About California Ag Today

This author has not yet filled in any details.
So far California Ag Today has created 2014 blog entries.

Super PAC Needed to Fight Extreme Enviromentalists, Part 3

Rachel Martin on Need for Super PAC to Fight Extreme Environmentalists

By Charmayne Hefley, Associate Editor

Part 3:

This is the third and final part of a three-part series with Rachel Martin, the national chairperson of Homeland Security for the National Federation of Republican Women, on the importance of creating a political action committee (super PAC) to combat extreme environmentalists in order to save forests, wildlife, and ag suffering from limited water allocations during this extensive drought.

Martin discussed how groups in addition to agriculture are suffering due to the limited water allocations and environmental regulations that prevent forest maintenance, such as logging, thinning of the forests and controlled burns, the lack of which leaves forests vulnerable to wildfires that burn thousands of acres and kill protected animals annually. “The Super PAC that I’ve been putting together since February is bringing together law enforcement and fire fighting agencies,” Martin explained. “We’re also bringing in animal organizations; we’re just waiting for their board approval.”

Through combined funding, Martin hopes the Super Pac will  begin to rival the environmentalists who have already joined together to lobby for what they want. “We’re looking for associations and unions to get together and pool their money,” Martin said, “because that is what has helped the environmentalists get to this point–which is having almost total control of California. It’s lobbying, having the money, and joining forces to fight and pave their way through Sacramento and Washington to get their laws and their amendments approved. Yet we have a lot more people who are suffering, a lot more groups, organizations and animals that are suffering and dying because of the lack of water.”

Martin said she has been appealing first to those outside of agriculture to form her Super PAC and hopes the ag community will join in. “I figured ag is already in the fight,” Martin stated, anticipating strength in combined numbers and funds.

 

2016-05-31T19:28:05-07:00September 8th, 2015|

Super PAC to Save Animals that Die in Wildfires, Part 2

Rachel Martin on Need for Super PAC to Save Forests, Wildlife, Ag

By Charmayne Hefley, Assistant Editor

Part 2:  Animals Needlessly Die in Fires

We are continuing our three-part series with Rachel Martin, the national chairperson of Homeland Security for the National Federation of Republican Women (NFRW), who is urging the creation of a political action committee (super PAC) to save forests, wildlife, and ag suffering from limited water allocations during this extensive drought.

“Agricultural agencies aren’t the only entities suffering from the lack of water allocations,” Martin explained. “Other agencies are also suffering due to the environmental regulations that prevent forest maintenance, such as logging, thinning of the forests and controlled burns. Curtailment of forest maintenance leaves thousands of acres of forest, as well as wildlife, vulnerable to larger, more numerous, and containment-resistant wildfires each year.

“When law enforcement evacuates homes, they have to force people out,” Martin said. “People fight to come back into get their pets—their dogs, their cats, their horses, livestock and any other animals they may have. But, oftentimes, residents don’t have the means to haul their animals with them; they may not have horse trailers. Sometimes, animals actually run free up into the mountains and can’t readily be caught. As I was specifically told by some law enforcement officials, those animals end up dying in the fires.”

Martin realized that once animal lovers learn of the suffering caused by the environmental regulations, they might consider joining the fight against the environmentalists. “I’ve been working with animal organizations and animal lovers. I’m one myself. I have quite a few pets, and I grew up around horses. Animal organizations and animal lovers alike can get in on this fight against the environmentalists.”

“Environmentalists are trying to protect species that actually aren’t even on the protected list yet; they’re almost on the protected list,” Martin stated. “Yet, in doing so, they just keep getting further and further away with from their original goal of protecting endangered species and pristine forests. They’re getting away with a lot more through politicians, too.”

2016-05-31T19:28:05-07:00September 8th, 2015|

Karen Ross on Ag Innovation

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross on Ag Innovation

 

The next big thing is always right around the corner. Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, said while that may be so, farmers should be consulted to help with ag innovation–the creation of the next big thing–so both farmers and innovators will benefit.

“Here’s what we need to go to the next generation of innovation, so come talk to us early; don’t just come and say ‘we’ve got your solution,’” Ross said. “We manage a vast biological system, a complex system on the farming side, that responds to fast-moving markets on the consumer side. So don’t divorce yourself from us in the industry. Truly understand what we need and how we put together all these complex moving parts to meet consumer needs and expectations in the marketplace.”

Ross said while farmers are always willing to listen to a new way of doing things, involving them in the process and providing access to the data that demonstrates the need for a new product would be more beneficial.

“Farmers are always open to ‘is there a better way?’” Ross said. “But they want the data. They like to see some demonstration of that data—which comes back to partnering with our academic institutions and Cooperative Extension. Don’t just come out and sell me something; show me the data; show me the demonstration projects. Let me kick the tires. Maybe, I’ll put in a few acres of that this year. It’s not just a sales job. You’ve got to partner with the farmer. And if you do, you’re going to come up with a much better product.”

2016-05-31T19:28:05-07:00September 3rd, 2015|

The Peril of Smoke Taint on Winegrapes

Wildfires Threaten Smoke Taint on Winegrapes

By Charmayne Hefley, Associate Editor

There are at least two dozen major fires burning in the wilderness of California. Many are now contained, while others are only minimally contained. One recent serious fire, known as the “Rocky Fire” in Lake, Yolo, and Colusa counties burned nearly 70,000 acres before firefighters extinguished it last month.

But smoke from that fire may yet cause problems for the wine grape industry in Napa, Sonoma, and Lake counties. James Kennedy, chair of the Department of Viticulture and Enology and director of the Viticulture and Enology Research Center at California State University Fresno, explained the threat of smoke taint on winegrapes. “Anytime you have wildfires near vineyards,” Kennedy said, “there is a concern about how that smoke might become associated with grapes, and as a result, become associated with wine.”

Kennedy said they learned a lot about this problem from the Australian wildfires in 2003 that tainted their wine. Kennedy explained,“grape growers are oftentimes not aware of the extent to which smoke can damage fruit. In a sense, it is a two-edged sword. When wine is made from smoke-tainted grapes, it will have characteristics reminiscent of ‘the morning-after ashtray’ that is quite obnoxious and certainly not desirable. The other side of the sword occurs when smoke compounds interact with the grapevine and grape berries, it is modified by the grapes. Like an iceberg in the ocean, the ice above the water suffers the apparent smoke taint; whereas, the massive chunk underneath the ocean, though not initially as obviously smoke-tainted, reveals obvious taint over time.”

Kennedy said, “Winemakers in Australia realized that while you can treat that initial smoke taint, you don’t resolve the long-term taint problem. We, as an industry, are trying to identify vineyards with smoke taint problems before their fruit is made into wine. By testing grapes in laboratories, we are trying to prevent those wineries from wasting significant investment in converting tainted fruit into tainted wine.”

The Napa Valley Vintners nonprofit trade association reported on its website yesterday, “So far no vineyards or wineries in Napa County have been threatened by any of this season’s wildfires. Most of the time the fires were burning, the smoke blew away from Napa County due to the typically prevailing winds from the southwest. The weekend of August 15/16, we did experience very hot temperatures and a wind shift that caused our air to be hazy and smoky as a result of the many fires burning throughout CA. However, there were no reports of smoke taint affecting Napa Valley wine grapes as a result.”

“Most reports on smoke taint indicate that it exists only after an extended period of close contact with smoke; conditions that have not, to our knowledge, existed within Napa Valley this summer. Furthermore, Napa Valley is known for the highest standards of fine wine production and our winemakers will be paying very close attention to this situation as they harvest grapes for the 2015 vintage.”

2016-05-31T19:28:05-07:00September 3rd, 2015|

No-tillage Grows in California

The list of crops that have been successfully grown using no-tillage in California continues to increase with garbanzo beans being the latest addition, according to Jeffrey P. Mitchell, CE cropping systems specialist, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Harvest data from the Conservation Tillage Workgroup are now in for a 2015 garbanzo crop that was no-till seeded in January in the longstanding conservation agriculture systems study field in Five Points, CA, and these data indicate no difference in yield between the no-till with and without cover crop treatments and the standard till with and without cover crop systems. Garbanzo yields for the four systems averaged about 3,600 lbs / acre with no statistical differences seen between the four experimental treatments.

Other than an herbicide spraying in the fall of 2014 to knock down weeds, the no-tillage systems relied on zero tillage prior to seeding that was done with a John Deere 1730 6-row 30” planter. Conventional tillage consisting of several passes of a Wilcox Performer bed-shaping tillage implement was done to prepare planting beds in the standard tillage plots as would be commonly done in the region.

There is now a growing list of several crops, including processing tomatoes, cotton and dairy forage that have been successfully produced, both in research studies and on California farms, with economically viable yields using no-tillage seeding.

Additional information about this study is available at the Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation Center (CASI) website and by contacting Jeff Mitchell at jpmitchell@ucdavis.edu.

Established in 1998, the Conservation Cropping Systems Workgroup is a diverse group of more than 1,500 farmer, University of California, California State University, USDA – NRCS, Resource Conservation District, public agency, private sector and environmental group members that have come together to promote conservation cropping systems in California.

Featured Photo Soure: Source: CASI (Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation) Center, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources

2016-05-31T19:28:05-07:00September 2nd, 2015|

Super PAC Needed to Save Forests, Wildlife, Ag, Part 1

Rachel Martin on Need for Super PAC to Save Forests, Wildlife, Ag

By Charmayne Hefley, Associate Editor

Part 1:

This is part one of a three-part series with Rachel Martin, the national chairperson of Homeland Security for the National Federation of Republican Women (NFRW), on the importance of creating a political action committee (super PAC) to save forests, wildlife, and ag suffering from limited water allocations during this extensive drought.

Martin said a super PAC must be created to combat the environmentalists who have been lobbying in Washington and Sacramento for years and to improve conditions for all constituencies. The resulting environmental regulations have prevented forest maintenance, such as logging, thinning of the forests, and controlled burns, which has increased the likelihood and severity of wildfires that burn thousands of acres each year and kill the animals environmentalists are trying to protect.

“I’ve been working with public safety as well as a lot of animal activists since ’99,” Martin said, “and I know that with ag, it’s been a fight for the last 30-plus years with the environmentalists and the Environmental Protection Act. Ag alone is not the only affected group of agencies or businesses. People don’t often think about how the lack of water significantly affects California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), the U.S. Forest Service, and law enforcement agencies as well. We need to come together.”

“Law enforcement agencies and the U.S. Forest Service have told me the environmentalists are actually hurting and killing a lot of the creatures they stand to protect,” Martin said. “Other animals die during those fires, and they’re dying the most horrible deaths—which is death by fire.”

2016-05-31T19:28:06-07:00August 31st, 2015|

High Pricing Keeps Tulare County Ag #1

Tulare County Ag Tops all Counties

By Laurie Greene, Editor

The 2014 crop report from Tulare County indicates another record-setting year. Marilyn Kinoshita, Tulare County Ag Commissioner, noted how well the dairy industry did, “30% of our overall value was actually milk, so dairy is incredibly important to our county. They had some good prices for most of the year. That is what brought up the value of milk to $2.5 billion. It is a significant increase over the prior year. A little bit more yield, but it is the price that kicked up well over two billion dollars.”

Tulare County Ag sales topped $8 billion in 2014, and the dairy industry overcame significant pricing obstacles to contribute to the County’s success.

Kinoshita continued, “We’ve got several classes of milk, and California producers are at a disadvantage to the other folks in Wisconsin or Nebraska, or wherever milk is produced. California producers feel singled out. They have their own system by the Secretary of Ag, so they have lobbied to get some hearings to be put under the federal system of pricing. California is lower than the federal standard.”

Citrus sales also played an important role in setting the new sales record, she said, “They had a really good year and went up considerably. So there is our number three crop. We are the nation’s number one citrus county. When our growers are having a good year, it benefits the county. We have 71 citrus packing sheds in our county and all the major juicing plants in California are right here.”

Kinoshita also mentioned some of the ways that citrus has become the number three crop, “It is sort of supply and demand, and great marketing. We ship to 90 different countries around the world. A portion of our production is exported.”

In 2014, livestock in general was up 40%, which also made an impact on sales in Tulare County, “You’ll find when you go to a grocery store that steaks, chicken, and turkey all cost more. So all of our species had an increase in price per unit for this crop reporting year.”

2016-05-31T19:28:06-07:00August 30th, 2015|

Crop Diversification at Terranova Ranch

Crop Diversification at Terranova Ranch Provides Stability

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Deputy Editor

 

Don Cameron

Don Cameron, Terranova Ranch Inc.

Crop diversification is the key to California’s agricultural success. Our climate and soils enable farmers to grow different crops year-round throughout the state. Don Cameron, vice president and general manager of Terranova Ranch Inc. in Helm, Fresno County, oversees the farming of cannery tomatoes, onions, carrots, bell peppers, almonds, walnuts, winegrapes, and even seeds for many other crops.

CalAgToday interviewed Cameron while he was riding a carrot harvester in the midst of harvesting for Grimmway Farms. He observed,“Our crop diversification at Terranova Ranch has really changed over the years. We used to farm cotton, alfalfa, barley and wheat, and that was about it.”

“Now,” said Cameron, “we grow between 20 and 30 different crops, both conventional and organic. There are times when one crop might not do as well as another, so diversification adds stability to our operation.”

And, of course, stability is a good thing on the farm. “We like to have stability,” Cameron commented, “and our workers love the stability because they know they are going to have work long-term, summer and winter. It is a lot more work for us, but in the long-run, it will be valuable for our operation here.”

Crop diversity and the stability it has brought to Terranova Ranch, according to Cameron, have enabled the ranch to retain its employees despite these rough times with fallow fields. “We’ve actually been able to hire some good employees from other farms where they’ve had severe cutbacks in water this year.”

Terranova uses only groundwater, and fortunately the ranch’s wells have held up over the last few years. Terranova is working on a major recharge program across 250 acres of land with water from potential Kings River floods and the James Bypass that crosses the Valley close to the ranch.  Although regulations prevent implementation this year, “when the flood water comes,” said Cameron, “those fields will be flooded for recharge and they will have low berms around them. The water may only be 2-3 feet deep, but the goal is to keep the water continuously on those fields so the recharge persists. The water doesn’t have to be 10 feet deep; it can be merely 6 inches deep as long as it is continually refilled so the recharge holds.”

2016-05-31T19:28:06-07:00August 29th, 2015|

My Job Depends on Ag Update

My Job Depends on Ag Update

By Charmayne Hefley, Associate Editor

The “My Job Depends on Ag” Movement has more than just decals and a potential festival in the making. Erik Wilson, co-founder of “My Job Depends on Ag” with Steve Malanca, explained at the group’s meeting earlier this month, they hope to become a non-profit and use proceeds from decal sales to provide scholarships for students in agriculture. “We would like to keep young people connected to agriculture through scholarships and education,” Wilson said, “and foster their creative ideas about how their food is grown and processed.”

Erik Wilson

Erik Wilson

Wilson wants to see the movement grow to become an educational resource for agricultural topics directly from those involved in Ag. “I would really like to see anyone who is curious about how their food evolves from field to fork view our Facebook page as a open source of first-hand information—not from a news desk miles away from a field—but from the people in the field who are cultivating it. Because the people who do it and their kids, eat the same food and yet their stories haven’t been told.”

Wilson would like people to see that phrase My job depends on Ag, “and ask themselves if their own job depends on Ag. For me it would be a win-win for the public to grasp the value in growing food. I think growing food is the most honorable industry in the world.”

2016-05-31T19:28:06-07:00August 29th, 2015|

2014 Fresno County Crop Report Sets Record Production

2014 Fresno County Crop Report Sets Record Production — $7 billion+

Les Wright, Agricultural Commissioner/Sealer submitted the following information to Karen Ross, California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary, TODAY accompanied by the 2014 Fresno County Crop Report showing record production.

It is my pleasure to submit the 2014 Fresno County Agricultural Crop and Livestock Report. This report is produced in accordance with Sections 2272 and 2279 of the California Food and Agriculture Code, and summarizes the acreage, production, and value of Fresno County’s agricultural products. The figures contained herein represent gross returns to the producer, and do not reflect actual net profit.

Jacobson, Wright and Matoian

Photo, from left, Ryan Jacobson, Fresno County Farm Bureau CEO, Les Wright, Fresno County Ag Commissioner and Richard Matoian, American Pistachio Growers Executive Director

This report is a testament to the resiliency and determination of the Fresno County agricultural industry. For the first time ever, the gross value of Fresno County agriculture exceeds seven billion dollars. Almonds remain the number one crop at a value of 1.3 billion dollars with grapes a close second at $905 million.

The total gross production value of Fresno County agricultural commodities in 2014 was $ 7,039,861,000, a 9.26 percent increase from the 2013 production value of $6,443,236,500.

Increases were seen in:

  • vegetable crops (0.47% = $5,599,000)
  • fruit and nut crops (13.16%= $422,664,000)
  • nursery products (46.89%= $20,022,000)
  • livestock and poultry (31.48% = $301,144,000)
  • livestock and poultry products (22.09% = $116,299,000
  • apiary (17.39% = $10,738,000)
  • industrial crops (107.05% = $3,795,500).

Decreases in:

  • field crops (-36.20%= -$149,822,000)
  • seed crops (-14.67%= -$5,823,000).

I would like to express my appreciation to the many producers, processors, and agencies, both private and public, who supported our efforts in producing this report. I would also like to thank all my staff, especially Fred Rinder, Scotti Walker, Angel Gibson, Vera Scott-Slater, and Billy Hopper. Without their hard work and valuable input this report would not be possible.

Pistachios, featured on the cover of the 2014 Fresno County Crop Report, were Fresno County’s seventh top crop last year, with a value of nearly $380 million dollars.

The top nut—and crop, for that matter—was almonds, followed by grapes, poultry, milk, cattle and calves, tomatoes, pistachios, garlic, peaches and cotton.

Also included in the report was this quote from President John F. Kennedy:

Our farmers deserve praise, not condemnation; and their efficiency should be cause for gratitude, not something for which they are penalized.

2016-05-31T19:28:06-07:00August 25th, 2015|

Sign Up For Our Newsletter!

(We do not share your data with anybody, and only use it for its intended purpose)

California Ag News…
At Your Fingertips!

Unable to load Tweets

Copyright 2021 California Ag Today | CaliforniaAgToday.com owned and operated by Californians.

Website Designed by Desert Tech Pros

Copyright 2021 California Ag Today | CaliforniaAgToday.com owned and operated by Californians.

Website Designed by Desert Tech Pros

Go to Top