The USDA has announced nearly $1.4 million in research-and-development investment in 14 projects at 11 different California companies. The grant program is for research related to food security, natural resources, and agricultural issues. California’s portion is part of a nationwide pledge of $7.4 million in R&D grants. The grants are made through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, a competitive funding source that is coordinated by the Small Business Administration and administered by 11 federal agencies, including USDA, to encourage domestic small businesses to engage in high-growth research and development that has the potential for commercialization and could lead to significant public benefit.

The projects in California include:

• Algae production for aquaculture feed – Global Algae Innovations Inc., El Cajon
• Portable automation technology for rapid detection of foodborne pathogens – HJ Science & Technology Inc., Santa Clara
• Deployable low-cost device for monitoring nitrate levels in water – Intelligent Optical Systems Inc., Torrance
• Biologically-based material and method for control of invasive fire ants – Foresight Science and Technology Inc.,  Comptche (Mendocino County)

Since 1983 the SBIR program has awarded more than 2,000 research and development grants to American-owned, independently operated, for-profit businesses with 500 employees or fewer. Past examples of successful USDA-funded SBIR projects include Eldertide LLC’s research to cultivate elderberry varieties with high antioxidant levels that are now harvested and marketed for their anti-inflammatory and anti-viral properties. Another business, Micronic Technologies, has developed a sustainable water desalination and purification technology. Its water treatment system, MicroDesal, is capable of taking water from any source and cleaning it to potable water standards.

Link to USDA news release
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CDFA Deputy Secretary Jenny Lester-Moffitt has been named as one of 24 fellows in Class 47 of the California Agricultural Leadership Program. The program offers a 17-month study of leadership theory, effective communication, motivation, critical and strategic thinking, change management, emotional intelligence and complex social and cultural issues.

Lester-Moffitt will join other emerging leaders in agriculture in a program that includes seminars delivered by four partner universities: Cal Poly Pomona, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Fresno State and UC Davis. Additionally, there is an eight-day national travel seminar and a 15-day international travel seminar. Those in public service who have completed ‘Ag Leadership’ include CDFA Secretary Karen Ross, who served for seven years on the foundation board, California State Board of Food and Agriculture President Craig McNamara, and the USDA’s California state director of Rural Development, Glenda Humiston.

Ag Leadership is considered to be one of the premier leadership programs in the United States. Since it was first developed in 1970, more than 1,200 men and women have participated in the program and have become influential leaders and active volunteers in the agriculture industry and other areas.

Link to news release

 

 

 

Executive Summary

California leads the nation in organic farms, land in organic production, and organic sales.  According to the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service, organic acreage has grown 46 percent from 2008 to 2014. California alone produced over $2.2 billion in organic agriculture in 2014, accounting for more than 40 percent of the nation’s organic production. Consequently, organic agriculture plays a key role in California’s economy.

The California Organic Foods Act of 1990 created the State Organic Program (SOP) at the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA).  That same year the National Organic Program (NOP) was created within USDA and regulations to implement the NOP were completed in 2002. State legislation in 2003 aligned the state and national programs, and chartered CDFA with enforcement of the federal and state regulations.  The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) enforces laws pertaining to processed products marketed as organic.

The SOP is also an information resource for industry stakeholders. It provides training for county biologists, proactively conducts spot inspections, and, conducts marketplace surveillance and pesticide residue testing.  The SOP is funded entirely by industry registration fees and verifies compliance from production to point of sale, ensuring organic integrity in California.

CDFA is committed to continued improvement of its service to the California organic community. In recognition of this, CDFA Secretary Karen Ross convened the Organic Stakeholder Working Group (Working Group) in the spring of 2016 to review the existing SOP and provide recommendations to the Secretary on how to maximize program efficiency and responsiveness.

The Working Group is comprised of a diverse group of 23 representatives from several sectors including growers, distributors, producers, certifiers, trade associations, a County Agricultural Commissioner, and state and federal agencies. The process was designed to ensure equitable representation of statewide interests and was facilitated by the Center for Collaborative Policy at the California State University, Sacramento.  The Working Group set goals to:

• Define the current benefits and challenges of the existing SOP;
• Discuss future projects for CDFA’s consideration; and
• Prepare recommendations for the Secretary and the California Organic Products Advisory Committee (COPAC).

This report is the result of the Working Group’s efforts.

Through a series of four meetings held regionally throughout the state, the Working Group developed a series of recommendations. These recommendations identified six key topic areas with the intent to maximize the efficiency and responsiveness of the SOP.  These include:

1. Streamline the CDFA Registration Process, Enhance Data Collection and Maximize Data Utilization
2. Improve Enforcement Activities and Enhance Training
3. Expand Outreach and Communication to Stakeholders
4. Empower and Energize the California Organic Products Advisory Committee (COPAC)
5. Integrate Organic Throughout CDFA and Other State Agencies
6. Leverage California’s SOP and California Organic Producers on a National Scale

This report covers the Working Group’s processes, meeting outcomes, and final recommendations. The consolidated recommendations will go to the CDFA Secretary and COPAC to be used as a guidance document for future decision-making.

 

Link to full report

By Josue’ Medellin-Azuara, Duncan MacEwan, Richard E. Howitt, Daniel A. Sumner and Jay R. Lund

Authors acknowledge NASA Ames Research Center for sharing satellite-derived data on idle acreage in the Central Valley.

EXCERPTED:

On August 15, a team from UC Davis, ERA Economics and the UC Agricultural Issues Center released an economic impact report related to the California drought of 2016.

Several commentaries have indicated that land fallowing in the summer of 2016 exceeds the approximately 80 thousand acres in the 2016 drought report. Therefore, this short “supplement” provides additional details and clarification on how we estimated the impact of the 2016 drought on land idling as opposed to other causes of water shortages in 2016. (The same clarification applies to jobs and other economic aggregates.)

The main point is that our estimates specifically and solely relate to what was caused by the lack of normal precipitation and other climatic events in 2016, building on conditions as we entered the 2016 production season. Crop rotation needs, market conditions, regulatory cutbacks to protect fish and habitat all affect land idling in addition to impacts of water scarcity due to drought.

Our methodology to determine how much land was idled due to the 2016 drought included surveys, modeling, and assessment of crop-by-crop planting data. Surveys of water districts in the Central Valley have provided, for the past three years, information on planting time water supply expectations for surface water allocations and access to groundwater. Remotely sensed data has helped us understand farm and district adaptation to drought.

Drought related water shortage
Central Valley Project contractors west of the Tulare Lake Basin were estimated to receive 5 percent of contracted allocations of surface water. Friant division contractors on the east side in the San Joaquin Valley were allocated 75 percent of Class 1 supply. The State Water Project contractors were slated to receive 60 percent of their contracted allocations. The net water supply losses in the Central Valley of nearly 680 thousand acre-feet results in a projected fallowing of 77 thousand acres. (Note that crop shifts and stress irrigation also reduce applied water). These acres are concentrated in the Tulare Lake Basin. The drought in 2016 implied minor losses of acreage in the Sacramento and San Joaquin River Basins, north of Tulare Lake and an additional 2,000 acres were lost in the Central Coast.

Other information sources and factors that have caused fallowed or idled acres in 2016
Market conditions and statistical information

Crop reports from USDA for principle crops (mainly forage crops, grains, oilseeds and cotton) indicate a substantial recovery in 2016 relative to 2015. But 2016 acreage for these crops remains below 2011 by about one million acres. Table G-1 in the drought report appendix G provides a breakdown by crop. Rice is back to nearly normal conditions with just above 550,000 acres. In contrast, corn is down by about 140,000 acres, winter wheat is down by about 190,000 acres and cotton is down by about 170,000 acres from pre-drought plantings in 2012. It is worth noting that some grain crops are non-irrigated and that that there is some double cropping, especially for small grain and silage corn. That means that the sum of these acreages of individual crops is larger than irrigated acres planted for principle crops for the year. Low prices of these commodities bundled with lack of water explains much of the reduction in crop area.

Idle land estimates from remote sensing

Recently, NASA-Ames presented their estimates for summer idle land for June 1, 2016 through July 31st, 2016. They find idled acres in summer 2016 are higher than summer 2011 by about 470,000 acres in the Central Valley. As the season progresses, the measured idle acreage is anticipated to decline slightly through the end of September as new orchards and other emerging irrigated areas develop canopies that can be detected by NASA and USGS satellites. Based on patterns observed in previous years, this reduction is likely to be on the order of 100,000 acres by September 30, 2016. Areas that show the largest differences between 2011 and 2016 in idle land are located in the Tulare Lake Basin..

While conducting surveys of irrigation districts, many among the Sacramento Valley settlement and service contractors expressed concerns on potential curtailments due to temperature controls for fish protection, particularly spawning. These controls have likely caused additional summer fallowing due to difficulties in diverting water from the Sacramento River. Regulatory concerns about water quality due to debris from recent fires have also challenged water supply management in the eastern San Joaquin Valley.

Pumping restrictions in the Delta to prevent reverse flows and operations of the San Luis Reservoir have also affected quantity and timing of water to agricultural users south of the Delta. The combination of these effects contributed to the additional fallowing on top of drought-related fallowing. Thus a number of regulatory issues not directly related to the drought of 2016 have contributed to idled land observed in the Central Valley in 2016.

Final Remarks
Our drought report for 2016 attempted to highlight economic consequences caused by the weather conditions in 2016. For accurate drought analysis and state level policy, it’s vital to separate lands idled due to 2016 weather from those lands idled for other reasons. We recognize that significant land idling occurs even without drought conditions, but that was not the subject of our drought report. It is important to highlight that we did not attempt to quantify the amount of land idled that can be attributed to government regulations or agency decisions that relate to the broad long-term water and environmental conditions in California. Analysis of models and data to develop such estimates is an important topic, but that was not the purpose of our 2016 drought report.

Link to clarification document

 

The USDA’s Economic Research Service  (ERS) has compiled and released preliminary agricultural production statistics for 2015 in California.  This first set of data indicates that production value fell by $9.5 billion, or nearly 17 percent compared to 2014, to a total of $47,071,513,000. California remains the leading agricultural state in the nation.

These numbers certainly reflect drought impacts in 2015, which led to the fallowing of 540,000 acres. But the data also reflects changes in currency exchange rates as well as global supply and demand, including a burgeoning milk supply and a slowdown in export demand. Dairy production value fell by more than $3 billion in 2015, and the value of nut production declined considerably across the board.

California’s agricultural abundance includes more than 400 commodities. Over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts are grown in California. These were the state’s top-ten commodities in 2015:

• Milk — $6.29 billion
• Almonds — $5.33 billion
• Grapes — $4.95 billion
• Cattle, Calves — $3.39 billion
• Lettuce – 2.25 billion
• Strawberries — $1.86 billion
• Tomatoes — $1.71 billion
• Poultry/Eggs – $1.7 billion
• Walnuts – $977 million
• Hay — $ 945 million

California agricultural statistics derive primarily from USDA reports. The California Department of Food and Agriculture also publishes statistics related to California dairy production and, in cooperation with the University of California at Davis, statistics for California agricultural exports. For most timely research into California dairy statistics, please see our dairy pages under Division of Marketing Services. For county-level reporting please see the CDFA County Liaison site.

To reiterate, the ERS production figures for 2015 are preliminary numbers. It is customary for the USDA to revise these figures over a period of several months following the initial release.  Accordingly the figures on the report may change several times between now and early 2017.

 

 

 

 

By Scott Smith

A drone whirred to life in a cloud of dust, then shot hundreds of feet skyward for a bird’s-eye view of a vast tomato field in California’s Central Valley, the nation’s most productive farming region.

Equipped with a state-of-the-art thermal camera, the drone crisscrossed the field, scanning it for cool, soggy patches where a gopher may have chewed through the buried drip irrigation line and caused a leak.

In the drought-prone West, where every drop of water counts, California farmers are in a constant search for ways to efficiently use the increasingly scarce resource. Cannon Michael is putting drone technology to work on his fields at Bowles Farming Co. near Los Banos, 120 miles southeast of San Francisco.

About 2,100 companies and individuals have federal permission to fly drones for farming, according to the drone industry’s Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. Federal regulators Monday relaxed the rules on small, commercial drones, a move that could spur even greater use of such aircraft on farms.

Michael is descended from Henry Miller, a renowned cattle rancher, farmer and Western landowner who helped transform semi-arid central California into fertile farmland 150 years ago by building irrigation canals, some still flowing today.

Six generations later, Michael farms a 17-square-mile portion of that same land, growing melons, carrots, onions, cotton and almonds, while carrying on in the same pioneering spirit as Miller.

“I’ve always been a big fan of technology,” said Michael, 44, mindful of how climate change is making water more precious. “I think it’s really the only way we’re going to stay in business.”

On his 2,400-acre tomato crop alone, Michael estimates that this year his leak-detecting drones could save enough water to sustain more than 550 families of four for a year.

California endured the driest four-year period on record before a relatively wet and snowy winter this year overflowed some reservoirs in the northern part of the state. Southern California, however, remains dry, and the statewide drought has not ended.

Beyond California, drones are becoming fixtures on farms in places such as Canada, Australia, South Africa and Latin America as they become more affordable and easier to use, said Ian Smith of DroneDeploy, a San Francisco-based industry leader in drone software development.

A farmer can order a commercial-grade drone online for $2,000 and receive it in the mail days later, he said. Its video camera is then paired up with a smartphone or computer tablet that is used to control the drone.

“Hook it up to a smartphone. Boom. Take off and you’re in business,” Smith said.

Many farmers, however, have yet to grasp the full potential beyond capturing video images of crops or using infrared cameras to spot color variations in the plants that can signal a problem.

Few have used technology and invested in it to the degree Michael has. This year he began using the thermal camera, which can cost up to $10,000 and can show moisture variations in soil. He also created a new management position at his company dedicated to overseeing drones.

Recently, Danny Royer, the new vice president of technology at Bowles, stood at the tailgate of his pickup studying live images transmitted to the screen of his tablet as a drone buzzed 300 feet overhead.

Rows of mature tomato plants appeared on the screen in glowing burnt orange, indicating warmer, drier areas, while dark patches of purple showed the cool moist soil hidden below the plants.

After taking the images back to his office to analyze them, he decided there were no leaks to repair, but the soil needed to be enriched in places to help the field grow evenly.

On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration eased the rules so that operators of commercial drones that weigh less than 55 pounds will no longer need to go through the long, expensive process of earning an airplane pilot’s license.

Instead, they will have to take a written test — but not an actual flying test at the controls of a plane — and will be issued a drone license for $150.

The rule change and emerging technology could make drones more attractive tools for farmers, said Brandon Stark, director of the University of California’s Center of Excellence for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Safety, based at the Merced campus.

However, he said that until federal regulators clarify parts of the new rules, commercial drones must continue to fly below 400 feet, limiting their use on very large fields.

Stark is seeking what he calls the Holy Grail of drone use in agriculture — enabling them to directly diagnose what ails a tree, whether it’s deficiencies in water or nutrients, or a pest — without having to send a person into the field.

“We’re just getting started,” Stark said. “The research is really still in its infancy.”

Link to story

 

By Amy Wu

Israel Ramirez considers himself an anomaly, at least for now. At 21 he is one of the youngest farm workers in an industry that known for its aging workforce.

But as agriculture companies find ways to introduce new technologies, younger workers such as Ramirez are increasingly attracted to the work.

Field workers are critical to an industry that is a key economic driver in this region. In Salinas Valley the agriculture business is estimated at $9 billion, and includes produce giants Taylor Farms, Driscoll’s and Church Brothers.

Taylor Farms has an estimated 1,500 field workers – many of them contracted – and on any day 67 crews in the fields.

The average worker’s age is 48 with the majority ranging from 48 to 75, said Albert Garnica, Taylor Farms’ vice president harvest operations who supervises the fields.

Over the past decade the company like many in the industry has faced an ongoing labor shortage, caused by an aging workforce, a growing demand for salad and cut vegetables, a tighter regulatory environment when in California and the increased costs of doing business.

Industry players say the industry is often overshadowed by the attraction of working in industries such as tourism or construction.

“Mom and dad want their kids to do something better than what they did,” said Paul Muthart, a grower at Pasquinelli Produce Co. in Yuma, Arizona, which has been challenging with finding younger workers as their workforce ages. “Heck even changing beds in Vegas is better than working out in the heat and the mud…Again it comes down to the glamour of what we do.”

The shortage has been so severe that the industry has been bringing in workers on H2A visas, a temporary work visa for foreign farm workers. Garnica said roughly 40% of field workers in Salinas Valley are on H2A visas.

Muthart said 60% of their field workers are over 50 and a fifth of their work force is over 60. The company works hard to retain older workers in part because it is harder to find replacements, especially younger workers.

“I can confirm that our population is for sure aging and it’s a concern to us,” he said. “Frankly I don’t know what we will do to attract young people into the work we do.”  Muthart said he believes the challenge in recruiting goes beyond the money. At Pasquinelli, a 9,000 acre farm in Yuma that grows cauliflower and celery, workers are entitled to pension, healthcare and $2 more than Arizona’s $8.05 an hour minimum wage. He said negatives are the work is seasonal and often requires relocating.

New technologies, new generation
Taylor Farms’ response to the labor shortage has been to step up its harvesting technology. The goal is to reduce costs, increase efficiency and woo younger workers, said Chris Rotticci, Director of Automated Harvest Equipment at Taylor Farms.

About seven years ago Taylor began developing automated machine cutters, which Rotticci calls “ergonomically friendly machines.”

Five years ago it introduced two automated romaine lettuce machines, which resembles a factory on a truck. The machine cuts lettuce with high-pressured water jets eliminating a need for machetes. The truck processes the lettuce, which is reviewed by inspection crew.

The upshot is that it reduces the crew and maintains productivity. One machine cuts 10,000 pounds of lettuce an hour.  Within the past year, the company also released an automated cabbage cutter and celery cutter.

Rotticci said a broccoli cutter and additional lettuce cutters are in the pipeline.

The strategy is working he said. Over the past three years Taylor has seen a growing number of younger workers in their 20s and 30s, specifically for its automated machine crews.

Rotticci said younger workers and technology have grown in tandem.

“They are perfectly aligned together…we want to create higher skilled and more ergonomically-centered jobs,” he said. “We can create a higher skilled job where higher wages are available, we are seeing that younger generation work in the fields,” said Rotticci. “The attraction of the automatic harvesters are targeting a better work environment…These are not the bending over back-breaking job.”

Ramirez said the pay and the automated machines are what drew him to the industry. Ramirez, whose uncle is Garnica, worked for Taylor for a year and now works as a contractor, including on Taylor’s automated romaine lettuce cutter.

“It’s hard work but good money,” said Ramirez, who splits his time between Salinas and Yuma where his wife and new baby live. Ramirez said while the base pay is $12.50 an hour, there are opportunities to receive overtime after a standard 10-hour shift. There are often pay increases and incentive bonuses too.

During a productive week, the weekly paycheck is $600 sometimes $800.
Ramirez said it can be an ideal summer job for college kids.

The automated machines make a positive difference, he said.

“Of course it is a good thing,” said Ramirez, including for older workers. “We do have some older people with us and some of them can’t lift anything heavy. They are just grabbing the lettuce from the back.”

The downside is that the shift, some starting as early as 2 a.m., can be exhausting. Other drawbacks are the work is seasonal and requires travel. Ramirez said he is considering moving his family to Salinas so they can be together.

Ramirez said: “One time I asked a supervisor who said they like younger people because they are the new generation … There’s a new generation that will keep the company going.”

Ramirez isn’t alone. Denise Garcia, 22, has been working in the industry for five years. The Salinas resident is a contract worker for Taylor Farms and is part of the automated romaine lettuce cutter inspection crew.

Garcia, who previously worked in retail, said she was attracted by the pay – a base rate of $12.50 an hour.

“It pays kind of good and the water jets (automated lettuce cutter) are much better,” she said. That said, a source at a Salinas-based agriculture company who did not want his name published to maintain privacy, said it was harder to retain younger workers.

The source said, “it is harder to keep the younger people they just don’t have the work ethic anymore,” and young people were less tolerant of physically “strenuous conditions.”

Rotticci said he sees the opposite.

“These new kids went through school system and are realizing working in fields can be a profitable lifestyle. They are looking at higher skilled jobs,” said Rotticci. “We are seeing that draw come back. I don’t want to say it is easier work but it is definitely a shift in skillset.”

That said, Rotticci said Taylor Farms values all of its workers and is just looking to retain good workers.

“People can work forever as long as they want to and are productive,” he said.

Link to story

By John Holland

Dust rises as machines harvest almonds up and down the Central Valley. Except on 10 acres southwest of Modesto, where a new method is getting a look.

Billy Lyons created a test plot that is not harvested the conventional way, with one machine shaking the nuts to the ground and another picking them up. The work is done by a modified olive harvester that strips the almonds from the branches and tosses them into a gondola without hitting the dirt.

“Very little dust — that’s the driver on this,” said Bob Curtis, director of agricultural affairs at the Almond Board of California. He was among the observers at a demonstration of the method Wednesday.

Lyons is part of the family that owns Mapes Ranch, a large expanse of cattle and diverse crops along Highway 132. His father is Bill Lyons Jr., former food and agriculture secretary for the state.

Billy Lyons planted the test plot with dwarf trees at high density so it would be suited to the olive harvester, which reaches into the canopy and knocks the crop off as it moves along.

Almonds are among the biggest crops in California, with $6.77 billion in gross income to growers in 2014. About a third of the volume is in Stanislaus, Merced and San Joaquin counties.

Excessive dust from the August-October harvest can irritate sensitive people and even cause vehicle accidents. The problem is much reduced from decades past, thanks in part to Modesto-area equipment makers that have refined the shake-and-pickup method.

Lyons’ trees were planted three years ago at about 900 per acre, compared with about 120 in a conventional orchard. He said the smaller canopy allows for pruning by machine rather than hand tools, and the reduced root zone means less water and fertilizer.

“The whole idea is to try to cut costs,” Lyons said. He expects yields to be similar to those of almond orchards in general.

Growers also have to rent bee colonies for pollination each winter, but the test plot has an advantage here, too. The trees are self-fertile, meaning some of the pollen is transferred from the anther to the stigma within the same flower. Bees are still needed to move pollen from bloom to bloom, but at a lower number.

Zaiger Family Genetics of Modesto created the self-fertile variety, Independence. It was grown for the test plot by Dave Wilson Nursery of Hickman, using rootstock from Agromillora California Nursery in Butte County.

Note – The California Department of Food and Agriculture’s (CDFA) Division of Measurement Standards plays an important role in the ongoing development of hydrogen fueling stations by certifying hydrogen fuel meters; and regulating fuel quality, advertising and labeling in the consumer marketplace. The ribbon-cutting for a new fueling station in Truckee occurred on Saturday, August 27.

Forget fossil fuels and battery-powered cars; it’s all about hydrogen now. Pretty soon, you’ll be able to use the element to fill up your tank.

The new generation of cars requires no gas or battery.

“The hydrogen is exciting. It’s exciting to go totally green. It’s exciting to be clean environment,” said Karen Bonnett of Sacramento.

Until two months ago, Bonnett was pumping gas in her car, but she bought a Toyota Mirai and has no plans to go back.

“I feel dirty driving a gas car,” she said. “It’s really weird. You go in you put the key in, you star up the engine, you make all that noise. This one, you go in, push a button and go ‘is it on?'”

You can’t just fill up with any car; you need one that’s fuel celled-powered. Currently, Toyota, Hyundai and Mercedes Benz are the only companies that produce them, but Honda is set to release a model in this fall.

A full tank will cost you up to $70, but it will give you at least 300 miles. The price is predicted to drop once the demand for fuel-celled cars goes up.

“We see a path to get hydrogen as cheap or cheaper than gasoline in the next term actually in the next five years,” said Shane Stephens, True Zero founder.

When you get to the pump, the process is the same, but you just have to be a little more patient. It’s slower than pumping gas, but faster than charging a battery.

“Instead of charging the battery with electricity form the grid, you’re actually producing electricity from the inside of the car,” said Stephens.

The only emission that comes out is water.

“How awesome to be saving our environment,” said Bonnett.

The station in Truckee is the farthest east the company, True zero, has built in the United States. Currently there are 19 stations in California, but the company hopes to expand east and bring one to Reno in the next two years.

Link to story

Watch this CDFA video on the agency’s role in the development of hydrogen stations.