By Bill Disbrow

We may someday have to stop calling our drought a temporary phenomenon and just label it the new normal. Climate change could lock the state into a dry pattern lasting centuries or even a millennia if history repeats itself, according to a new study out of UCLA.

Researchers correlated findings from Sierra Nevada soil samples and found that energy changes from natural occurrences like a shift in the Earth’s orbit or sun spots may have triggered prolonged dry weather in California. In the Nature.com journal Scientific Reports, the team argues that current radiative forcing – energy change  brought on by greenhouse gas emissions – may create a similar prolonged dry pattern in the Golden State.

“Radiative forcing in the past appears to have had catastrophic effects in extending droughts,” UCLA professor Glen MacDonald said in a university publication. “When you have arid periods that persist for 60 years, as we did in the 12th century, or for millennia, as we did from 6,000 to 1,000 B.C., that’s not really a ‘drought.’ That aridity is the new normal.”

From 6,000 to 1,000 B.C., the core sample indicates a 5,000-year dry period in California that had been suggested by previous research. That period was linked to a slight change in Earth’s orbit that resulted in increased solar energy in the Northern Hemisphere and creating La Niña conditions.

MacDonald’s team correlated historic radiative forcing with increased water temperatures in our oceans, likely creating more La Niña and El Niño weather patterns during previous dry spells. If greenhouse gasses persist, MacDonald warns that we could see more of these boom-or-bust winters, potentially bringing a significant change to California’s ecosystems.

“In a century or so, we might see a retreat of forest lands, and an expansion of sagebrush, grasslands and deserts,” MacDonald said in the UCLA release. “We would expect temperatures to get higher, and rainfall and snowfall would decrease. Fire activity could increase, and lakes would get shallower, with some becoming marshy or drying up.”

MacDonald stressed that his study can’t be used to predict the future, but it does offer cause for concern.

Link to article

 

Note – Governor Brown today signed  AB 1613, which directs $900 million in cap-and-trade investments, including $7.5 million for CDFA’s State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program (SWEEP) and $7.5 million for CDFA’s Healthy Soils Incentive Program, which is one of many actions identified in the Healthy Soils Initiative. 

California’s Climate Future and Soils

California’s Healthy Soils Initiative is a collaboration of state agencies and departments, led by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, to promote the development of healthy soils on California’s farm and ranch lands. Innovative farm and ranch management practices contribute to building adequate soil organic matter that can increase carbon sequestration and reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions.

The Healthy Soils Initiative is a key part of California’s strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by increasing carbon sequestration in and on natural and working lands. Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr.’s Executive Order B-30-15 (April 2015), codified by SB 32 in September 2016, established a new interim statewide greenhouse gas emission reduction target at 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. The Executive Order points to carbon sequestration in California’s forests and farmlands as one way to help meet that goal. The Brown administration also recognized the importance of soil health in the Governor’s 2015-16 proposed budget by highlighting that “as the leading agricultural state in the nation, it is important for California’s soils to be sustainable and resilient to climate change.”

In building soil health, California can also make use of wasted resources bound for the landfill. Currently, some 12 million tons of compostable or mulchable organic waste is sent to California landfills annually, where it generates methane and other public health threats that must be managed or mitigated. The Healthy Soils Initiative presents an opportunity to return those organic materials back to the soil, where they can serve as a resource for California’s critical agricultural economy.

Health of agricultural soil relates to its ability to build and retain adequate soil organic matter via the activity of plants and soil organisms. Adequate soil organic matter ensures the soil’s continued capacity to function as a vital living ecosystem with multiple benefits that sustains and produces food for plants, animals, and humans. These benefits include:

• Improve plant health and yields – soil organic matter contains important nutrients that support plant growth, biodiversity and yields.
• Increase water infiltration and retention – healthy soil reduces runoff and has the ability to hold up to 20 times its weight in water; it assists flood management.
• Sequester and reduce greenhouse gases – carbon stored in soil has the potential to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.
• Reduce sediment erosion and dust – healthy soil resists erosion and improves dust control.
• Improve water and air quality – practices to improve soil health can reduce emissions of criteria pollutants and affect the persistence and biodegradability of pesticides in soil and water.
• Improve biological diversity and wildlife habitat – at least a quarter of the world’s biodiversity lives in the soil; activities to improve soil health on farms and ranches can also promote plant and animal biodiversity and provide wildlife habitat benefits.

Actions for the Healthy Soils Initiative

State agencies, departments and boards met and agreed to a set of five primary actions for the Healthy Soils Initiative:

1. Protect and restore soil organic matter in California’s soils.
2. Identify sustainable and integrated financing opportunities to facilitate healthy soils.
3. Provide for research, education and technical support to facilitate healthy soils.
4. Increase governmental efficiencies to enhance soil health on public and private lands.
5. Promote interagency coordination and collaboration to support soils and related state goals.

California’s farmers and ranchers play a critical role in by managing soils in a way that sequesters carbon and reduces greenhouse gases.

By setting clear goals, incentivizing voluntary on-farm management practices, funding necessary research and demonstration projects and working to promote interagency collaboration and increase governmental efficiencies, the Healthy Soils Initiative can play an important role in meeting California’s 2030 greenhouse gas emission reduction target.

Link to complete Healthy Soils Initiative vision statement

Introduction:

In February, the World Food Center hosted the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the Air Resources Board and the Department of Conservation. The goal of the workshop was to inform strategies in the agriculture and working lands sector for meeting California’s new 2030 targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions under the State’s climate plan.

The specific objectives of the workshop were:

 

Note – The California Department of Food and Agriculture will celebrate its 100th anniversary as a state agency in 2019. In the time leading up to that we’ll be running an occasional series of stories, “CDFA Through History,” chronicling the Department’s contributions to California.  

The California Department of Food and Agriculture (then simply the Dept. of Ag) began in 1919 when various Ag regulatory programs were pulled together under one umbrella. However, there are several other starting points of note – in 1878, 1880, 1899 and 1913. In fact, the agency has already celebrated a ‘100th anniversary,’ back in 1980.

An early Ag regulatory effort came in 1878, when the State Legislature passed a law to prohibit the labeling of oleomargarine as butter, but made no provision for enforcement.

Two years later, in 1880–the development embraced for the first 100th anniversary–the Legislature appointed a seven-member State Board of Viticulture to protect grapevines from phylloxera root rot.

In 1899, California began its long relationship with invasive fruit flies by pioneering an effort to keep the Mexican fruit fly out of the United States. CDFA’s Division of Plant Health and Pest Prevention Services still battles that pest as well as many others as it carries out its mission to protect California’s food supply and the environment.

Also in 1899, the office of the California State Veterinarian was established by the Legislature to “protect the health of all domestic animals of the state from all contagious and infectious diseases, so far as practical.” It gave birth to what is now CDFA’s Animal Health Branch.

In 1913, the Legislature created the Office of the State Superintendent of Weights and Measures. The office’s early responsibilities included inspections of railroad track scales and weights and measures used in state hospitals and prisons. The office joined the Department of Agriculture in 1921 as the Division of Weights and Measures and took on duties like mattress inspection and bread standardization. CDFA’s Division of Measurement Standards continues with the core functions of that work today, making sure that measurements used in commerce are fair and accurate.

From that multi-faceted beginning CDFA has progressed to a thoroughly modern agency organized into six divisions. The Department operates at more than 100 locations throughout the state. These divisions provide valuable services to producers, merchants and the public. Many of CDFA’s programs are conducted in partnership with local county offices of the agricultural commissioners and sealers.

CDFA strives to support a tradition of innovation and agricultural diversity by working with private industry, academia and public sector agencies. These partnerships allow the department to adapt public policy to a rapidly changing industry – California agriculture.

By Debbie Arrington

Levi’s Stadium took farm-to-fork to new heights.

The $1.2 billion Santa Clara home of the 49ers has unveiled a rooftop farm that will help supply fresh produce and herbs to the facility’s club level food service.

Dubbed “Faithful Farm” in honor of Niners’ fans, the 4,000-square-foot organic garden is the first-ever rooftop farm at a major professional sports venue, according to team and stadium officials. Fresh-picked shishito peppers, special “49ers Squash” and much more will be served to patrons at games.

Expected to produce about 150 pounds of fresh vegetables and herbs a week, the rooftop farm is all about being green, they said.

The USDA has announced the investment of $26.6 million into 45 projects that will spur innovative conservation initiatives on both rural and urban farms across the country, including nearly $6 million for projects benefiting California. Public and private grantees will provide matching investments, bringing the total value of support across the country to $59 million.

The USDA investment is made through the agency’s Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) program, which fosters innovation in conservation tools and strategies to improve things like on-farm energy and fertilizer use as well as market-based strategies to improve water quality or mitigate climate change.

The projects connected to California are:

• Kings River Watershed Coalition Authority – $2 million for conservation practices to protect groundwater quality
• Resource Conservation District of Monterey County – $1.37 milion to improve water quality on irrigated lands
• Sustainable Conservation – $833,250 for demonstration of a subsurface drip irrigation system utilizing dairy manure to improve water use efficiency and nutrient application uniformity
• American Rivers – $498,888 for “pay-for-success” conservation programs in the Central Valley
• The Nature Conservancy –  $169,716 for an “impact investing” loan program offering reduced interest rates in exchange for conservation practices
• The American Forest Foundation – $750,000 for the development of a forest resilience bond on private forest lands
• KCOE Isom – $433,807 to catalyze private investment in habitat mitigation markets

The 2016 projects focus on water quality, conservation finance and assistance to historically underserved USDA customers. Approximately 25 percent of the funding will go to projects that benefit historically underserved producers, military veterans, and new and beginning farmers.  A full listing of this fiscal year’s selected projects is available here: www.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/cig.

CIG is funded through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). The maximum grant is $2 million per project and the length of time for project completion is three years. The CIG projects are designed to engage EQIP-eligible producers in on-the-ground conservation activities that accelerate transfer and adoption of innovative conservation technology and approaches.

CIG awards competitive grants to local and state units of governments, American Indian tribes and individuals. Through CIG, USDA works with other public and private entities to accelerate transfer and adoption of promising technologies and approaches to address some of the nation’s most pressing natural resource concerns.

Link to news release