Species and Pollinator Health Research Unit at Davis. They are dedicated toward developing technology that improves colony survivorship through long-term studies of multiple stress factors, he said. “They will develop and transfer integrated biologically based approaches for the management of invasive species and the improvement of pollinator health.”

Seshadri and Fine aim to improve honey bee survival and beekeeping sustainability in California and nationwide, Pratt said. They will collaborate with federal, university, non-governmental and industry partners.

‘We are grateful’

In her talk, Park-Burris said that the “California State Beekeepers’ Association is overwhelmed that we have a USDA lab to collaborate with our UC Davis lab. We hope there’s a lot of collaboration going on. We really look forward to that. As a stakeholder, my family has been raising queens just north of here (Palo Cedro) for over 80 years. Dr. Laidlaw had worked with my uncle and my father. He’s been at my house. And he’s been through my bees. Julia (Fine) has even already been up to see the queen farm.”

“The queen bee breeding industry could definitely use you guys,” Park-Burris continued. “California has all the issues because everybody comes here. …it’s very important that we have this lab here and how grateful we are that you have all gone to the work to make this happen.”

“We look forward to solving some of our problems — varroa, varroa, varroa — and forage and pesticide interaction,” Park-Burris said, “and all that happens in California during the largest pollinator event in the world. So you’re in a good place and we’re grateful.”

UC Cooperative Extension apiculturist emeritus Eric Mussen later commented: “I think that the collaboration among the new USDA bee lab personnel, cooperating researchers, and beekeepers should provide an opportunity to probe deeply into potential causes of colony loss.  The ability to follow the health of individual bees and colonies, throughout the year, should provide important clues about precursors of colony decline, well in advance of the ultimate collapse.”

Link to the complete article in the Davis Enterprise

CDFA is pleased to be part of the 40th Eco Farm Conference starting today at Asilomar in Pacific Grove and running until Saturday, January 25.

On Friday, January 24, CDFA secretary Karen Ross will be joined by Central Coast congressional representative Jimmy Panetta for an informal question and answer session about key policy issues related to climate change, organics, marketing and other other key agricultural topics. The session will be moderated by EcoFarm’s Executive Director, Andy Fisher.

CDFA staff will participate in a series of workshops and also be available at information booths. Look for the Office of Environmental Farming and Innovation, the Inspection Services Division, the agency’s Farmer Equity and Tribal Affairs Advisor, CalCannabis, CDFA’s Produce Safety Program, and the State Organic Program.

Conference-goers will learn from leading experts on topics addressing both micro and macro issues critical to organic agriculture and the prosperity of small and mid-scale farmers. Several workshops will be presented in Spanish.

By Dorany Pineda and Gustavo Arellano

They called her “Kiwi Queen” and “Mother Gooseberry.” “Mushroom Lady” and “the “Mick Jagger of the produce world.” The woman who broke the glass ceiling in the testosterone-doused produce world and forever changed the way Americans eat fruits and vegetables.

She was Frieda Rapoport Caplan, a tenacious maven credited for introducing kiwis, mangoes, habanero and shishito peppers, passion fruit, bean and alfalfa sprouts, baby carrots, sugar snap peas, starfruit, blood oranges, shiitake mushrooms, turmeric, and hundreds more fruits and vegetables into the supermarket mainstream. Into the bellies of American consumers.

She was loquacious, driven and loved to take risks.

“I had a reputation of trying anything new,” she told the Pasadena Star-News in 2003. “I couldn’t compete with all the boys on the big items … so I built the business selling things that were different.”

That was the Caplan way, a gritty business owner deemed the first woman to own and run her own produce house in Los Angeles’ Wholesale Produce Market and the U.S.

In heels and a skirt, she revolutionized the way the produce world did business, adding recipes and cooking instructions on packages of “exotic” produce to tame the distrust of an unsuspecting public.

Caplan died Saturday morning in Los Alamitos after a brief illness, according to an email sent by her daughters, Karen Caplan — president and CEO of Frieda’s Specialty Produce — and Jackie Caplan Wiggins, the company’s chief operating officer. She was 96.

“Who the hell had heard of jicama or spaghetti squash?” said Ben Faber, a UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor who works with specialty crops. “We were a meat and potatoes society in the 1960s,” he added. “She changed our eating habits…. Frieda was able to tap into aspirations that people had after the Second World War … something new and different other than mac ‘n’ cheese.”

Born in 1923 in downtown L.A., Caplan was the daughter of Russian immigrants and raised in Highland Park. Like many great success stories, Caplan’s stratospheric rise as the mother and pioneer of specialty produce came from happenstance.

The year was 1945, and Caplan had recently graduated from UCLA with a degree in economics and political science. Soon after, she landed an office gig working for an attorney who headed the CIO’s political action committee in L.A.

In 1951, she married labor consultant and president of a longshoreman’s union, Alfred Hale Caplan. Four years later, they had their firstborn, Karen.

She started searching for a job with flexible hours, as she wanted to care for and breastfeed her baby at home. Her husband’s uncle and aunt, who managed a produce house, happened to be looking for a bookkeeper, so they brought Caplan on board.

Then her boss went on vacation, and Caplan was asked to fill in as a cashier. As buyers came in for produce, the young Caplan nudged them toward a pallet of fresh brown mushrooms. One man agreed, but his order was massive, and they didn’t have enough in stock to fill his request.

She panicked.

Everyone she called was out of the fungi, so she went hunting for them at the Ocean View Mushroom Farm in Orange County. They too were sold out, but she saw employees packing mushrooms and lent a hand.

She got what she wanted and filled the buyer’s request.

It was a steady trajectory from there as Caplan developed her marketing expertise.

Encouraged by the manager for the Southern Pacific Railroad, which ran the market, Caplan launched her own business with the help of a loan from her father, focusing on overlooked foodstuffs.

“The other people on the market were only interested in high-volume items,” Caplan once said. “Small farmers had no place to go. Nobody was interested. So I started listening to all these small farmers.”

And slowly, her reputation for selling fruits and vegetables no one had heard of stateside had swelled.

“Go to Frieda,” growers and buyers often heard when they sought an offbeat product no one knew about.

The kiwi, Caplan’s first claim to fame, made its debut after a Safeway buyer asked if she carried “Chinese gooseberries,” which he’d encountered on a recent trip to New Zealand.

She didn’t. But months later, a broker walked through the market with a box and Caplan bought some. She renamed the brown fuzzy edible kiwifruit, thinking customers would find its new name more appealing.

It took nearly a decade for the fruit to popularize. “I like to call it our 18-year overnight success,” she once said. Ironically, she grew allergic to the fruit in her later years.

“Her introduction of kiwi made people less risk-averse to try new things,” said Marianne McGarry Wolf, head of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Agribusiness Department.

Gradually, Caplan carved out a niche for herself. After hustling for years, working from 1 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, Caplan founded her own company in 1962. Purple became her signature color because, at the time of her business launch, it was the only hue the sign maker she hired had on hand.

“There have always been exotic food items,” Caplan told The Times in 1972 on the key to success. “We just showcased them, dressed them up and sold them.”

She even supplied the “alien” fruits for “Star Trek” episodes, which helped boost sales.

Also a sales success was her introduction of packaged produce, an idea that spawned when customers in Chicago couldn’t tell the difference between the ginger and sunchokes they’d purchased from her.

So Caplan found a solution: She labeled their products and added a note telling customers to call Frieda’s for recipes and more information. “We were flooded with letters,” Caplan said in the 2015 documentary “Fear No Fruit.” Every week, they received 400 to 800 letters.

“Success came because I never saw obstacles,” she told the Orange County Register in 2018.

In the mid-1980s, when Frieda’s Inc. had established itself as an industry leader, she told The Times that her success was due to the health and fitness craze of the time, medical reports stating that eating more fresh produce showed a lower cancer rate, and a spurt of restaurants specializing in fresh and exotic foods.

Before long she was supplying produce to stores like Vons, Ralphs, Trader Joe’s, Bristol Farms and Whole Foods.

The media had long ago taken notice of her, and had been following her rocketing career.

The Times in 1990 listed Caplan as one of a dozen Californians — including Steve Jobs and Jane Fonda — who shaped American businesses in the 1980s.

“You gotta hand it to her,” said an admirer to The Times in 1972. “She made something from nothing. There isn’t a produce man in the market who doesn’t take his hat off to her.”

And throughout her long, fruitful life and career, others took their hats off to her, too.

Her many accolades included an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo; a Lifetime Achievement Award from United Fresh Produce Assn.; a Legacy Award from National Assn. of Women Business Owners; received the first Working Woman’s magazine’s first Harriet Alger Award for Entrepreneurship; and was the first woman to receive The Packer newspaper’s “Produce Man of the Year” in the 1970s, which she rejected until it was renamed “The Produce Marketer of the Year.”

By 2018, Frieda’s, Inc. had boomed into a $50-million-plus business with 75 full-time and 110 part-time employees, an 81,000-square-foot warehouse in Los Alamitos and customers from across the world.

Until recently, Caplan still showed up to work. Cane in hand, always donning purple, she filed invoices and kept a keen eye on the next big product, leaving her daughters Karen and Jackie to run the business.

“She works like someone is keeping time on her,” her granddaughter and the company’s sales manager Alex Berkley once said.

But despite all her innovations and accomplishments, her accolades and title as “the marketing genius who galvanized the California farm industry and almost singlehandedly created fruit and vegetable trends,” as many described her, there’s one thing Caplan didn’t do: She never learned how to cook.

Link to article in the Los Angeles Times