Citrus is a way of life for our state! California leads the nation in tons and value of citrus production., and the US is also among the top-five citrus producers in the world. Of course, citrus depends on responsible water stewardship, and many California growers use advanced technology with soil moisture monitors and micro-sprinklers to water their trees. Read more about the water efficiency of California commodities at the California Farm Water Coalition web site.
Healthy Soils Week is December 5-9, 2022
More than a quarter of the world’s biodiversity lives belowground, in our soils. And about a third of the biodiversity in the United States is right here in California.
California farmers and ranchers understand the fundamental importance of the soil that is the foundation of their work – and scientists are working to help all of us understand it even better. Join a panel of experts on Monday, December 5 for a free webinar: Building Belowground Biodiversity.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture is working alongside our growers to improve soil health, in part by convening the Belowground Biodiversity Advisory Committee, made up of world-renowned scientists, to generate recommendations on biodiversity indicators as a proxy of soil health and ecosystem functions. Four of our committee members make up our webinar panel for this special Healthy Soils Week event. Presenters will also share some of the work they have completed.
Click here to register for “Building Belowground Biodiversity” scheduled for World Soil Day, Monday December 5, at 10 am.
The importance of biodiversity and healthy soils is memorialized in Governor Gavin Newsom’s Executive Order N-82-20, which directs the California Department of Food and Agriculture and partner agencies to work to support our biodiverse natural ecosystems, including our soils.
USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) mailed an invitation to respond online to the 2022 Census of Agriculture on November 22. A paper questionnaire will follow in December and responses are due February 6, 2023 either online, by mail, or telephone. This is your chance to have a voice in the future of agriculture in our state and the U.S. The ag census is required by law, but more importantly, good data means good decisions about policies, programs, disaster assistance, finance, and more. If you only fill out one survey this year, this is the one to do.
By Karen Ross, Secretary
California Department of Food and Agriculture
The dictionary defines gratitude as the state of being grateful: THANKFULNESS. It is important to express appreciation to people every day, but especially at this time of year – a time to celebrate the harvest by gathering around the table with family and friends.
Our farmers, ranchers, farmworkers and others who make up the agricultural sector in California have faced a number of stressful challenges this year. These include a third year of severe drought and a record breaking extreme heat event impacting harvest, in addition to continued disruptions in the supply chain, significant price increases for every input needed for production, and ongoing barriers to shipping product to valuable overseas markets. And, yet, California agriculture did what it always does – innovated, adapted, persevered. Our agriculture community is special not only for the crops it produces, but for the way they are grown to high labor, environmental, public health and safety standards.
It is an honor to serve in my position as Secretary of Food and Agriculture and to represent our state and this industry here at home, across the country and around the world. Just last week, Deputy Secretary Virginia Jameson and I returned from the UN Conference on Climate COP 27 where, for the first time, there was a day featuring agriculture. A number of sessions centered on the question of how we feed the world in a changing climate. There were too many extreme weather events in 2022 that showed how fragile food security is, in too many countries, for too many people. There were numerous discussions about how important it is to expand the adoption of climate smart agricultural practices and embrace innovation and technology to ensure resilient food production systems, nourish a fast-growing world population and help small-scale subsistence farmers move out of poverty and end hunger.
The entire experience reminded me once again how fortunate I am to live and work in California, where I have the opportunity to collaborate with kind, dedicated staff, talented colleagues and inspiring leaders working to make our industry and our state even better. I am grateful for the bounty of our harvest that includes our youth – the NextGen talent – who are excited about the future. California agriculture is remarkable! It is good to reflect on all that we have to be thankful for – the practice of gratitude.
Estimated $2 billion in GDP and 19,414 jobs lost to drought in 2022
Any way you look at it – precipitation, temperature, the amount of stored water available – the past three years have been the driest period on record, and one of the hottest, with roughly 68% of the 20th century average precipitation. Researchers estimate that in 2022 alone, California’s agriculture and food processing industry has lost 19,414 jobs and $2 billion in value added (Gross Domestic Product or GDP) due to the ongoing drought.
This data comes from the research report “Economic Impacts of the 2020-2022 Drought on California Agriculture” issued today by the University of California, Merced and funded by a grant from the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
The report also shows how the impacts of climate change have worsened the effects of this drought by increasing the evaporative demand from vegetation by 3-5 inches. That means the gap between the water we need and the water we have is even wider than in previous droughts – and not just for agriculture, but also for ecosystems and communities across the board.
The results of this research also confirm the importance of California’s comprehensive slate of actions taken in response to this and previous droughts, and given the new, hotter and drier “normal” brought about by climate change. Those actions, ranging from modernizing water management to accelerating water supply projects to adopting emergency water conservation measures, are detailed at https://drought.ca.gov/state-drought-response/.
The Newsom Administration announced its water strategy in August with a document called “California’s Water Supply Strategy, Adapting to a Hotter, Drier Future.” The strategy calls for investing in new sources of water supply, accelerating projects and modernizing how the state manages water through new technology.
Over the last three years, at the urging of the Governor, state leaders have earmarked more than $8 billion to modernize water infrastructure and management. The historic three-year, $5.2 billion investment in California water systems enacted in 2021-22 has enabled emergency drought response, improved water conservation to stretch water supplies, and enabled scores of local drought resilience projects. The 2022-23 budget includes an additional $2.8 billion for drought relief to hard-hit communities, water conservation, environmental protection for fish and wildlife, and long-term drought resilience projects.
The Report
The Central Valley’s net water shortage increased from 1.8 million acre-feet (MAF) in 2021 to 2.6 MAF in 2022. Compounding effects of the 2020 and 2021 water years also worsened water supply conditions in the Sacramento Valley, where the shortage doubled in 2022 (1.5 MAF) compared to 2021 (0.76 MAF). Some places in the San Joaquin Valley saw slight relief due to some recovery in reservoir water storage from 2022 winter rains, but deficit conditions remain the norm.
Impacts on our farms and ranches vary widely by region, and adaptations undertaken by our farmers and ranchers included crop shifting and idling land. Some crops, such as rice and other field and grain crops, showed extensive fallow land from project water allocations, or curtailments. In some cases, water transfers and planting insurance provided some relief and made it possible to keep higher-value commodities in some areas in the Central Valley. Areas outside the Central Valley experienced some fallowing, but yield losses in vines and some vegetable farms were due to dry and warm conditions.
There is no getting around the fact that California remains in an extended, severe drought, and severe consequences including fallowed land and shifted crops continue to put farms, farmers, workers and downstream industries in jeopardy. The food processing sector often receives less attention during droughts, but this report estimates the cascade effects of decreased production of some crops, with direct impact losses of $845 million in GDP (and $3.5 billion in gross revenues) estimated for 2022 in the Central Valley, with a decrease of nearly 7,400 jobs.
Idle Land
An additional 752,000 acres of California farmland has been idled in the 2022 dry year. 563,000 acres were idled in 2021, and an additional 190,000 acres in 2022. The Central Valley accounts for 695,000 of the total.
Farm Losses
Losses in revenue to California farms and ranches are estimated at $1.3 billion for 2021 and $1.7 billion for 2022 (using 2019 as the most recent non-drought baseline). The largest proportion of these losses is in the Central Valley due to drought-idled land. Other agricultural regions suffered losses from fallowing, and also from yield losses due to excessively dry and warm conditions. The severity and duration of temperature extremes – hallmark effects of climate change – worsened these losses.
Farms are by no means the only victims of this drought, or of the climate change factors that are worsening it. Our communities that rely on both permanent and seasonal jobs in agriculture are especially vulnerable in these extended drought conditions. Water access and water quality may be the obvious impacts of drought in these communities – but the longer this or any future drought endures, the broader and more severe the social, economic and health impacts will be as well.
Innovation has always been an important element of California’s reputation for global agricultural leadership, and our reliance on science and creative solutions will be even more important as we face drought in the years to come. By supporting this research, and through a broad slate of related efforts, CDFA and California’s agricultural community are working to identify, quantify, and combat the effects of this drought and help California become more resilient in preparation for the future droughts that experience tells us are certainly coming.
California farmers and ranchers, including veterans and beginners, are invited to attend a Farmer & Rancher Grant Writing Workshop 10 a.m. to noon Dec. 1 via Zoom. The workshop is being offered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Office of Partnerships & Public Engagement in partnership with the Fresno State University Jordan College of Agriculture and Division of Research and Graduate Studies.
Click here to register for the workshop. For more information, please contact Juan.Alvarez@usda.gov.
Representatives from across CDFA divisions and programs were on hand at the Latino Farmer Conference in Escondido on November 17 and 18. The event was held at the California Center for the Arts with an emphasis on sustainable agriculture, equity, and resources for underserved farmers and ranchers. The Latino Farmer Conference is an annual event for Spanish speaking farmers and ranchers.
The conference brought together approximately 200 participants from the farming community, industry, and advocates for sustainability and agribusinesses for workshops in Spanish. The event included a farm tour of local and sustainable farms. The National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) host this annual event.
CDFA is proud to have had representation from the following areas:
Animal Health and Food Safety Services Division (AHFSS)
Citrus Pest and Disease Prevention Division
Office of Environmental Farming & Innovation (OEFI)
Division of Marketing Services
Division of Measurement Standards (DMS)
Plant Health and Pest Prevention Services Division (PHPPS)
Specialty Crop Block Grants Program (SCBGP)
Taken from an EPA news release
Two Californians–Lake County supervisor Eddie Crandell Sr. and Jeanne Merrill of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition–have been appointed to join the Environmental Protection Agency’s Farm, Ranch, and Rural Communities Federal Advisory Committee (FRRCC), which provides independent policy advice, information, and recommendations to the EPA Administrator on a range of environmental issues that are of importance to agriculture and rural communities.
Crandell and Merrill were named as part of a group of 20 appointments to the committee, and they join a third Californian already serving, Amy V.C. Wolfe of AgSafe. A total of 37 people from across the country serve on the committee.
Earlier this year EPA Administrator Mike Regan issued a new charge for the FRRCC — to evaluate the agency’s policies and programs at the intersection of agriculture and climate change. The committee will consider how EPA’s tools and programs can best advance the agriculture sector’s climate mitigation and adaptation goals, ensuring that EPA can best support farmers and ranchers in their efforts to reduce emissions and accelerate a more resilient food and agriculture system.
The EPA received more than 85 applications for committee positions and selected new and returning members from a pool of highly qualified candidates to represent a variety of agricultural sectors, rural stakeholders, diverse geographies and whose backgrounds include extensive experience with EPA priority issues, including climate change.
CDFA’s Division of Measurement Standards (DMS) oversees fair commerce in California, including firewood purchases that are common this time of year.
If you’re a consumer who wants to purchase firewood to last through the winter, you’re going to be spending hundreds of dollars per cord. The current average prices are $330/cord in the Sacramento-area, $360/cord in the Bay area, and $350/cord in Southern California. Prices can go higher if you want a more expensive type of wood like maple or oak.
It’s important that consumers make the best purchasing decisions and value comparisons. To do that, buyers need to be able to compare one seller’s offer with another. Knowledge of the proper terms and units of measure used for firewood is key.
Firewood is sold by the “cord.” The cord, or fractions of a cord, are the legal units of measurement for firewood, just as milk is sold by the gallon or hamburger is sold by the pound. A cord is 128 cubic feet. To determine how much firewood you purchased, measure and multiply the length x width x height in feet to calculate cubic feet. Any number less than 128 cubic feet is short of a cord. A helpful link of how to measure firewood may be found on the DMS webpage: CDFA – DMS – Programs – QC – Firewood (ca.gov)
Beware buying bulk wood by a “truckload”, “face cord”, “wheelbarrow”, or any other term other than a cord. These units of measure are not legally defined and therefore not comparable. For example, a dump truck load is far more than the capacity of an pick-up truck. Also, make sure you get a receipt for the wood from the seller. The law requires this, plus the seller’s name and address, date, identity of the wood, quantity, and price. If in doubt, take photographs and don’t burn any of the wood; file a complaint with your local sealer of weights and measures.
CDFA – County Liaison Office – County Commissioners & Sealers Contact Information (ca.gov)
The ongoing drive of farmers and ranchers to remain resilient in the face of climate change took center stage over the last several days in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, where CDFA Secretary Karen Ross traveled to participate in the Conference of Parties 27 (COP27).
Secretary Ross highlighted California’s leadership on climate goals as well as cutting-edge implementation. The Secretary spoke of “multi-level action”– meaning an effort to weave climate ambition and the actions of local and regional governments into policy developments to accelerate vertically-integrated implementation and investment plans–and she emphasized the importance of implementing the Glasgow Climate Pact to keep global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels.
Secretary Ross described California’s ambitious methane reduction target, its methane-reducing investments in the dairy sector, and how the dairy industry has risen to the occasion in partnership with the state. Through CDFA’s Dairy Digester Research and Development Program (DDRDP), California dairies have installed 131 digester projects that capture 2.3 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent every year or more than 23 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent over the projects’ 10-year life of practice.
On Agriculture Day at COP27, Secretary Ross moderated a panel entitled “Farmers at the Center” at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) pavilion. The panel showcased the diverse experience of farmers around the world and their efforts to fight climate change through climate-smart agricultural practices.
“Food production is so intertwined with climate,” said Secretary Ross. “Farmers are key to alleviating global hunger in a world with a growing population, and climate-smart agricultural practices can help them continue to do so in a hotter, drier future.”
The conversation highlighted the need to provide multiple approaches and practices to provide near-term and scalable solutions to the many challenges the world faces today and showed that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to farming in a changing climate. Panelists explained that with proper market signals and supportive policies, farmers can offer the keys to carbon sequestration, food security, and a healthy environment.
“To help increase these practices, we need to ensure that we have created the right market signals, enabling policies, and provide plenty of technical assistance,” Secretary Ross added. “We also must emphasize the importance of research, innovation, and technology in moving forward.”
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack was also at the conference and highlighted the United States’ investment of $8 billion in climate-smart agriculture through the Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities program and the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as the launch of the Agricultural Innovation Mission for Climate initiative, which is a partnership between the USA and the United Arab Emirates seeking to address global climate change and increase investment in climate-smart agriculture and food systems innovation over a five-year period.
Additionally, Secretary Ross met with the Deputy Premier and Minister for Climate, Environment, and Water for South Australia, Susan Close. The Secretary and the Minister discussed similar climate-related challenges facing California and southern Australia, including extreme heat, renewable energy production, and protecting biodiversity.
