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“Can Creations” deck the halls at CDFA this holiday season

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Office of Public Affairs
"California Feeds the USA" is the title of this can creation, part of the annual food drive and a friendly interoffice competition between offices at the department's Sacramento headquarters and nearby offices. Stay tuned later today for more photos!

“California Feeds the USA” is the title of this red, white and blue “can creation.” It’s part of the annual food drive as well as a friendly interoffice competition among staff at CDFA’s Sacramento headquarters and nearby offices. This work of art/kindness is on display on the fourth floor at CDFA headquarters. Stay tuned later today for more photos!

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross is taking a page out of Santa’s book today, riding her sleigh (Prius) around town to visit her elves (employees) at their various toy factories (labs and offices) and share a warm cup of holiday cheer.

She’ll be viewing the staff’s “can creations” as part of the annual food drive as she makes the rounds, too – watch for another post this afternoon with more photos from the secretary’s trip around the North Pole (Sacramento)…

 

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California leads the nation with $2.88 billion in horticultural sales

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Office of Public Affairs

Nursery plantsSACRAMENTO – California leads the nation with $2.88 billion in horticulture sales, according to the 2014 Census of Horticultural Specialties report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). Of the $13.8 billion total horticultural sales in the U.S., 21 percent were from California.

This report contains the results of the tenth Census of Horticultural Specialties conducted since the program’s inception in 1889. “Because horticulture production is becoming more diverse in the United States, NASS worked with key stakeholders to ensure the 2014 Census of Horticultural Specialties would meet the needs of growers, industry leaders, and policymakers,” said Chairman of the Agricultural Statistics Board Mark Harris. “We added 60 new items to the questionnaire to provide the most up-to-date assessment of current industry trends, including items like peonies, lavender, rudbeckia, cacti and succulents.”

The top commodities in California horticulture sales reflect this very diversity. Top commodities sold in 2014, and compared to 2009, were:

 Nursery stock, $959 million, up 42 percent

 Cut flowers, $336 million, up 23 percent

 Potted flowering plants, $302 million, up 38 percent

The Census of Horticultural Specialties is part of the larger Census of Agriculture program. It provides information on the number and types of establishments engaged in horticultural production, value of sales, varieties of products, production expenses and more. All California and U.S. operations that reported producing and selling $10,000 or more of horticultural crops on the 2012 Census of Agriculture were included in this special study.

Some operators who contributed to the Census of Horticultural Specialties report will receive the Floriculture Survey questionnaire in December. “The Floriculture Survey provides California growers the opportunity to serve as the foremost source of data on production,” said Director of the USDA NASS Pacific Region Chris Messer. “Growers, buyers, suppliers and others rely on this information to help make sound business decisions. This crucial information will help identify state and national trends in areas such as product development, changing production practices, and product diversity in floriculture industry,” said Messer. The Floriculture Survey results will be published in the spring next year.

Access the full Census of Horticulture Specialties report at: http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/Census_of_Horticulture_Specialties/.

See the original news release from NASS online here.

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To defeat the drought look under your feet – from the National Journal

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Office of Public Affairs

vineyard

By Ted Hesson

If you strolled past a vine­yard on Don Camer­on’s land four win­ters ago, you would have seen something odd: wa­ter, up to a foot-and-a-half of it, drench­ing the grapev­ines and turn­ing a nor­mally pic­tur­esque field in­to an un­sightly bog.

The 63-year-old Camer­on is the gen­er­al man­ager and vice pres­id­ent of Ter­ran­ova Ranch, a 5,500-acre farm in Cali­for­nia’s San Joa­quin Val­ley. Or­din­ar­ily, he wouldn’t flood-ir­rig­ate his crops—the farm doesn’t have dir­ect ac­cess to wa­ter from a river or stream, even when the weath­er is wet. In­stead, he re­lies on ground­wa­ter and typ­ic­ally em­ploys drip ir­rig­a­tion, a pre­cise and eco­nom­ic­al meth­od of dol­ing out wa­ter to crops, in or­der to con­serve the un­der­ground re­source.

So, the soggy plots were an ex­cep­tion­al sight, but there was a reas­on be­hind it. Camer­on was host­ing a risky ex­per­i­ment that, if suc­cess­ful, could help re­plen­ish the ground­wa­ter sup­ply un­der his fields, a vi­tal re­source for his farm and oth­ers like it.

In Cali­for­nia, still in a pun­ish­ing four-year drought, wa­ter is an in­creas­ingly sought-after—and con­ten­tious—com­mod­ity. Busi­nesses and elec­ted of­fi­cials have had to re­think their ap­proach to the crit­ic­al re­source. The long-term fear is that the drought—not caused al­though likely ex­acer­bated by cli­mate change, sci­ent­ists say—is only a pre­view. A 2014 pa­per pub­lished in the journ­al Geo­phys­ic­al Re­search Let­ters found that, while the main cause for the cur­rent drought was nat­ur­al vari­ab­il­ity in the cli­mate, hu­man activ­ity made the drought 15-20 per­cent more severe. The six coau­thors poin­ted to “a chron­ic dry­ing trend that … is pro­jec­ted to con­tin­ue grow­ing throughout the rest of this cen­tury.”

This could en­danger the state’s long-term sup­ply of ground­wa­ter. Dur­ing the cur­rent drought, farm­ers have used ground­wa­ter as a backup to keep their crops watered and thriv­ing. But if green­house-gas emis­sions keep mak­ing Cali­for­nia warm­er, droughts could be­come more fre­quent and in­tense, fur­ther strain­ing the state’s ground­wa­ter sup­ply. It won’t run out any­time soon, but the long-term risks in­clude dried-up streams and wet­lands, sink­ing land, and pos­sibly a de­grad­ing of ground­wa­ter qual­ity bey­ond re­pair.

The con­cern about ground­wa­ter sup­ply led the Nat­ur­al Re­sources Con­ser­va­tion Ser­vice, part of the fed­er­al De­part­ment of Ag­ri­cul­ture, to award a team of en­gin­eers $75,000 to ex­plore in­nov­at­ive flood­ing tech­niques to re­plen­ish the ground­wa­ter re­serves be­neath Camer­on’s farm. (The Ter­ran­ova Ranch matched the grant dol­lar-for-dol­lar.) Here’s how the pro­ject was in­ten­ded to work, be­fore the drought set in: Whenev­er the north fork of the nearby Kings River floods, the ex­cess wa­ter is di­ver­ted to his prop­erty. It in­und­ates cer­tain fields for long peri­ods of time, let­ting the wa­ter seep in­to the soil and re­fill the aquifer. The goal: to see if the crops, or­din­ar­ily ir­rig­ated with pre­cise amounts of wa­ter, can with­stand a long peri­od of flood­ing without dam­age.

When the river last flooded in 2011, he sent some of the over­flow to fal­low fields and also to act­ive vine­yards, where the wa­ter sat for two months and five-and-a-half months, re­spect­ively. The farm also over-ir­rig­ated its pista­chio orch­ards and fields of al­falfa hay, so that wa­ter would pass down through the roots and reach the aquifer. His prop­erty was an ideal choice for the pro­ject, be­cause of its ac­cess to flood­wa­ter and its sandy, por­ous soil. Ac­cord­ing to a fol­low-up re­port, 30 per­cent of the wa­ter di­ver­ted to the fields dribbled in­to the aquifer; the rest of it re­duced the ground­wa­ter Camer­on needed to draw for ir­rig­a­tion. In the vine­yards, where the wa­ter sat longer, 50-75 per­cent of it filtered down to the aquifer.

And, no crops were hurt in the pro­cess; in­deed, some of them thrived. “We were able to demon­strate and to doc­u­ment that we could ac­tu­ally re­charge land with ex­ist­ing crops in place,” Camer­on says.

The 2011 ex­per­i­ment went so well that the Cali­for­nia De­part­ment of Wa­ter Re­sources gave a $5 mil­lion grant to the Kings River Con­ser­va­tion Dis­trict, a pub­lic agency, to work with Camer­on to in­crease the pro­ject’s ca­pa­city. Camer­on is en­thu­si­ast­ic, so much that the farm plunked down $2 mil­lion of its own cap­it­al on top of the grant. They’re adding a more per­man­ent in­fra­struc­ture—canals, pipes, pumps—that will let him move lar­ger quant­it­ies of storm wa­ter or flood­wa­ter to his farm. Of course, they’ll need a heavy flood to test it out, something he hopes will come soon: “We’re build­ing the ark,” he says, “but we haven’t seen the flood yet.”

Camer­on’s in­nov­a­tion, of us­ing flood ir­rig­a­tion to re­fill the ground­wa­ter sup­ply, could be tried else­where, of­fi­cials say, as long as the farm­ers have ac­cess and rights to the wa­ter. But per­suad­ing farm­ers that the re­ward out­weighs the risk won’t be easy, says Lu­ana Ki­ger, a spe­cial as­sist­ant to Cali­for­nia’s state con­ser­va­tion­ist at the fed­er­al ag­ri­cul­tur­al agency. An orch­ard can take sev­en years be­fore the trees start to pro­duce, say, al­monds. “You do not want to waste that in­vest­ment of sev­en years of no in­come,” Ki­ger says, “and then, the first year you get some ac­tu­al nuts on the tree, you drown out your trees.”

Sci­ent­ists don’t know for sure how much ground­wa­ter ex­ists in Cali­for­nia, so they can’t really say when the re­source could run out. But Jay Famigli­etti, a hy­dro­lo­gist at the Uni­versity of Cali­for­nia (Irvine), be­lieves the Cent­ral Val­ley could lose its easy-to-ac­cess, pot­able ground­wa­ter in sev­er­al dec­ades if cur­rent trends con­tin­ue, leav­ing com­munit­ies scram­bling for sup­plies.

This isn’t hy­po­thet­ic­al. In East Port­erville, an un­in­cor­por­ated town in cent­ral Cali­for­nia pop­u­lated mostly by poor Latino farm work­ers, nearly half the house­holds re­por­ted in June that their wells had gone dry due to the drought and over-ex­trac­tion. Res­id­ents couldn’t af­ford to dig deep­er, so the Ag­ri­cul­ture De­part­ment stepped in last month with a $500,000 grant to­ward a new com­munity well.

Ground­wa­ter has al­ways been vi­tal to Cali­for­nia’s wa­ter sup­ply, and any threat to its fu­ture is scary. In a nor­mal year, it makes up about 38 per­cent of the total wa­ter sup­ply; in a dry year, 46 per­cent or more, ac­cord­ing to the state’s De­part­ment of Wa­ter Re­sources. While the re­source is fairly abund­ant—an es­tim­ated 2 tril­lion gal­lons of wa­ter have been pumped from the ground dur­ing the cur­rent drought—dec­ades of us­ing too much of it could cause the land above the shrink­ing aquifers to sub­side. Pump­ing out un­der­ground wa­ter can dam­age build­ings, cause roads to buckle, and change the el­ev­a­tion of streams and canals.

“Ground­wa­ter levels in much of the Cent­ral Val­ley have gone lower than we’ve ever meas­ured,” says Gra­ham Fogg, a pro­fess­or of hy­dro­geo­logy at the Uni­versity of Cali­for­nia (Dav­is) Cen­ter for Wa­ter­shed Sci­ences. The farm­ers in many loc­ales, he adds, “are pump­ing more ground­wa­ter than the sys­tem can sus­tain.”

In the San Joa­quin Val­ley, south of San Fran­cisco, so much wa­ter has been pumped from the ground that the land is sink­ing faster than ever be­fore—by nearly two inches per month in some loc­a­tions, ac­cord­ing to a re­port in Au­gust by the state’s wa­ter agency. That puts in­fra­struc­ture at risk. Be­sides the threat of land sub­sid­ence are longer-term wor­ries that aquifers might be­come chron­ic­ally de­pleted or that, in places closer to the Pa­cific Coast, salt­water might ir­re­vers­ibly con­tam­in­ate the ground­wa­ter.

The con­cerns have been so wide­spread that Cali­for­nia’s le­gis­lature passed a pack­age of laws in Au­gust 2014 to reg­u­late the us­age of ground­wa­ter. Grow­ers were ini­tially skep­tic­al of the le­gis­la­tion, which al­lows loc­al agen­cies to man­age un­der­ground wa­ter sup­plies, but they even­tu­ally real­ized that change was in­ev­it­able, ac­cord­ing to Kar­en Ross, sec­ret­ary of the state’s De­part­ment of Food and Ag­ri­cul­ture. “Once it was signed in­to law,” she re­counts, “all of the or­gan­iz­a­tions rolled up their sleeves.”

In Ross’s mind, reg­u­lat­ing un­der­ground wa­ter re­sources will help farm­ers in the long run. She sees ground­wa­ter as “our sav­ings ac­count to get through a drought. But if we’re be­com­ing overly de­pend­ent on pump­ing ground­wa­ter in non-drought peri­ods, without do­ing pro­jects to re­charge those basins, we will not have that sav­ings ac­count for fu­ture droughts.”

Link to article

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COMET-Farm: Science-based Tools to help Specialty Crop Growers

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Dr. Amrith Gunasekara, CDFA Science Advisor
Comet Farm Home Page Website

Agricultural food production and the relationship with the air, water and soil systems is complex, both from scientific and practical perspectives. Bringing the scientific interrelationships into a user-friendly on-line tool to help agricultural producers understand their entire farming operation’s carbon footprint is the challenge that the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Services (USDA-NRCS) and Colorado State University undertook in a partnership more than a decade ago.

Our nation’s farms and ranches feed the world, while producing food and fiber farming operations generate greenhouse gas emissions and often remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthetic activity.  Accounting for greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration on farming and ranching operations is tricky business. This accounting niche is where the COMET-Farm tool excels.

Through a unique partnership between USDA’s NRCS and Dr. Keith Paustian’s team at Colorado State University (CSU), there has been continued investment in developing and improving greenhouse gas and carbon accounting tools that will help agricultural producers accurately and confidently measure their carbon footprint. Through continuous commitment of funding from USDA NRCS, COMET-Farm has been developed into an easy to use on-line tool with the highest level of quantitative rigor. The COMET-Farm quantification methods are consistent with the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory. COMET-Farm helps growers evaluate their greenhouse gas emissions, carbon sequestration benefits, and potential enhancements in emission reductions and sequestration options for many of the major crops produced in the U.S. However, there was one thing missing from this tool for California growers, the greenhouse gas emissions information and scenarios for specialty crops growers.

Specialty crops are defined as fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, horticulture, and nursery crops (including floriculture). As the leading agricultural state in the nation in terms of farm-gate value, California farmers produce a diversity of specialty crops. In fact, some specialty crops are not grown anywhere else in the country. Some examples include almonds, grapes (raisins), clingstone peaches, pistachios, dried plums and walnuts.  To further highlight the scale of specialty crop agriculture in California, the top nine specialty crops, by acreage, account for approximately 25% of the total nine million irrigated acres in the state.

Including specialty crops in COMET-Farm will allow California specialty crop farmers the ability to assess their carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions while evaluating management and conservation practices that could reduce those emissions or enhance carbon sequestration. The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) sees these tools as critical resources to assisting in any future financial incentive programs under the authority of the Environmental Farming Act of 1995.

To address the lack of specialty crops in COMET-Farm, CDFA partnered with NRCS and established a contract to fill these data gaps. With collaboration and additional matching support from Colorado State University, USDA NRCS, USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS), USDA Climate Sub-Hub in Davis, California, and the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA), over the next two years, scientists will work together along with growers in California to obtain specialty crop production information that will strengthen the COMET-Farm model and identify any future research opportunities. Through this collaborative process, the addition of specialty crops into the COMET-Farm tool will provide opportunities for specialty crop growers in California to voluntary evaluate their overall carbon footprint and implement conservation practices that help them mitigate and adapt to climate change. CDFA will also evaluate how to include such tools into future incentive programs to voluntarily enhance carbon sequestration, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to a changing climate.

Posted in Climate Change, Environment, Healthy soils | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Public comments flood in as FDA considers what foods are ‘natural’ – from the Sacramento Bee

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Office of Public Affairs

By Michael Doyle, Sacramento Bee/McClatchy DC

WASHINGTON – San Francisco resident Elizabeth Cox bought a bag of All-Natural Mission Tortilla Triangles in August 2012. That simple purchase helped fire up a high-stakes labeling dispute that’s subsequently engaged federal judges, regulators and lawmakers alike.

Now, one month after asking members of the public what they think, the Food and Drug Administration is engorged with thousands of suggestions about regulating use of the word “natural” on food labels.

SHOULD WE DEFINE, THROUGH RULEMAKING, THE TERM ‘NATURAL?’ WHY OR WHY NOT? IF WE DEFINE THE TERM ‘NATURAL,’ WHAT TYPES OF FOOD SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO BEAR THE TERM ‘NATURAL?’

-Food and Drug Administration

“If manufacturers want to benefit from such labels, force them to be specific about what their food is or isn’t,” Mary Petrofsky, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based nurse practitioner, advised the FDA. “Don’t allow them to just slap an overall label onto it.”

Petrofsky’s electronically filed suggestion is one of 2,227 comments logged through Thursday afternoon since the FDA asked the public on Nov. 12 to weigh in on the labeling question. Thousands more will flood in before the comment period closes Feb. 10.

The comments could help the FDA decide whether to define “natural” on labels, as well as related questions such as whether only raw agricultural products deserve the term and what ingredients might render a food ineligible.

With the questions about “natural” now hot enough to be identified as “trending” on the FDA’s website, the public comments are starting to fall into several familiar channels that frequently recur when the federal government formally solicits public views.

Some offer technical observations. Edward R. Blonz, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco, College of Pharmacy, served the FDA details about complex carbohydrates and synthetic molecules.

Others opine from the perspective of an embattled consumer.

“We already know how misleading the food industry is and how little it cares for consumer well-being,” Sacramento-area resident Stacey Reardon wrote, adding that “the FDA needs to step in and regulate these food companies that make misleading claims about their products.”

Still others echo positions taken by advocacy or public interest groups, such as Consumers Union. Often, many of the most substantive comments come in at the last minute; and, on an issue like this, at least some lawmakers are certain to join the crowd.

In July, the House of Representatives passed a bill that, among other provisions, would require the FDA to go through the rule-making process necessary to define the term “natural” on labels. Critics fear this GOP-authored bill would pre-empt state labeling laws and could result in genetically engineered foods being dubbed “natural.”

“Our constituents want to know how their food is made, and they are calling on us to help make this information more accessible,” Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, said during House debate.

The fight over “natural” labeling is a complicated one that has taken place on many fronts and across multiple federal agencies.

Cox’s purchase of the tortilla chips in August 2012, for instance, planted the seeds for an attempted class-action lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco. Cox claimed the chips’ manufacturer, Gruma Corp., misled consumers by labeling chips as “all natural,” even though they were made from “genetically modified corn products.”

The lawsuit, and several others like it, prompted three federal judges to ask the FDA for a determination of whether ingredients produced using bioengineering may be labeled as “Natural,” “All Natural” or “100% Natural.” Last year, the FDA ducked the question.

This year, after receiving competing petitions from disparate groups including Consumers Union, the Grocery Manufacturers of America and the Sara Lee Corp., the FDA relented and opened the floor for public debate. It’s reportedly the first time since 1993 that the agency has formally addressed the term “natural.”

“At that time,” FDA officials noted last month, the agency determined that “we would maintain our policy not to restrict the use of the term ‘natural’ except for added color, synthetic substances, and flavors.”

Cox’s lawsuit was dismissed last year at the request of all parties, court records show.

View the original article online here.

Posted in Food Safety, Nutrition | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Delivering on Climate Smart Agriculture

Posted on December 11, 2015 by Karen Ross, Secretary, California Department of Food and Agriculture

Secretary Ross at the delegation's final meeting with Vice Governor Anne-Marie Spierings of the Province of Noord Brabant, a signatory to the Under2Mou.

Secretary Ross at the delegation’s final meeting with Vice Governor Anne-Marie Spierings of the Province of Noord Brabant, a signatory to the Under2Mou.

Our trip to the Netherlands is just the start of greater collaboration with the Dutch in addressing climate change in the agricultural sector. The innovations in water use, green house technology, and saline agriculture are practical on-farm solutions that can assist California’s farmers. We have coherent and very similar trends – the convergency of technology and applied research in the farming sector that not only addresses current market demands, but helps position growers to meet the needs of a growing world population.

With our partners at the University of California, we have the opportunity to expand collaboration with Wageningen UR to develop joint research projects on climate smart agriculture – bringing the lessons and practices learned in the Netherlands, home to California. When I see the reuse of water for food production, taste horticultural products grown with salt water and observe the production gains that greenhouse management systems can bring to our berry industry – these are connections that our growers would be eager to learn more about.

In continuing our collaboration with the Ministry of Economic Affairs there is the potential to  support joint investment in a climate smart agriculture project that brings together business, academia and government. This project could test the viability of saline crops or look at opportunities for integrated solutions in the farming sector. As we begin to the lay the groundwork for this initiative, I look forward to bringing the farming community and my government colleagues into the discussions.

At our visit with Koppert Cress (usa.koppertcress.com) – an innovative nursery that sells specialty products to restaurants, the owner Rob Baan, mentioned his participation in a Ag & Food Tech Safari to Silicon Valley. This novel idea emphasizes the opportunity we have to bring some of the agricultural technologies we are seeing in Netherlands to California through forums at the World Ag Expo or other venues – allowing farms and tech to connect and learn from one another. The technology we saw at AquaReUse (www.aquareuse.nl) and Priva (www.priva.ca//en/), among others, truly shows some of the synergies we can have on the farm in California.

I look forward to hosting our friends from the Netherlands in California and continuing to build upon the foundation of friendship we have established. When we look at the approach of climate smart agriculture that California is implementing through the State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program (SWEEP), Healthy Soils and our dairy digester program and the work being done in the Netherlands we can see a shared commitment to a climate smart future. California and the Netherlands are truly places where knowledge and innovation grow.

The California delegation

The California delegation

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Secretary Ross and the Netherlands Minister of Agriculture sign Letter of Intent on Agricultural Cooperation

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Office of Public Affairs
CDFA Secretary Karen Ross and the Netherlands Minister of Agriculture, Martijin van Dam, sign a Letter of Intent on Agricultural Cooperation today at the Hague in the Netherlands
CDFA Secretary Karen Ross and the Netherlands Minister of Agriculture, Martijin van Dam, sign a Letter of Intent on Agricultural Cooperation today at the Hague in the Netherlands.

Letter of Intent

The Department of Food and Agriculture of the State of California of the United States and the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands (hereinafter referred to as “the Two Parties”), through friendly consultation, pledge their intent to cooperate on shared agricultural issues.

This Letter of Intent builds upon the mutually beneficial partnership of the State of California and the Netherlands on environmental cooperation, established (October 2013) and renewed (March 2015).

Article I. Climate-Smart Agriculture

The Two Parties jointly recognize the need to make agriculture, forestry and fisheries part of the solution to combat the negative impacts of climate change and environmental degradation, while also addressing the global needs of food security. This recognition aligns with the Two Parties policies and initiatives in addressing a changing climate. The Two Parties agree to work together to elevate the importance of Climate-Smart Agriculture within international discussions and promote further cooperation on this issue through for example the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture. It is the intent of the Two Parties to encourage 1) ‘Dissemination of Research’ to improve agricultural adaptation on a global scale; 2) ‘Farmer Connectivity’ to further international on-farm implementation of adaptation and mitigation practices; 3) ‘Advances in Agricultural Innovation and Technology’ to improve the sustainability and security of food, farming and the environment.

Article II. Water Management

The Two Parties affirm the importance of water management in promoting water use efficiency and protecting groundwater quality on natural and working lands. Water and agriculture are inextricably connected and within the context of a changing climate the agricultural sector will face many challenges including an increase in saline soils, sea level rise, reduced natural groundwater recharge, and the impacts of reduced precipitation (droughts) and increased precipitation (floods). The Two Parties further understand that issues of water management are intensified by a changing climate while global demand for food increases. The Two Parties, in cooperation, agree to: 1) further outreach and education on water management through participation in national and international forums; 2) encourage public-private research and investment in water management practices and technology; and 3) learn from in each other’s policy development and implementation water management practices by exchanging experts and jointly encourage the development of public-private research programs e.g. to enhance the on-farm technical assistance provided to farmers and ranchers for water management.

Article III. Engagement with Other Parties in Furtherance of this LOI

The Two Parties support the ongoing academic collaboration between the University of California, Davis and Wageningen UR and encourage, by common decision of the Two Parties, individuals and entities from the academic, research, private, public, and other sectors, as well as other levels of government within the Netherlands and California, to support the cooperative activities described herein.

This Letter of Intent will become effective on the date of signature and is done in duplicate in the English language.

The Hague, December 10th, 2015

Karen Ross

Secretary for Food and Agriculture
State of California, United States of America

Martijn van Dam
Minister for Agriculture
the Netherlands

Letter of Intent
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In the Netherlands – The Taste and Feel of Climate Smart Agriculture

Posted on December 9, 2015 by Karen Ross, Secretary, California Department of Food and Agriculture

Secretary Ross (center-foreground) visiting Wageningen University's demonstration farm in the Netherlands. CDFA's Science Adviser, Dr. Amrith Gunasekara (in hood), is behind Secretary Ross.

Secretary Ross (center-foreground) visiting Wageningen University’s demonstration farm in the Netherlands. CDFA’s Science Adviser, Dr. Amrith Gunasekara (in hood), is behind Secretary Ross.

In the village of Valthermond in the east of the Netherlands, we visited Wageningen University‘s demonstration farm. Wageningen UR, like UC Davis, is one of the leading agricultural research universities in the world. Here, innovative practices on water and nutrient management as well as soil health are being field tested on the farm – as an incubator for new farming practices that can not only benefit the Netherlands but also has the potential to address food security across the globe.

During the visit in Valthermond we met with Marc van Rijsselberghe, owner of Salt Farm Texel – a producer of salt-tolerant agricultural products. Marc graciously offered us the opportunity to taste his products (tomatoes, potatoes and sea kale) grown with 50 percent sea water. The products are truly amazing and are sold at a premium on supermarket shelves. Marc, like all innovative farmers, took something that was thought to be impossible and made it commercially viable. As we in California address challenges with water quality and saline soils, working with salt-tolerant agricultural products, specifically within the specialty crop sector, can be a positive step in adapting to our changing climate.

While on the farm, we also had the opportunity to get our hands in the dirt, note the qualities associated with having higher organic matter in the soil, and discuss the farming approaches to keep soils healthy. Like California, Dutch farmers understand the importance of healthy soils and what this can mean for productivity, carbon sequestration and environmental sustainability. Farming practices associated with maintaing and increasing organic matter in soils is an area where California truly excels.

In all of our meetings and visits so far, the Dutch have stressed the approach of business, academia and government working collaboratively to solve on-farm challenges associated with climate change. It has resulted in some very impressive work and synergies among various stakeholders. I’m looking forward to a time when we have multi-national collaboration between California and the Netherlands on climate smart agriculture, involving business, academia and government working for a more sustainable future.

Secretary Ross is in the Netherlands as part of a Climate Smart Agriculture policy mission funded in part by CDFA’s Specialty Crop Block Grant Program. This program is a collaboration between the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands and CDFA to develop strategies and management practices to enable specialty crop growers to adapt to climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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2015 California Leopold Conservation Award winner recognized

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Office of Public Affairs

Leopold Conservation Award Presentation. Left to right: Paul Wenger, CFBF; Brent Haglund, Sand County Foundation; Jim and Mary Rickert of Prather Ranch in Shasta County, winners of the award; Alex Karolyi of Sustainable Conservation.

Leopold Conservation Award Presentation. Left to right: Paul Wenger, California Farm Bureau Federation; Brent Haglund, Sand County Foundation; Jim and Mary Rickert of Prather Ranch in Shasta County, winners of the award; Alex Karolyi of Sustainable Conservation. Photo courtesy of the California Farm Bureau Federation 

The 2015 California Leopold Conservation Award was presented this week at the California Farm Bureau Federation’s Annual Meeting in Reno, NV. The recipient, honored for private landowner achievement in the voluntary stewardship and management of natural resources, was Prather Ranch, a working cattle ranch headquartered in Macdoel, near Mt. Shasta in Northern California.

The Sand County Foundation, the Farm Bureau, and Sustainable Conservation work together to determine the annual winner of the Leopold Conservation Award, which is given in honor of renowned conservationist Aldo Leopold. In his influential 1949 book, A Sand County Almanac, Leopold called for an ethical relationship between people and the land they own and manage, which he called “an evolutionary possibility and an ecological necessity.”

Prather Ranch is owned and managed by Jim and Mary Rickert. Under their management the ranch has grown in size, implemented conservation enhancements, and established several permanent conservation easements. Over the last 35 years, Prather Ranch has continually collaborated with diverse partners to enhance the land and promote land stewardship in the community.

One of the ranch’s first efforts to promote biodiversity was taking an unusual approach to managing wild rice fields. After harvest, they began tilling the stubble into the soil and keeping their fields covered in water year-round. The practice not only benefited common species of waterfowl such as Canada Geese and Snow Geese, but it also attracted shore birds like plovers and terns, previously found only on the coast.

Through conservation easements in cooperation with the Shasta Land Trust, the Rickerts have preserved some of the state’s most spectacular wildflowers, and protected sensitive vernal pools and riparian areas. Prather Ranch has also planted several miles of riparian habitat along streams and irrigation canals to benefit a wide range of animals such as the California Quail and the endangered Shasta crayfish.

The Leopold Conservation Award program inspires other landowners through these examples and provides a visible forum where farmers, ranchers and other private landowners are recognized as conservation leaders.

Link to news release

 

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Central Valley ag student wins big on “Chopped Junior” – from the Sacramento Bee

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Office of Public Affairs

San Joaquin County teenager Elisabeth Watkins won big on the Food Network

San Joaquin County teenager Elisabeth Watkins won big on the Food Network

By Cathie Anderson

The Food Network threw everything from orange push-ups to a vegetable sushi roll at 14-year-old Linden resident Elisabeth Watkins, but she kept her cool and came out a winner on a recent episode of “Chopped Junior.”

The teenager went to New York with her parents, Kenny and Molly Watkins, in August to shoot the show, and though she knew she had won, the only people she was allowed to tell were her parents and her older brother, Kenneth Watkins IV. In the “Chopped” programs, contestants must cook an appetizer, an entrée and a dessert, but the judges try to stump them with four mystery ingredients for each course.

“They give you about 15 seconds to figure out what you’re going to make,” Watkins said, “and then you have 30 minutes to actually prepare your dish”

In the appetizer round, the contestants got chorizo, orange push-up pops, premade waffles and lobster mushrooms. For the entrée, they had to use pork chops, smoked oysters, heirloom tomatoes and vegetable sushi. And for the dessert course, the mystery ingredients were passion fruit, dehydrated cheese, premade, precooked french fries and applesauce.

“I made a panzanella salad (for the appetizer),” Watkins said. “I made the orange push-ups into a vinaigrette. The next round … I did a pan-seared pork chop with a red-wine oyster reduction. I used the insides of the sushi for a carrot and green bean with heirloom tomato sauté, and then I did a ricotta wonton.”

For dessert, Watkins produced a dehydrated cheese and french fry crumble with sautéed cinnamon apples and a passion fruit-raspberry compote.

A freshman at Central Catholic High School in Modesto, Watkins doesn’t tend to sit around twiddling her thumbs. She taught herself to cook by reading cookbooks, watching Food Network shows such as “Chopped” and asking adults with special expertise to let her cook alongside them.

She has taken lessons in cooking, sewing, welding and much more for six years now with the Linden-Peters 4H chapter. Last summer, she competed on a team that won the fair’s Junior 4H cooking contest, and she took second place at the California State Fair for a wool coat she made for the “Make It With Wool” contest. She raises Shorthorn beef cattle for projects with 4H and her high school chapter of FFA. Also at Central Catholic, she competed in water polo this fall and hopes to compete in springboard diving in spring.

Watkins has a couple of pre-K memories of cooking: Every year, the men, women and children of the Watkins family gather around the holidays to make sugar cookies in the shape of Santa Claus that they give to friends and family. She also recalled that, as a toddler, she helped her mom make the Watkins family’s legendary brownies from a recipe that includes six eggs and two cups of sugar.

Watkins said she got the idea to compete on “Chopped” after watching an episode in which teenagers had competed.

“I was talking to my mom, and I said, ‘Oh, I think I can do that. I think I’m better than those kids,’ ” she said. “I went on the Food Network website and filled out an application and submitted it. That led to a series of interviews, a home video and another, longer application.”

She learned in July that she had won a spot for the inaugural season of “Chopped Junior.” Her episode initially aired Nov. 24, but the Food Network website said it will be rebroadcast at 5 p.m. Dec. 27. She beat out three other contestants, winning $10,000 and an apron with the “Chopped Junior” emblem.

“The judges really liked how I transformed the ingredients into something new and put my own twist on it,” Watkins said. “They liked how I knew what to do with each ingredient, adding acid to the orange push-up pops to tone down the sweetness. … They liked my presentation, and they really, really, really liked my red-wine reduction sauce.”

Since winning that contest, Watkins has been written up in the Linden Herald, the Stockton Record, The Modesto Bee and San Joaquin Farm Bureau newspaper. She’s also been interviewed on “Good Day Sacramento” and KAT Country 103 FM. She’s received congratulatory messages from old friends, former teachers and complete strangers.

Every year, the Linden-Peters 4H has a Christmas boutique where students are encouraged to sell their wares. In the past, Watkins has sold items she has cooked, but this year, she said, she will be offering cooking lessons.

“I cooked a … meal at school,” Watkins said. “I made an omelet for them, and one of my friends said, ‘You’re catering my wedding.’ That’s when I realized that I had a talent that people were looking for, and I like teaching people how to cook, sharing my tips and tricks and my style of cooking, the things that I eat.”

Link to story

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