The annual Climate Week NYC is underway. Each year, climate leaders from all over the world gather to spur progress and champion change that is already occurring.

Governor Gavin Newsom and other state officials are in New York City, calling attention to California initiatives like a faster-than-scheduled installation of electric vehicle charging stations.

CDFA’s Division of Measurement Standards (DMS) is part of a team of state agencies working to accelerate the introduction of zero-emission vehicles and necessary infrastructure while avoiding redundancies in the regulatory structure. DMS tests and approves all commercial charging stations to ensure accuracy and fairness in the marketplace.

From Agri-Pulse

By Steve Davies

A new study of 30 geographically diverse farms suggests growers who consistently employ soil health management practices such as cover crops and reduced tillage can spend less on inputs and make more money.

The numbers generated by the study led by the Soil Health Institute and National Association of Conservation Districts are not trivial: On average, soil health management systems, or SHMS, boosted net farm income by $65 per acre across 29 farms. One organic farm was not included in the average because its relatively high revenue from organic price premiums would have skewed the results. 

“Yield increases due to SHMS were reported for 42% of farms growing corn, 32% of farms growing soybean, and 35% of farms growing other crops,” the two organizations said. The groups collaborated with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in the study.

The 30 farms were located in 20 states: Three each in Iowa and Alabama, two in Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Minnesota, Mississippi and South Carolina, and one in California, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.

Other studies have detailed the benefits to farmers’ bottom lines of managing for soil health, but the latest one is unusual because it includes farms from all over the U.S. planting a wide variety of crops and incorporates video narratives of the producers discussing their experiences.

“You don’t need to be afraid of trying things,” Minnesota producer Richard Cunningham said in one of those videos. Cunningham and his father, Ian, raise beef cattle and grow corn, soybeans and alfalfa on their land in the state’s Lower Big Sioux River Watershed. The operation has been in the family for 134 years.

“Whenever you can get more production with less input costs, whenever you can plant and timely harvest your crop, or better yet to have animals harvest the crop and spread the manure, that’s money in the bank,” Ian Cunningham says.

The fact sheet accompanying the video says that on the Cunningham farm, “methods of reduced tillage have been applied for approximately 70 years with no-till soybean and strip-till corn production for 20 years. The farm has planted cover crops for 10 years.”

“We try to incorporate cover crops on our land at least once a year on every acre,” Ian said. They also try to have the cattle graze cover crops annually.

The Cunninghams reduced their nitrogen costs for corn by about $22 an acre, applied less potassium and phosphorus, and they eliminated the use of a residual herbicide in a post-plant tank mix for corn. They also no longer had to use one herbicide in a pre-plant spray and one post-plant spray trip for soybeans. “Total reduced expenses were $55.94/acre for corn and $56.58/acre for soybean,” the fact sheet says.

“We’re using less fertilizer and consistently getting higher yields than other systems,” Ian says in the video.

There have been other benefits — less soil compaction and better water infiltration, for example.

“When we look at our neighbors having difficulty getting equipment stuck [because of wet fields], we don’t have those issues,” Ian says.

Other farmers claim similar results.

Average savings from implementing soil health management systems were $14 an acre for corn and $7 an acre for soybeans. The cost to grow all other crops went down by $16 an acre.

SHI experts who worked on the study said it stands out because of the farms’ locations, their crops, and the farmers’ on-camera explanations.

The individual stories are important, said SHI Chief of Staff Emily Bruner. “It’s really helpful to have those kinds of individual stories, because every farm is different in their journey,” she said.

SHI’s reports often aggregate data, she said, while the latest report offers testimonials from the farmers themselves.

“We hear time and time again from farmers that one of the best ways that they were able to stick with something is that they found colleagues, neighbors, farmers, technical assistance right in their area,” Bruner said. “So I think that’s a piece of this study that’s really, really interesting, of having that kind of narrative piece attached.”

Besides corn and soybeans, farmers in the study grow canola, chickpea, cotton, dried bean, grain sorghum, millet, pea, peanut, rye, sunflower, walnut, and wheat.

While there are long-standing concerns in dry regions of the country about cover crops, SHI ag economist Archie Flanders said the researchers found no areas where it wasn’t possible to carry out the practice. “Even some of the drier areas, they were able to use cover crops,” he said. 

“The issue that comes up [from farmers] is, it’s too dry here, I don’t want to suck up all the moisture with a cover crop,” Flanders said. He added, “We have farmers tell us that actually, cover crops would protect the limited soil moisture that they had.”

While the ability to grow cover crops is “totally on an individual case-by-case basis,” Flanders said “farmers are able to figure it out when they can. So we can’t really say, it’s just not possible to do cover crops, it may not be possible to do every year, but in our work, it is demonstrated to be feasible in every geographical area.”

Cover crops are most commonly employed in states along the Atlantic seaboard, according to the 2017 Census of Agriculture. “The 11 states with cover crops as the highest share of cropland all border the Atlantic Ocean,” according to a paper by two ag economists who examined that data: Maryland (29%), Delaware (20%), Connecticut (15%), New Jersey (14%), Virginia (13%), Rhode Island (13%); Pennsylvania (13%), Georgia (12%), Maine (12%), Massachusetts (10%), and North Carolina (10%).

The six states with the smallest share are in the northern U.S., economists Carl Zulauf and Ben Brown said in their 2019 paper. “With the exception of Alaska, (they) are associated with drier climates during the growing season: Montana (1%); Alaska (1%), Colorado (1%), South Dakota (1%), North Dakota (1%), and Wyoming (2%).”

Overall, the 2017 census showed that cover crop adoption had increased from 10.3 million acres in 2012 to 15.4 million acres in 2017, a nearly 50% jump.

Learn more about soil health at CDFA’s Healthy Soils Program web page

CDFA joins the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other state and federal partners in recognizing September as National Food Safety Education Month. CDFA also celebrates FDA’s recent announcement to form a new, unified Human Foods Program, with James “Jim” Jones as its first Deputy Commissioner.

“We are happy to see Jim Jones accept this position,” CDFA Secretary Karen Ross said. “We look forward to his work in FDA’s new Human Foods Program continuing to elevate the importance of food safety and nutrition in all things that we know and do across our food programs – from field work to providing healthful, nutritional accessibility for all.”

The agriculture industry also has been helping lead advancements in food safety, including through the California Leafy Greens Products Handler Marketing Agreement (LGMA) and Western Growers.

“Our California agriculture community is leading the way for food safety like no other place worldwide,” said De Ann Davis, Western Growers, Sr. Vice President, Science. “We owe this to our consumers because of how much of an agricultural state we are. Through continued strategic planning with CDFA, FDA, CA LGMA, the California Department of Public Health, and many others, we look forward to continued progress in food safety.”

As California partners continue to look ahead and collectively advance food safety, highlights include:

California Agricultural Neighbors Action Report and Subcommittee Work

• A collaborative effort since 2021 between California farmers, ranchers, shippers, handlers, composters, regulators, academia and more to reduce outbreaks of pathogenic Escherichia coli (E. coli) O157:H7 associated with leafy greens in the Salinas Valley resulted in the publication of California Agricultural Neighbors: Neighbor-to-neighbor best practices to help enhance localized food safety efforts in June 2022. In the past year, work groups have been meeting on each of the report’s action steps, including: Action 1. Foster Neighbor-to-Neighbor Interactions and Conversations; Action 2. Build a Research Roadmap for the Salinas Valley; Action 3. Create a Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) Framework; and Action 4. Build and Maintain Capacity to Transfer Knowledge from Research into Applied Practice.

California Longitudinal Study

• Underway since 2020, the California Longitudinal Study (CALS) is focused on addressing outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 along California’s coastal growing region, including the Salinas Valley. It is a partnership between California’s leafy greens, cattle, viticulture and compost producers, the UC Davis Western Center for Food Safety, and state and federal partners, including FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. CALS is the first study in the Salinas Valley region focused on metagenomics, a genomic sequencing tool that can examine changes in entire microbial communities to identify environmental factors that significantly contribute to the introduction, persistence, growth (or die-off) and spread of foodborne pathogens. The findings from this multi-year study will contribute to a better understanding of the impact various environmental factors, including drought and climate change, can have on food safety, which can be used to refine best practices for growers so they may continually improve the safety of their products.

CDFA Technical Assistance Program

• The CDFA Technical Assistance Program (TAP) is continuing to partner with University of California Agricultural and Natural Resources (UCANR) UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE) Specialists to conduct food safety workshops in various languages and locations throughout California to help all small farmers understand and comply with the federal Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety Rule.

New Era of Smarter Food Safety

• CDFA is working to align efforts with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in its New Era of Smarter Food Safety that leverages technology and other tools and approaches to create a safer and more digital, traceable food system. In June, CDFA received funding from the California Department of Technology’s Technology Modernization Fund to develop a database for the CDFA Produce Safety Program to be more efficient in scheduling FSMA Produce Safety Rule inspections and organizing farm information.

A new report released by the UC Berkeley Labor Center finds that record trucking costs in 2021 were not due to a long-term shortage of truck drivers in California.

The report, Ensuring the Supply of Agricultural Truck Drivers: What the State of California Can Do, found that, while there is not a shortage of people interested in truck driving, the industry faces challenges with retaining drivers, with turnover being especially high for long-haul drivers.

The report – the first in-depth look at the labor market for agricultural truck drivers in California and the first study of this workforce anywhere in the U.S. in almost 30 years – found that the disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, along with already reduced seasonal driver capacity, were responsible for the rate hikes that were seen in agricultural shipping. Employers were slashing workforces just as the pandemic was hitting and then struggled to rehire drivers and add equipment as the economy restarted, demand surged, and labor markets tightened as part of broader supply chain disruptions.

Report co-author Steve Viscelli, an economic sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, looked at a wide range of statistical data from state and federal sources and interviewed drivers, shippers, industry associations, and other stakeholders. He said better efforts in recruiting and training drivers would ease turnover and improve job satisfaction, particularly for agricultural trucking, which is critical to California’s economy but can often be seasonal or require specialized equipment.

“Safe and experienced truck drivers are the foundation of U.S. supply chains,” said Viscelli. “I hope this research helps to bring their perspective more fully into the conversation about how to better retain experienced drivers and create successful career paths for the next generation.”

New drivers are likely to attend training school for several weeks and then spend weeks or months out on the road with a trainer. Drivers are often required to sign a training contract that indebts them to the employer unless they stay with the employer for a year.

“Our training system is organized backward,” Viscelli said. “Drivers should be trained locally and employed locally at the start of their careers. Difficult, dangerous long-haul work should then be the well-paid choice of safe and experienced drivers.”

Report recommendations include:

• The state should work with agricultural trucking companies, local training programs, and community colleges to expand and create opportunities for local training that can lead to local jobs that give workers more time behind the wheel in local environments. These programs should be modeled as apprenticeships rather than the “boot camp” style of many current programs.
• California should review the safety impacts of split speed limits for cars and trucks. Truck drivers complained that having to drive more slowly than the cars with which they share the road creates a safety issue.
• The state should also consider adding new public rest areas or expanding existing facilities to allow truckers to find safe places to park and take breaks more easily.

Viscellli suggests that better tracking of where training dollars are going, and fostering partnerships between successful trainers and good employers would maximize the return on those dollars and benefit workers.

The report also found that almost a year since AB-5–the law governing job classification for employees and contractors–went into effect, there are no obvious signs of the negative impact feared by some shipping companies. In fact, rather than discouraging small business trucking, indications are that the law may be fostering an increase in small business formation.

The report includes profiles and quotes from in-depth interviews with truckers throughout California and is released during this week’s “Truckdriver Appreciation Week.” Read the full report.

From the Washington Post

Invasive pests are wreaking havoc across the planet, destroying crops, disseminating pathogens, depleting fish people rely on for food and driving native plants and animals toward extinction, according to a major report backed by the United Nations.

The landmark assessment found more than 3,500 harmful invasive species cost society more than $423 billion a year, a tally only expected to grow as the modern age of global trade and travel continues to supercharge the spread of plants and animals across continents like never before.

By hitching a ride on cargo ships and passenger jets, exotic species are bridging oceans, mountain ranges and other geographic divides otherwise insurmountable without human help. The result is a great scrambling of the planet’s flora and fauna, with dire implications for humans and the ecosystems they depend on.

“One of the things that we stress that really is the tremendous threat this does pose to — and I know this is going to sound grandiose — but to human civilization,” said Peter Stoett, an Ontario Tech University professor who helped lead a group of about seven dozen experts in writing the report. The cost estimate, he added, is “extremely conservative.”

The spread of plants and animals between continents is one of the main causes of Earth’s ongoing biodiversity crisis, an extinction event on par with the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. Invasive species are playing a role in 60 percent of extinctions, according to the report.

As more harmful invasive species take hold and multiply, humanity faces profound risks, too, as pests threaten to eat through croplands and spread mosquito-borne illnesses and other diseases.

“It’s normal that species move,” said Aníbal Pauchard, a professor at the University of Concepción in Chile who with Stoett co-chaired the group behind the report. But what is unprecedented, he added, is today’s era of plants and animals leaping the “big barriers” between continents.

“It’s not normal that a species crosses the Atlantic,” he said. “Not normal that it goes from Australia to Chile.”

More than four years in the making, thereport is written by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a body made up of more than 140 countries that provides policymakers with scientific assessments to help protect Earth’s biodiversity and prevent extinctions. A summary of the findings was approved over the weekend in Germany and released Monday, with full chapters slated to be published later this year.

The body concluded the threat from invasive species is “underappreciated, underestimated and often unacknowledged,” with only about a sixth of the world’s nations having laws or regulations on the books addressing invasive plants and animals. With new species introduced at an “unprecedented” rate of 200 a year, the problem is expected to get worse before it gets better.

The most widespread invasive animal, according to the report, is the black rat, which spread by stowing away on ships and scurried its way not only into dense cities but onto far-flung islands as well, where it has decimated ground-nesting seabirds and other animals. The impact of land-dwelling rats on islands is so profound that even nearby reef fish can feel it after the rodents alter the flow of nutrients into the ocean.

Remote islands are particularly prone to invasion, as they often harbor plants and animals found nowhere else.

On Guam, for instance, the voracious brown tree snake has already driven several native birds to extinction. On Maui, the destructive power of invasive vegetation was on full display last month after introduced grasses fueled wildfires that killed more than 100 people.

Many invasive species have taken hold in aquatic ecosystems, too. In the Caribbean, venomous lionfish are driving down the numbers of native fish. In the Great Lakes, zebra mussels are clogging the intake pipes of drinking water systems and power plants.

But one of the most devastating aquatic invaders is a delicate-looking flower.

Originally from South America, the water hyacinth is a free-floating plant that grows so quickly that it can cover entire ponds and lakes, leaving a matted mess that impedes boat traffic and fishing. In some cases, the plants suck up so much water that they render lakes dry and leave communities without drinking water. The report deemed the water hyacinth, which is popping up everywhere from Africa to Australia, the most widespread invasive plant on Earth.

Even Antarctica is not spared. The introduction of invasive grasses coupled with rising temperatures puts portions of the southern continent at risk of converting into grasslands.

In addition to invasive species, the other four key drivers of extinction are climate change, habitat destruction, pollution and direct exploitation of species, with a million plants and animals at risk of vanishing for good.

Climate change is poised to make the problem of invasive pests worse by enabling animals such as tropical fire ants to march north into higher latitudes.

“With climate warming, there will be some species that would not have been able to establish and thrive in some of the regions of the world, but going forward they will be able to establish and thrive,” said Helen Roy, a British ecologist and a third co-chair of the assessment.

Invaders, in turn, can exacerbate climate change. Tree-killing insects such as the emerald ash borer spreading through North America make it more difficult for forests to sequester carbon out of the atmosphere.

“The intersectionality of this report with the U.N.’s climate change goals is profound,” said Leigh Greenwood, who works on forest pests and pathogens for the Nature Conservancy, a global environmental nonprofit.

In December, nations agreed to try to reduce the spread of harmful invasive species by at least half by 2030 as part of an international agreement hammered out in Montreal. The best way to deal with them, according to the report, is stopping them from entering in the first place through border monitoring and import control.

“We keep coming back to: prevention, prevention, prevention,” Stoett said.

Even when an invasive species has taken hold, eradication is possible, especially on islands. Conservationists have exterminated the rodents plaguing the South Atlantic island of South Georgia while others working in the Galapagos have rid some of the islands of destructive goats.

And emerging technologies offer hope, too, even as they cause controversy. In Hawaii, officials are preparing to release a special strain of bacteria to suppress mosquitoes carrying an avian form of malaria that’s killing songbirds. Others are trying to tinker with the genes of mosquitoes and other pests to control their numbers.

“Every challenge that nature faces compounds all the others,” said Monica Medina, a former State Department official for biodiversity who now runs the Wildlife Conservation Society. “Invasive alien species are adding stress to fragile ecosystems already facing a plethora of other threats.”

CDFA Undersecretary Christine Birdsong, along with staff from the department’s Office of Environmental Farming and Innovation, highlighted California’s climate smart agricultural leadership as well as trade this week in Mexico City.

In collaboration with Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER), CDFA hosted a Climate Smart Agriculture Workshop at Casa de la Universidad de California — the location of California’s Trade and Service Desk in Mexico. Established in 2019, the Trade and Service Desk is a venue to promote two-way trade and strengthen California’s economic, political and cultural relationship with Mexico.

The Climate Smart Agricultural Workshop brought together researchers, government representatives and academia to focus on opportunities related to water-use efficiency, healthy soils and sustainable pest management. The CDFA team was joined by representatives from UC Merced and UC Davis. The workshop was a follow-up to a Memorandum of Agreement CDFA signed with SADER signed in 2019.

CDFA continues international collaboration and engagement on climate smart agricultural policies and practices to strengthen connections between academia, government and farmers on climate resilience. Partnerships strengthen research collaboration and ag tech innovations while furthering the adoption of on-farm practices to advance sustainability and soil health.

CDFA leveraged the visit to Mexico City to promote California agriculture to trade representatives and media in collaboration with in-market trade associations, and had opportunities this week to meet with representatives from SADER, the USDA’s Agricultural Trade Office, and CIMMYT, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.

From the Sacramento Bee

Opinion Piece by CDFA Secretary Karen Ross

“Farmers Have the Earth in Their Hands.” That’s the title of a book written by Paul Luu, a European agronomist and leader in the international push to recognize the essential nature of soil in climate resilience and nutrition security. The book resonated with me immediately for several reasons: a connection to the place I grew up — a family farm in Nebraska — and my understanding of the commitment of California’s farmers and ranchers to care for soil in order to maintain sustainability well into the future for food production, environmental protection, and stewardship of the land for succeeding generations.

It’s critical that we understand the fundamental connection between the ground beneath our feet and the many forms of life it sustains. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2020 Executive Order to bolster climate resilience and conserve California’s unique biodiversity highlights that soils host more than 25 percent of the world’s biodiversity. Following the Governor’s executive order, the California Department of Food and Agriculture commissioned a report on the essential nature of below-ground biodiversity — in other words, soil.

The report, introduced last month, was written by an advisory committee of soil scientists from UC Davis, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It underscores California’s remarkable variety of soils — more than 2,500 types — and notes that our soils make a number of vital contributions to the world food supply. It also says that we must improve our understanding of soils to achieve carbon neutrality and successfully adapt to climate change.

The report points out that soil biodiversity, including communities of bacteria, fungi and microscopic animals, plays a critical role in the functioning of agricultural and natural ecosystems. This diversity is highly complex and mostly invisible to the naked eye. Without it, critical functions such as carbon storage, nutrient regulation and water purification would cease. Promoting soil biodiversity is an area of focus with untapped potential for conservation initiatives throughout the state.

We’re trying to unlock that immense potential.

In addition to the governor’s executive order, CDFA and its state agency partners introduced the Healthy Soils Program in 2016. This grant program helps farmers and ranchers improve soil health through practices that sequester carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The program has already awarded more than $106.3 million in grant funds to support soil health improvements on 130,000 acres in California.

Our state’s growers are demonstrating leadership with innovative as well as tried-and-true practices, and they’re showing that our farms and ranches can increase carbon sequestration while enhancing productivity to ensure future food production and nutrition security. We must leverage this work through partnerships to take advantage of new information and scientific findings to continually improve the effectiveness of our soil health practices.

CDFA’s Environmental Farming Science Advisory Panel and the State Board of Food and Agriculture are exploring the practical application of the report’s findings for incorporation into our Healthy Soils Program. Meanwhile, we will continue to seek opportunities to support farmers and ranchers as they lead with climate solutions on the land.

We cannot fulfill our purpose of producing nutritious food with climate-smart practices for healthy communities without partnering with our farmers and ranchers and farmworkers; they literally hold the earth in their hands.

Today, September 7, is California Biodiversity Day

Today, September 7, is California Biodiversity Day. Here at CDFA, we are focused on the biodiversity below ground — in our soils. In this video, CDFA Secretary Karen Ross highlights a new report on soil biodiversity detailing the active, integral ecosystem beneath our feet that serves as the foundation of our food supply.

https://youtu.be/awf1215RaCg?si=k094pVxIY7onoBsx

From a news release by the California Association of Winegrape Growers

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross has been honored as the 2024 Leader of the Year by the California Association of Winegrape Growers (CAWG).

Secretary Ross served as the first woman president of CAWG for 13 years before being named chief of staff for US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. In 2011, Secretary Ross was appointed by Governor Edmund G. Brown as California’s Secretary of Agriculture, and she was reappointed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2019.

Her tenure at CDFA has been marked by significant progress in sustainability, food security, and agricultural innovation. Secretary Ross’ inclusive and collaborative approach to policymaking has made her a friend of stakeholders across the agricultural spectrum. Under her leadership, California’s agriculture industry has thrived while simultaneously addressing environmental concerns and ensuring the well-being of farmers throughout the state.

“Secretary Ross’s visionary approach and collaborative nature, both during her tenure as President of
CAWG and demonstrated through her leadership as Secretary of CDFA, have paved the way for the
continued success of California’s winegrape industry,” said CAWG president Natalie Collins. “As we approach the celebration of CAWG’s 50th anniversary in 2024, honoring Secretary Ross as our Leader of the Year holds a special significance.”

“My first reaction was to be embarrassed because I don’t feel worthy of this award, knowing some of the
past recipients include past chairs, legends, and icons in the industry, and I thought holy cow – I’ve always
gotten to do what I loved and I always told people that was the best job that I have ever had,” said Secretary Ross. “But, receiving this award is such an honor, and I am truly humbled that the people I got to work for, and I got to serve, all these years later still think of me as worthy of this honor.”

CAWG is also honoring Sangiacomo Family Vineyards of Sonoma County as its 2024 Grower of the Year.

The awardees will be recognized at CAWG’s “Awards of Excellence” reception in January.