The USDA is now accepting applications for grants to help agricultural producers maximize the value of their products and venture into new and better markets.
The USDA is making the grants available under the Value-Added Producer Grants program. The grants help farmers and ranchers generate new products, create marketing opportunities, and increase their incomes through value-added activities.
Eligible applicants include independent producers, agricultural producer groups, farmer or rancher cooperatives, and majority-controlled producer-based business ventures.
The USDA may award up to $75,000 for planning activities or up to $250,000 for working capital expenses related to producing and marketing a value-added agricultural product.
Planning activities may include conducting feasibility studies and developing business plans. Working capital expenses may include costs associated with processing, marketing, advertising, inventory and salaries.
The USDA is particularly interested in applications that will advance Biden-Harris Administration priorities to:
• Reduce climate pollution and increase resilience to the impacts of climate change through economic support to rural communities.
• Ensure all rural residents have equitable access to Rural Development (RD) programs and benefits from RD-funded projects;
• Help rural communities recover economically through more and better market opportunities and through improved infrastructure.
Paper applications must be postmarked and delivered by mail, email or in person to the state office where the project is proposed by close of business on April 16, 2024. Electronic applications will be accepted via Grants.gov until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on April 11, 2024.
For decades, urban farms and community gardens have helped meet demand for fresh and local produce. Urban farming creatively utilizes limited space, conserves land and transforms vacant lots or buildings into productive greenspaces. Farming in cities can be a rewarding way for communities to grow healthy food while receiving a wide range of other interrelated environmental, economic and social benefits.
Profiles of SARE grant recipients illustrate how urban farmers, researchers, educators and consumers can work together to foster entrepreneurship, improve food security and contribute to local economies while increasing biodiversity and reducing the distance food travels from field to table.
This is National Milk Day in the US, and in recognition of that, here’s a video produced by the Food and Drug Administration noting that 100 years have passed since the establishment of the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO).
In connection with the ordinance, CDFA’s Milk and Dairy Food Safety Branch has maintained active participation in the National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments, and continues to hold leadership roles as the standards and practices in the PMO are updated every two years in a cooperative manner by all 50 states, industry and FDA.
Government agencies all work together to provide a safe and wholesome supply of milk and dairy products to Californians and all of the US.
California produces approximately 20 percent of the nation’s milk supply.
Monarch butterflies and their host plant, milkweeds, have historically been prevalent throughout California. In recent decades the monarch population has significantly declined, and the population is now a fraction of its size compared to the 1980s.
In California, monarchs overwinter along the Pacific Coast. Large gatherings of monarchs can be seen at over-wintering sites such as the Pacific Grove Monarch Sanctuary. These monarch clusters are counted to help determine population size. After winter the monarchs head inland to spend the spring and summer breeding. The Central Valley is a critical part of their breeding range.
The interagency group learning about and experiencing the established monarch butterfly and pollinator habitat enhancement pilot project on the San Luis Canal.
CDFA representatives including myself and deputy secretary Virginia Jameson recently participated in a tour of the Grassland Water District monarch butterfly habitat project in Merced County. Leaders from the Almond Alliance, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Wonderful Company, Xerces, the Great Valley Seed Company, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) also participated. Jonathan Birdsong, western regional director of NFWF, organized the tour, and Grasslands Water District (GWD) general manager Ric Ortega led it.
Grasslands is in the largest contiguous block of wetlands remaining in California’s Central Valley. The Western Monarch travels through the area on its migratory path, seeking out host plants for nectar and ovipositioning (egg-laying).
In 2021, the water district successfully established a monarch butterfly and pollinator habitat enhancement pilot project on the San Luis Canal, with a mix of perennial pollinator species, including narrow-leaf milkweed. The unlined canal bank is a prime location because the plants can thrive with very little supplemental irrigation.
Opening a milkweed pod found along the Monarch friendly canals.
The GWD is expanding this effort in the 2023-24 planting season with a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and was able to leverage that grant to receive additional funding from the California Wildlife Conservation Board.
“The recent momentum and early success of the Monarch Recovery Program in and around the managed wetlands of the Grassland Ecological Area is a great example of collaboration between private landowners, native plant farms, and state and federal resource agencies,” said Ric Ortega.
The tour led to a thoughtful discussion of how to increase pollinator habitat in California’s San Joaquin Valley through interagency collaboration and incentives such as CDFA’s Pollinator Habitat Program.
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.
CDFA Secretary Karen Ross, center-front, holding a Cal Poly celebratory banner along with Cal Poly Pomona president Soraya Coley (left of secretary) and Joe Shea, deputy cabinet secretary for Governor Gavin Newsom. At the far right is Mike Mellano of Mellano & Company, a family of flower growers, and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo president Jeffrey Armstrong (mobile device users may have to open photo). They are joined by students who designed and built the Cal Poly Universities float.
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.
A multidisciplinary group of students from South Korea recently traveled to California to learn more about animal blood banks, meeting with CDFA veterinarians (pictured: Dr. Sean Brady) to discuss current animal blood banking rules and regulations as well as methods being used to promote community blood banking. CDFA has released an animal blood banking guidance resource and has begun registering animal blood and blood component products from community blood banks.
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 with Secretary Ross
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 with Secretary Ross
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 with Secretary Ross
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 with Secretary Ross
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.
CDFA staff and leadership join the California State Employees Food Drive effort by volunteering at the Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services this holiday season. In three hours, the CDFA team packed 802 boxes with more than 10,000 pounds of food items for the food bank’s No Student Left Hungry program. CDFA encourages all state agencies and members of the public to visit www.fooddrive.ca.gov/donate/ to find a food bank in your county to make a donation or volunteer your time this holiday season.
By Karen Ross, Secretary California Department of Food and Agriculture
Secretary Ross wishes CDFA’s Center for Analytical Chemistry staff a safe and happy holiday season. More photos below!
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!
