California’s drought between Water Years 2012 and 2016 was one of the most severe in state history. A string of five dry winters left some rural communities without water, interrupted surface water deliveries to some farmers in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys for two consecutive years, disrupted thousands of farming jobs, pushed some fish populations toward extinction, and created conditions that fueled some of the most catastrophic wildfires in state history.
The State response included actions not taken since the short but intense drought of 1976–1977. For example, water right administrators curtailed thousands of diversions on the mainstem Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers in order to protect fish and wildlife and senior water right holders.
Distinctive features of this drought included an unprecedented State response to drinking water problems associated with small water systems and private wells, mandatory state-imposed urban water use reduction, recognition of the cumulative impacts of vast land subsidence in the San Joaquin Valley, massive tree mortality in the central and southern Sierra Nevada, and greatly increased wildfire activity and harmful algal blooms.
The drought revealed some strengths in the State’s largely decentralized systems for managing water. Large urban water districts that had previously invested to diversify their supply sources and build new storage handled the drought without major disruption, and Californians responded heartily to the Governor’s call for a reduction in water use of at least 25 percent.
But 2012–2016 showed serious problems, too. Water deliveries by the State’s two largest water projects fell to unprecedentedly low levels. Growers turned to groundwater to make up the difference, and heavy pumping triggered record declines in groundwater levels. This accelerated land subsidence in parts of the San Joaquin Valley that in turn continued to damage water supply and flood risk management infrastructure.
State leaders enacted several major legislative and regulatory changes during or after the 2012–2016 drought. These changes:
>require local agencies to bring overdrafted groundwater basins into sustainable conditions by 2042; » establish new standards for indoor, outdoor, and industrial use of water; » fund solutions for disadvantaged communities lacking access to safe drinking water; » increase the frequency of water use reporting; » give the State authority to order failing public water systems to consolidate with better-run systems; and » tighten landscape efficiency standards for new developments.
CDFA has a new webpage with an index of CDFA boards and commissions along with standardized information about each group, including length of term, number of board members, types of board members required by legislation, and contact information for prospective members.
This new page was created to provide easily accessible information about all of CDFA’s boards and commissions for members of the public, including farmers, ranchers and any other agriculture stakeholder groups.
CDFA’s boards and commissions guide policies, regulations and information for California’s agriculture commodity groups and other activities. This index site will help improve access and communication for all California farmers and ranchers, providing a better understanding of these groups as well as information on how to participate and what is required as a new member. It is a step towards ensuring that all California’s farmers and ranchers’ voices are included in policies and decisions that affect their agricultural businesses.
CDFA’s Farmer Equity Report recommended that in order to increase participation for historically underserved groups of farmers and ranchers, there was a need to expand the Boards and Commissions site to include basic and standardized information about each decision-making group, along with a point of contact, so that prospective new board members might be prompted to apply for an open position based on what they read.
A survey conducted for the equity report found that more than 70 percent of current members of boards and commissions heard about their positions by word of mouth or through an industry meeting. We hope this page will become central point of information for members and prospective members.
Farmers warned the Senate Agriculture Committee on Thursday that ag climate policy can’t leave out producers who have already adopted conservation practices or producers in regions with limited prospects for earning soil carbon credits.
The top Republican on the committee, John Boozman of Arkansas, also made clear that he isn’t sold yet on ag carbon markets, which are a major feature of the policy being pursued by the Biden administration and the committee’s Chair, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.
Boozman also expressed concern that House Democrats are talking about using the budget reconciliation process to pass a climate bill without needing GOP votes, similar to what was done with the $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill President Joe Biden signed into law Thursday.
“Budget reconciliation has unfortunately become a partisan process that does not take into consideration the views of the minority at all,” Boozman said.
“Climate change poses many complexities for the agriculture sector, and input from the Republican members of this committee should be taken into consideration.”
The Ag committee membership is split 50-50 along party lines.
Members of major farm organizations and a producer representing the Environmental Defense Fund all agreed that farmers could benefit from implementing climate-friendly practices, but several of the producers raised concerns about potential disparities.
One of the major issues is what to do about so-called “early adopters,” farmers who have already been using no-till, cover crops and other practices that sequester carbon in the soil and may not qualify for credits that don’t reward farmers for their existing practices but only for future improvements.
“Right now everybody wants new carbon. Very few companies right now seem willing to pay for any sort of past performance, and there are huge risks with that model,” said Cori Wittman Stitt, an adviser to the Environmental Defense Fund who has a diversified crop and cattle operation in Idaho.
A coalition that includes major farm organizations such as the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Farmers Union and the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives as well as EDF has recommended the federal government make one-time payments to farmers for practices they are already using.
Clay Pope, a no-till wheat grower in Oklahoma representing NFU, told the committee “there are thousands of producers who have worked for years to improve their land. It would be a horrible mistake not to provide opportunities for these pioneer farmers.”
A recharging device for electric vehicles recently certified by CDFA
By Kristin Macey, CDFA Director of Measurement Standards
As with most new technology, the future arrives first in California. The adoption and explosive growth of electric vehicles (EV) is no exception. Today, the Golden State accounts for almost half of the nation’s electric vehicle sales and approximately thirty percent of all public electric charging stations.
Electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE), units that deliver electricity to light-duty vehicles, are considered commercial measuring devices when used to sell “fuel” to EV drivers.
Recognizing the need for consistency and fairness in this new commercial space, CDFA began enforcing a new regulation on January 1, 2021 that requires all new Alternating Current (AC) EVSE to charge EV drivers for energy by the kilowatt hour. All newly installed commercial AC EVSE must undergo a type evaluation process just like all other commercial weighing and measuring devices.
The first-ever type evaluation and approval of a commercial AC EVSE in the US was performed by CDFA’s California Type Evaluation Program(CTEP). A certificate of approval was issued on February 25, 2021 to EverCharge, Inc., a San Francisco-based EVSE manufacturer. Fifteen other manufacturers from the U.S. and Canada have applied for CTEP approval and their devices are currently under evaluation.
This work is part of CDFA’s charge to regulate all commercial weighing and measuring devices within its borders. To accomplish this task, the Department’s Division of Measurement Standards (DMS) works closely with county sealers of weights and measures, who routinely register, test, and seal over 1.6 million scales, meters, and other commercial devices used to buy or sell products and services.
It’s strange now to think back to a little more than a year ago, to recall ending 2019 and beginning 2020 with a distinct sense of clarity about what we as an agency and we as a state were doing, where we were headed. We even had some ideas about messaging with the way the number “20/20” conveys clarity in the visual sense. Our purpose and our plans were in place.
COVID-19 had other ideas. There is simply no achievement or policy or election that can alter the simple, awful fact that our global community has lost millions of people to a disease that all of us have struggled to control. It was clear from the start that the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the larger agricultural community had a job to do – an “essential” job. That term took on new meaning and significance as the year progressed, and as Californians focused on what was truly necessary and most important.
California’s wildfire season also caused our agricultural regions considerable grief and disruption; at one point in September 2020, 17 of our fairgrounds were activated as community resource centers, animal rescue centers, and staging sites for fire and emergency response agencies.
In an ordinary time, this report, CDFA 2019-2020; An Era of Productivity and Perseverance, would be about what we as a department do to help and protect farmers and consumers. This year, it’s also about how we have changed the ways we do those things to fit the new realities that 2020 has brought.
I’m proud of the way this agency and this industry have adjusted. I’m proud of the way we have maintained our focus on the food supply and the essential people who grow, harvest and provide it to Californians and consumers around the world.
As we celebrate International Women’s Day today I’d like to recognize and thank the women in food and agriculture who work diligently and heroically to produce nutritious food, fiber and flora throughout the value chain.
Women have always been a core part of food and agriculture and we are seeing that in the data we collect, as well as the fact that women farmers are growing in numbers. The USDA Census of Agriculture shows that nearly 30 percent of American farms are principally operated by women, and we expect that number to continue to grow as we address equity in public policy. In addition to farmers, women are key parts of the entirety of the system from researchers and scientists, to harvest and packaging field workers and supervisors, to distribution, retail, and restaurants.
I am proud of the increased representation of women in Ag leadership at the national and state levels. President Biden nominated Virginia’s Agriculture Commissioner, Dr. Jewel Bronaugh, to serve as the US Deputy Secretary of Agriculture. If confirmed, Dr. Bronaugh would be the first African American woman to serve in the position. The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) is headed by Dr. Barb Glenn. In fact, women head state departments of agriculture in 13 states. Here in California, Ann Veneman served not only as California’s first female Secretary of Agriculture but also the first (and only) female Secretary of Agriculture for the United States.
At CDFA, we are blessed by a number of women serving our state. From division directors, managers and supervisors, to scientists, inspectors and field staff, we are proud that nearly 50 percent of our staff at CDFA is female and doing great work supporting our efforts in a variety of ways. I also want to acknowledge the 15 women in California who serve as county agricultural commissioners. They are essential partners in all that we do.
Let’s applaud all women on this day and every day, and give thanks for their contributions to agriculture. They are the role models to inspire many girls and young women to see the multitude of ways we can serve – and lead – agriculture
California State Organic Program Special Investigator Leslie Fernandez collaborates with CDFA Needles Border Station staff to inspect organic blueberries and organic seeds entering California.
Did you know the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) State Organic Program (SOP) collaborates with CDFA’s Border Protection Stations to inspect organic products coming into California?
SOP and border station staff recently inspected organic blueberries and organic seeds entering California at the Needles Border Inspection Station. The organic inspection included verifying proper paperwork and checking that packages follow labeling requirements.
This is part of SOP’s increased efforts to conduct inspections through different stages of the food chain to ensure the integrity of organic products being grown and sold in California.
A Coachella Valley farmworker receives a COVID-19 vaccine. From the New York Times
By Miriam Jordan
The sun-baked desert valley tucked behind the San Jacinto Mountains is best known for an annual music festival that draws 100,000 fans a day and a series of lush, oasis resort towns where well-heeled snowbirds go to golf, sunbathe and party. But just beyond the turquoise swimming pools of Palm Springs, more than 10,000 farmworkers harvest some of the country’s largest crops of date palms, vegetables and fruits.
Mainly undocumented immigrants, they have borne the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic in California: In some areas, up to 40 percent of the workers tested for the virus had positive results. The Rev. Francisco Gómez at Our Lady of Soledad church in Coachella said his parish had been averaging 10 burials a week. “You’re talking about an apocalyptic situation,” he said.
Ending the virus’s rampage through farm country has been one of the nation’s biggest challenges. Undocumented immigrants are notoriously wary of registering for government programs or flocking to public vaccination sites, and the idea of offering the Covid-19 vaccine to immigrants who are in the country illegally ahead of other Americans has spurred debate among some Republican members of Congress.
But a landmark effort is underway across the Coachella Valley to bring the vaccine directly into the fields. Thousands of farm workers are being pulled into pop-up vaccination clinics hosted by growers and run by the county Health Department.
Riverside County is the first in the nation to prioritize farm workers for vaccination, regardless of their age and health conditions, on a large scale. But epidemiologists say such programs will need to expand significantly to have any chance of ending one of the biggest threats to the stability of the country’s food supply.
Hundreds of coronavirus outbreaks have crippled the work force on farms and in food processing centers across the country. Researchers from Purdue University estimate that about 500,000 agricultural workers have tested positive for the virus and at least 9,000 have died from it.
In the Coachella Valley, the vaccination program, which began in January, is the culmination of a monthslong effort to educate farmworkers about Covid-19, bringing testing close to their workplaces and encouraging them to stay home if they contract the virus.
On breaks from bunching scallions, harvesting artichokes and pruning grapevines, the workers on a recent morning trickled into an open-air warehouse to receive the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
They were spared the frustrating online registration process that most Californians must navigate and the hourslong waits that were typical at mass vaccination sites. Once they agreed to be immunized, an employer or organizer scheduled their appointments. Then, all they had to do was show up.
Rosa Torres, who packs dates, said she never imagined it could be so simple. “God answered my prayers,” said Ms. Torres, 49, an immigrant from Mexico, who was resplendent in matching lime-green shirt, wool cap and mask to mark the occasion.
A single mother, she said she could not afford to get sick and miss work.
“As soon as we got word vaccines were going to be available, we were making plans,” said Janell Percy, executive director of Growing Coachella Valley, a farmer group that is working with the Health Department. Ms. Percy spends frenetic days juggling calls between the county about vaccine availability and growers who inform her of the number of vaccines needed to cover their crews.
On a recent morning, she thought all 350 vaccine slots for the next day had been filled, only to hear from a grower that he had nine extra shots from his allotment.
“I got to find a grower who wants these so they don’t go to waste,” Ms. Percy said as she updated the sheet where she keeps track of distributions with a pencil and an eraser.
The challenges to getting farmworkers vaccinated go well beyond worries about their immigration status. The odds of being able to sign up for a vaccine online are low in a population that often lacks broadband access and faces language barriers. Many cannot easily reach vaccination sites in urban areas because they do not have reliable transportation or the ability to leave work in the middle of the day.
“Farmworkers are living in a reality that is foreign to most of us, and they are invisible to most of us, but they produce billions of dollars in food distributed across the United States,” said Conrado Bárzaga, chief executive of the Desert Healthcare District.
In March 2020, the federal government designated farmworkers as essential — a status that enabled them to continue working under stay-at-home orders but also put them at heightened risk of getting the virus.
Policymakers have struggled with how to protect them. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised giving agricultural workers early access to the vaccine, but states have taken a range of approaches.
Most have not yet started vaccinating agricultural workers, though many have identified them as a priority population.Most have prioritized people age 65 or older, and the average age of farmworkers is 39, with more than half under 44.
In California, several counties hope in March to expand eligibility to the entire agricultural work force. Colorado, Idaho, Michigan and Wisconsin are among states that have said they intend to start vaccinating farmworkers in the coming weeks.
But other states have taken steps that could discourage workers from coming forward.
In Florida, a citrus powerhouse, people must prove residency to get a vaccine, a requirement that tends to deter unauthorized immigrants. Some pharmacies in Georgia, where people older than 65 are currently eligible for vaccines, have turned away immigrants unable to show a Social Security number. In Nebraska, where immigrants are the backbone of the large meatpacking industry, people without legal status will be vaccinated last, officials said.
In Riverside County, farmworker advocates and growers have been fielding calls from across the country about the vaccination effort, which is considered a model for how to administer vaccines to this population.
“It’s not just that they prioritized farmworkers — they developed a comprehensive, innovative strategy to ensure vaccine access and acceptance in farmworker communities,” said Alexis Guild, director of health policy at Farmworker Justice, a national advocacy organization.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, after a visit to a Coachella pop-up site on Feb. 17, announced that California would make 34,000 vaccines available to farmworkers in the Central Valley, the state’s agricultural heartland. “What this county has done no other county in the state had done,” he said. “We need to replicate this program all up and down the state of California.”
But some in Riverside County, which stretches from working-class Los Angeles exurbs to the Salton Sea, have questioned whether farmworkers should be at the front of the line.
On a recent evening in Beaumont, about a 30-minute drive from the Coachella Valley, people who had snagged appointments for vaccines through the process available to most California residents — mainly over 65 — idled in their cars for hours in the parking lot of a local middle school.
David Huetten, 73, said those confined to wheelchairs in his retirement community had been unable to reach vaccination events like this one. “When you have seniors and teachers who haven’t been vaccinated, I wouldn’t put farmworkers at the top of the list,” he said.
In the nearby town of Banning, Olga Rausch, a 73-year-old retired waitress who had still not been able to sign up for a vaccine, questioned why farmworkers should go before other blue-collar workers who also cannot afford to stay home from work. “There are a lot of people living in crowded conditions,” she said. “Why aren’t busboys, dishwashers and people working at the 99-cent store getting the vaccine?”
Most people, however, felt it made sense to prioritize farmworkers. “They’re handling our food,” said Don Tandy, a 66-year-old Vietnam veteran.
Health officials everywhere are grappling with how to achieve equitable vaccine distribution. President Biden has repeatedly said that delivering the vaccine is core to his coronavirus response, but early data shows that doses have been slower to reach some Black and Latino communities with an elevated risk of infection.
In Riverside County, Hispanics represent nearly half of the population but have so far received only 20 percent of doses. Vaccinating farmworkers is a first step toward addressing the equity problem, said U.S. Representative Raul Ruiz, a physician who grew up in Riverside County.
“We have a moral responsibility to make sure that we do not leave people behind simply because they lack resources or live in certain ZIP codes,” said Mr. Ruiz, a Democrat, who has been visiting rural communities to encourage residents to get vaccinated.
It has not been easy.
Like many Americans, some farmworkers worry the vaccine is not safe, because disinformation has proliferated on social media. Others fear that being vaccinated could expose them to immigration enforcement.
Prime Time International, the nation’s largest grower of bell peppers, invited workers to register for the vaccine last month, and “the first question was, ‘Is immigration going to be there?’” recalled Garrett Cardilino, director of field operations for the company.
To assuage those fears, Riverside County enlisted grass roots organizations to reach out to farmworkers and reassure them.
“There is no chip to track you; there is no negative effect; you don’t lose your fertility,” Montserrat Gomez, an educator with TODEC, a legal-aid nonprofit organization that serves immigrants, told a group of about 30 workers in masks gathered by a spinach field in the town of Winchester.
“The vaccine is now available for you,” she said. “Many people wish they had this opportunity.”
Asked whether they knew anyone who had been stricken by the virus, most of the workers raised their hands. Several knew someone who had died.
Rose Perez, a 36-year-old worker at Full Farms, a vegetable farm in the city of Hemet, said she remained suspicious of the vaccine, even though her sister had become gravely ill with the coronavirus. “I read that nurses died after taking the vaccine,” she said. “No one in my family is taking it.”
Domingo Juan, a Guatemalan, also said he did not trust the vaccine: “This sickness has been around for a long time. Suddenly there’s a cure?”
But after the talk, several workers returned to the fields to harvest bok choy and said they were ready to sign up.
Among them was Luis Valdivia, 48, who recently recovered from the virus but had to go without pay during his illness. “I suffered too much, lost 37 pounds,” said Mr. Valdivia, his voice still hoarse after weeks of intense coughing. “I’ll take the vaccine; that way, I’ll be able to keep working.”
Two rows over, America Aguilera, 46, said she could not remember undocumented immigrants getting preferential treatment for anything in her 21 years in the United States. “With all due respect,” she said, “it’s about time we got the opportunity to be first at something.”
In 2019 California’s farms and ranches received more than $50 billion in cash receipts for their output. This represents a slight increase over reported cash receipts compared to the previous year.
California agricultural exports totaled $21.7 billion, an increase of 3 percent from 2018. Top commodities for export included almonds, pistachios, dairy and dairy products, wine and walnuts. California’s agricultural export statistics are produced by the University of California, Davis, Agricultural Issues Center.
California organic product sales totaled more than $10.4 billion in 2019, an increase of 3.5 percent from the prior year. Organic production encompasses over 2.5 million acres in the state and California is the only state in the U.S. with a USDA National Organic Program.
California’s agricultural abundance includes more than 400 commodities. Over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts are grown in California. California’s top-10 valued commodities for the 2019 crop year are:
By Kristin Macey. CDFA Director of Measurement Standards
The year 2020 began on a hopeful note – as all new years do. Very soon, however, it transformed into the year that introduced a “new normal” to the world as we know it. That’s why this year’s theme for the U.S. National Weights and Measures Week (March 1 – 7, 2021) is titled, “Measuring Up to the New Normal.”
CDFA’s Division of Measurement Standards (DMS) has maintained a sense of relative normalcy throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. For the most part, DMS remained open for business because weights and measures is an essential function to California agriculture and our food supply. That’s because DMS protects the infrastructure needed to process and transport food from farm to table.
Here are examples of that – fuel is necessary to operate farm equipment, and to transport commodities to processors, distributors, and retailers. Processors weigh commodities brought in from farms and ranches, and producers are paid based upon weight certificates. Retailers are held accountable for accurate prices so that consumers, some of whom lost jobs during the pandemic, are not overcharged for goods and services. County departments of weights and measures rely on DMS to certify their measurement standards used when they test commercial scales and meters for accuracy.
That’s not to say there weren’t some interesting occurrences in 2020. Early into the pandemic when there were reports of price gouging, DMS responded with a useful guideline for county sealers to disseminate to the public. There were also reports from county agricultural commissioners/sealers about irregularities in the boxes of N-95 masks they were distributing as protective gear to local farmworkers. It turned out that a new manufacturer was underfilling the number of masks in its boxes, a bad thing if the farmer is counting on fifty masks for fifty workers.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed some things for good, like working from home and shopping for groceries. However, you’ll be happy to hear that some of the basics haven’t changed. Every day, several hundred California weights and measures inspectors go out to inspect and test weighing and measuring equipment, store prices, and pre-packaged products. All to provide the businesses they regulate and consumers like you with that same level of protection you’ve always had.
