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.
The Mediterranean Fruit Fly, one of a series of invasive fruit flies that threaten California’s environment and food production.
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.”
Secretary Ross at COP28 sessions in Dubai and at bottom right, with CDFA Deputy Secretary for Climate and Working Lands Virginia Jameson
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to attend COP28 –the UN’s annual conference on climate change — last week in Dubai.
It was my third COP, and I noticed that the conversations with our partners on collaboration seemed deeper and more meaningful this time around, like we are building on previous steps. We do have a shared sense of urgency to address climate change.
The continued leadership by the State of California in partnership with dairy families to reduce livestock methane emissions was a focus of three different panel discussions for me, and I was pleased to be able to discuss our progress. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), methane emissions from livestock must fall 25 percent by 2030 (compared to 2020) to stay on course for the Paris Climate Agreement goal to limit global warming this century to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
However, reducing livestock methane emissions is a challenge for some of our international partners, which is understandable when you consider how many millions of people are dependent upon livestock for their families‘ nutritional needs and livelihoods. Pasture-based grazing and herdsmen in arid regions utilize land where poor soils do not support crop production. These nations feel they are being asked to choose between food security and their local economies, or livestock methane reductions. The entire discussion underscores the critical need for investment to support farmers and ranchers in making transitions in their practices.
Another key topic in Dubai was a need for investment in healthy soils, and an increase in the number of entities engaged in efforts to scale up soil health practices for climate mitigation as well as long-term productivity, food security and other co-benefits like biodiversity, water holding capacity, drought resiliency, and nutrient cycling. People are excited about the possibilities! A big topic for discussion was some promising, potentially low-cost and easy to use tools for measuring and monitoring progress in healthy soils development.
One key advancement in the ongoing international effort is the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM), a joint initiative by the United States and the United Arab Emirates seeking to address climate change and global hunger by uniting participants to significantly increase support for climate-smart agriculture and food systems innovation. There is significant buy-in from other partners — pledges of $17 billion are now at-hand following an additional $8 billion in commitments in Dubai, from both government and non-government parties.
Agriculture has always been a building block for emerging economies and is vital for life. It is fundamental to attaining the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 2: “End hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.” But agriculture also helps attain a number of other development goals, including ending poverty; ensuring healthy lives and well-being; ensuring sustainable water management; taking action to combat climate change; promoting sustainable land use; and the protection of biodiversity.
It is an honor and a privilege to represent the great state of California, which is well-known for its high-quality, vibrant food production. And it’s gratifying to hear the respect and admiration so many have for our state’s public policies and investments in addressing climate change, with significant incentive funding in climate-smart agriculture.
Most of all, it is humbling to hear the challenges of other countries, sub-national governments, and non-government parties as they work to address climate change, poverty and hunger. It is a reminder of how fragile our world is and how the only way forward is to work together and never give up.
Today is National Poinsettia Day! As shown in the accompanying graphic, California leads the nation in poinsettia production.
There’s a grower in the Central Valley that supplies tens of thousands of poinsettias each year. CDFA visited Duarte Nursery in Hughson, Stanislaus County to learn more about the operation.
During a recent session at the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP28 in Dubai), CDFA secretary Karen Ross discussed the ways the climate crisis is affecting the state’s farmers and opportunities to overcome these challenges.
The conversation was organized by Food Tank in partnership with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Producers Trust, and the Forum for Farmers and Food Security (3FS) at the Sustainable Agriculture of the Americas Pavilion.
Since becoming Secretary in 2011, Ross explains that she has lived through two historic droughts in California. In addition to water shortages, farmers are grappling with invasive species, extreme heat, and, when droughts are not an issue, flooding.
“We’re living our future and our future is happening now,” Ross says. “This is why it’s so important that we work together and think about how we continue to nourish people in a changing climate. And status quo isn’t going to do it.”
Interventions are important not only for farmers’ livelihoods, but for the state as a whole. According to Ross, even before value-added products are taken into account, the value of the state’s agriculture sector is just under US$56 billion.
To support producers, The state is eyeing the groundwater basin. “Recharging,” Ross says, “is the only way for us to survive in the future. It’s that below ground storage, above ground storage, using every drop as preciously as we possibly can, and recycling.”
The CDFA is also investing in climate-smart agriculture practices in an effort to scale their adoption. Cover cropping, composting, and the planting of hedge rows for pollinators are particularly attractive, Ross says. “These are things to build up resiliency. Healthy soils that continue to be productive, that are adding soil organic matter…[they are] improving the nutrient cycling and the biodiversity.”
And while the climate crisis will affect all producers, Ross is mindful that the ability of producers to adapt varies considerably, and smaller farmers are more likely to struggle. Around 70 percent of producers are growing crops on less than 100 acres of land, Ross says. “It’s very important to focus on those people who don’t have the same level of resources to withstand the shocks to the system.”
(Bottom photo, L-R) CDFA Deputy Secretary for Legislative Affairs Rachael O’Brien; Dr. Eoin Brodie, Deputy Director of the Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab; Dr. Margaret Smither-Kopperl with USDA-NRCS; Dr. Daniel Rath, a soil scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council; and Drew Cheney, Operations Manager with Machado Family Farms in Linden.
Culminating Healthy Soils Week 2023, a hearing on soil biodiversity was held today at the State Capitol in association with the Assembly Committee on Agriculture and the Senate Natural Resources Committee.
CDFA Deputy Secretary for Legislative Affairs Rachael O’Brien moderated a panel of leading soil scientists delivering a presentation about soil biodiversity, soil health, and sustainable agricultural practices. The briefing was attended by nearly 30 legislative staff and set the stage for a discussion to share insights into innovative farming approaches focused on biodiversity and soil health.
I am pleased to be part of the California delegation in Dubai this week at COP28, the United Nations conference on climate change. CDFA Deputy Secretary for Climate and Working Lands Virginia Jameson is traveling with me.
The nations of the world are working together to both adapt and try to keep the average global temperature within 1.5 degrees Celsius–or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit–of pre-industrial levels, a goal set out in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
Our California colleagues attending the early part of this year’s conference were able to finalize and announce the expansion of a coalition of subnational governments committed to reducing methane. There are now a total of 15 signatories, including the US and California. Recently-added signatories are from Brazil, Canada, South Korea, Bolivia, Germany and Spain.
This year’s conference will also build upon a topic that began to surge to the international forefront last year — the essential nature of agriculture to ensure food and nutritional security, which is threatened by climate change. The challenges of water availability and water quality, and strategies to address them, are featured in a number of sessions.
I welcome the opportunity to participate in panel discussions to share our experiences as well as learn from others. We’ll discuss the interconnectedness of healthy soils and biodiversity for resilient food systems, learn about a variety of efforts to simplify and harmonize soil carbon data, share California progress on reducing livestock methane emissions, talk about the importance of natural working lands in meeting climate goals and 30×30 biodiversity goals, and learn more about what nations are doing to reduce plastic waste streams.
It is an honor to participate in COP28 and I look forward to sharing more about the highlights when I return early next week.
CDFA Secretary Karen Ross and Doug McKalip, Chief Agricultural Negotiator in the Office of the United States Trade Representative, had an opportunity to meet with participants at this year’s annual Almond Conference, taking place in Sacramento at the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center. The three-day event is significant for California’s almond growers, researchers, and industry professionals as they look to exchange knowledge and seek information about new technology.
“Ambassador McKalip and I were pleased to tour the main floor of the Almond Conference,” said Secretary Ross. “We had a chance to see some of the impressive innovations to improve almond production and efficiencies. I’m proud of the Almond Board’s aim to help educate growers on a range of subjects, and to help growers and handlers in their operations.”
The Almond Conference is expected to draw approximately 4000 attendees. In 2022, almonds were California’s fourth leading-valued commodity — $3.52 billion.
In coordination with Healthy Soils Week and World Soil Day, the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) conducted an on-site event today at the LangeTwins Family Winery and Vineyard in Acampo, San Joaquin County. Sponsored by CDFA’s Biologically Integrated Farming Systems Programs (BIFS) program, the event included expert perspectives on cover cropping and integrated livestock grazing in vineyards as part of a systems approach to land management.
Approximately 70 participants joined in the field tour, gaining a firsthand view of how animal grazing and cover crops are helping to provide important ecosystem services to sustain healthy soils practices at a vineyard.
