California Agriculture Day returns to the West Steps of the State Capitol on Wednesday, March 23, 2022. Are you ready? We can’t wait to see you!

One of Governor Gavin Newsom’s highest priorities for California is equity. At CDFA, that means equity across all of the department’s divisions and programs, including the access that stakeholders have to our funding and resources.

Grant Funding

In recent years, we have redoubled our efforts to improve access for historically underserved producers to grant programs such as those offered through our Office of Environmental Farming and Innovation (OEFI). For example, 25 percent of available funds for the Healthy Soils Program are awarded to projects that benefit socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers. In the State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program (SWEEP), 41 percent of the projects awarded funding last year were for socially disadvantaged and/or priority populations.

That’s real, tangible action toward equity in public funding and government resources at CDFA. And these are examples, not exceptions.

Technical Assistance

“Technical assistance” sounds simple enough, but in our experience it can be the difference between a farmer from an underserved group securing a grant, or failing in the initial application phase. CDFA has a longstanding commitment to technical assistance as part of its climate smart agriculture programs – more than $11 million has been provided for this essential activity. The funding goes to organizations that help farmers with a variety of tasks, from applying for CDFA grant programs to providing on-farm, one-on-one technical assistance to evaluate irrigation system efficiency, test pumps, manage nutrient flows, and more. These services are free and prioritize socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, and farms of 500 acres or fewer.

A specific example of our investment to build capacity to serve this priority population is our partnership with the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources to fund 10 Climate Smart Agriculture Community Educators, most of whom are bilingual. We believe this will result in long-term benefit for these historically underserved farmers and ranchers and strengthen our communities with the equitable implementation of climate smart agricultural practices.

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross is a member of the California Strategic Growth Council (SGC), which consists of members of the Governor’s cabinet and public members, and which strives to coordinate the state’s public agencies around sustainability, equity, economic prosperity, and quality of life for all Californians. At its January 26 meeting, the council passed a resolution to support building capacity through technical assistance across all agencies, with Secretary Ross leading the way as one of its technical assistance champions. CDFA will join SGC’s a capacity building working group to advance this initiative, sharing staff experience and knowledge of best practices.

Underserved/Small Producers

Another example of this commitment is the California Underserved and Small Producer Program, established in 2021 to assist underserved and small-scale producers across the state with access to resources such as business planning and marketing strategies, as well as information needed for economic relief due to COVID-19. The program was created based on the needs of producers and technical assistance providers.

Equity Lifts Us All

We are determined to make sure that socially disadvantaged and small-scale agricultural producers receive equitable access to CDFA programming. It’s simply a foundational responsibility of a government agency to do that. And it’s also just good business: as underserved producers gain access and influence and become more integrally involved at CDFA and throughout government, our programs will more accurately reflect and respond to the true needs of our whole industry.

California’s agricultural producers grow more than 400 commodities. That “crop diversity” is something we should all be proud of, of course. The same reasoning applies to the diversity of our farmers and ranchers themselves: it adds strength, resilience, creativity, innovation. It also means a broader, deeper, stronger “crop” of new farmers and ranchers – something our aging industry desperately needs. And, at CDFA, it means a department that is not just prepared but, indeed, designed to serve all of California agriculture, equitably and accountably.

We’ve made progress – but we’re not resting here. There is much more work to be done.

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross is one of several business and government participants in USDA’s first agricultural trade mission since 2019. The mission is underway in Dubai, home to Gulfood – the largest annual food show in the world.

“This event is such a tremendous opportunity for participants not just because of its sheer size, but also for the quality of all the contacts and serious buyers who are here from some of the world’s fastest-growing markets,” said Secretary Ross. “We’re seeing pent-up demand for ‘California Grown,’ so it’s especially good to be here celebrating these opportunities for trade.”

Secretary Ross joined USDA FAS Administrator Daniel Whitley in some pre-trade mission visits to California and U.S. exhibitors at Gulfood.

While in Dubai, Secretary Ross will visit trading partners and participate in promotional events highlighting California agriculture. The UAE is a key market within the GCC, California agricultural exports to UAE are estimated at more than $500m. Leading exports include tree nuts, fresh fruit and dairy. As the United States’ largest agricultural producer and exporter, California produces a diversity of agricultural products for consumers around the world. 

Nono Zhang and Maya Horvath, two California students, had the opportunity to join CDFA Undersecretary Christine Birdsong and Natalie Krout-Greenberg at the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) Winter Policy Conference in Washington D.C. Nono is from China and attends UC Davis. Maya is from Southern California and is studying at the University of Kentucky. Both students participated in a scholarship program supported by CDFA, the NASDA Foundation and the Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences (MANRRS) organization.

NASDA and the NASDA Foundation, along with CDFA, are committed to building a sustainable workforce to support a resilient agriculture and food supply chain. This partnership is not only working to increase minority college students’ exposure to employment, education and business opportunities through state departments of agriculture, but is also committed to providing resources for students seeking to enter the agricultural workforce.

By Karen Ross, Secretary
California Department of Food and Agriculture

The most visible elements of what we do at CDFA are about today: inspecting today’s harvest, stopping today’s invasive pest or animal disease, or responding to the latest emergency. And all of that is important, even urgent. Has to be done now; has to be done well.

But the other side of that coin – the forward focus – is every bit as important. As we’ve gone through this historically strange and trying and indeed mournful time, with COVID-19 and wildfires and drought all doing their worst, it is the focus on a better future for our farms and our families that pulls us through.

Governor Gavin Newsom’s leadership is helping this department and this industry incorporate equity and climate change not just in our policies but in our daily decisions and conduct. That’s the kind of resolute and forward-thinking leadership we need to build a future that is proudly, distinctly Californian.

While CDFA is here to protect our state’s agriculture and environment from what threatens today, we also help you develop on-farm practices that will improve yields, save water, reduce inputs, and adapt to climate change. We help farmers and ranchers prioritize research, pool resources, conduct demonstration projects, convert to new tech. That’s helping farmers make their own futures.

This report, “California Agriculture: The Focus is Forward,” is by no means an exhaustive list of everything CDFA did in 2021. We would need a lot more pages for that. What it is, though, is a representative expression of our value to producers, consumers, the environment, and the state. I’m proud of this work. Most of all, though, after more than a decade of service as California’s Agriculture Secretary, I am proud of the people in this department who, like the farmers and ranchers we serve, know both the meaning and the reward of “a good day’s work.”

IPM is “Integrated Pest Management.”

#WhatIsIPM? IPM is any approach to pest control or management that uses the least toxic, effective method to solve pest problems, including using natural predators to manage pests, hand-pulling weeds, and using traps or baits to address pest issues. It’s about understanding the options, and keeping current with new ones as they are developed.

IPM is part of daily life at CDFA – we use it when we carefully, methodically choose which tools, methods and options to use after we detect a new pest or find a new infestation that requires our response. We have a responsibility to respond to pests, diseases and other threats to California’s agriculture and environment – and we also have a responsibility to employ IPM to protect not just our crops but also the habitat and the environment on and around the working lands of California agriculture. IPM helps us ensure the safety and effectiveness of this important work.

IPM is why we use sterile fruit flies as the primary tool in response to Mediterranean fruit fly infestations in California. It’s why we release tiny, parasitic wasps that very specifically target pests including the glassy-winged sharpshooter, a tremendous threat to California’s vineyards. IPM is why we carefully schedule pesticide treatments to protect pollinators and other “good bugs.” IPM is also why we constantly evaluate and consider newly developed pesticide products and other alternatives when we need to use these tools.

IPM is an integral part of each pest response program that CDFA initiates – and it even starts before that: IPM also helps us improve the traps and other detection methods we depend upon to find destructive agricultural and environmental pests in the first place. When we use IPM to guide our decisions, we can consider and update the kinds of lures and technologies we use in our trapping, detection and survey operations.

Join CDFA, farmers, ranchers, our partners at the Department of Pesticide Regulation @CAPesticides, and other environmentally conscious organizations throughout California in celebrating IPM month by considering alternative methods, products and solutions whenever you have a pest problem.

https://youtu.be/3-K5vZkoLsg

From a Western Growers news release

Growers are keen to adopt automation to bridge the growing labor gap and ensure that their crops can be picked in time, according to the Global Harvest Automation Report, a first-of-its-kind study commissioned by Western Growers. The report is the first in a new annual series that will track, measure and report on industry progress in harvest automation across the fresh produce industry.

The Global Harvest Automation Report is part of WG’s Global Harvest Automation Initiative, which aims to accelerate ag automation by 50 percent in 10 years.

“One of the main aims of the report was to take a comprehensive look at the entire harvest ecosystem and provide a quantitative look to the Western Growers membership at how much harvest innovation is impacting their operations across fresh products for specialty crops, where the most progress is occurring, and why,” says WG VP of Innovation Walt Duflock. “Second, we wanted to provide an in-depth view of the innovators who are doing the heavy lifting by crop type, so growers would know who to contact based on the crops they grow.”

Among the findings of the report, which was prepared in collaboration with consultants at Roland Berger:

• 65 percent of participating growers have invested in automation over the past three years
• The average annual spend on automation was $350,000-$400,000 per grower
• Spending occurred in pre-harvest and harvest assist activities, including weeding, thinning, harvesting platforms and autonomous ground vehicles. It is anticipated that 30-60 percent of these activities will be automated by 2025.
• Harvest automation itself remains limited because of the technical difficulties in replicating the human hand to harvest delicate crops. It is anticipated that 20 percent of harvest activities will be automated by 2025.

From CDFA Secretary Karen Ross: “I want to commend Western Growers for its vision in creating this initiative. The report clearly and helpfully lays out the state of current possibilities as well as investments to accelerate California agriculture’s legendary commitment to innovation.”

Read The Global Harvest Automation Report.