AgSafe

Winegrape Grower Earns SIP Certification

Dana Merrill, Winegrape Grower Earns SIP Certification

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Deputy Editor

Dana Merrill is a seventh-generation farmer of an eighth-generation Californian farming family and president of Mesa Vineyard Management, a premium vineyard management service on the Central Coast. A graduate from Cal Poly with an Agriculture Business degree, He is a member of the Merrill Family Estates, an estate that produces premium winegrapes for its Pomar Junction Winery, and he’s extremely involved with the Paso Robles Wine Community.

Recently, his winegrape growing operation earned the Sustainability In Practice (SIP) certification.

“We worked very hard to attain this certification,” Merrill said. “Most of the changes were positive moves. It’s not meant to be a penalizing certification, but there are specific restrictions. For example, we don’t use any Class I restricted materials. If the US Environmental Protection Agency has commented about a substance, ‘Hey, that is Class I. It may be legal, but as an herbicide, it has a tendency to leach into the groundwater,’ then the SIP system won’t allow it. There are times when I’ve said, ‘Boy, I wish I could use a certain material,’ but there are some I simply cannot use in order to qualify for the certification.”

Merrill continues, “The SIP also takes into account how you treat your labor. For example, more ‘points’ are awarded if you offer a benefit program, continuing education support, a retirement program, or health insurance. These days, everybody has to offer health insurance, but points are awarded for that, even though some of us have offered it for over 20 years. Points are also earned for best-practice management whether it is fertility management, soil probes, or having water meters on all your wells and using the information to manage how you irrigate. The idea is to encourage folks to do more and raise the bar.”

“Being SIP-certified helps with marketing too,” noted Merrill. “If you get the SIP seal on a bottle of wine, a consumer can go be assured of the excellent quality of that product.”

“It is marketing in the sense that we are always selling ourselves to the consumer,” Merrill explained. “You know, the consumer may ask, ‘Why should I buy a bottle of SIP wine? Why should I buy California wine?’ I think that branding or labeling conveys a message to customers about what is important to them. Some consumers are very environment-oriented; others are looking primarily for quality. Your label conveys that message. There are customers to whom it is less important, but I see its significance growing. I would say 50% of the people who visit our tasting room find that label on an SIP-certified bottle of wine quite meaningful,” Merrill said.

_______________________

Links

Mesa Vineyard Management

Home

Sustainability In Practice (SIP)

US Environmental Protection Agency

California Ag Today2016-05-31T19:27:07-07:00October 14th, 2015|

ALRB Education Does Not Require Worksite Access

Barry Bedwell Says ALRB Education for Farmworkers is Okay, But Not Worksite Access

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Deputy Editor

Officials from the California Agricultural Relations Labor Board (ALRB) held a public hearing in Fresno TODAY to talk about their proposal for worksite access– private operating farms–to educate farmworkers about the ALRB, and that did not sit well with ag leaders. Barry Bedwell, president of the California Fresh Fruit Association based in Fresno and other ag leaders questioned the ALRB’s motives.

“The real proposal has to do with granting legal access to ALRB agents to agricultural worksites for the purpose of educating workers about the Agricultural Labor Relations Act,” Bedwell said. “Education alone is something that no one I’ve talked to is against, clearly. We want people to understand their rights under the law.”

The Act provides, encourages and protects collective-bargaining rights for agricultural employees, but as Bedwell explained, access to a private worksite is a totally separate legal issue.

“It’s really complicated, unfortunately, because ALRB’s staff has shown to a great degree over the recent couple of years, a distinct bias towards organized labor,” Bedwell said. “The Act is all about a worker’s right to get one or more people together to complain about work conditions and to ask for certain things. It doesn’t mean the employer has to grant them; it’s really about worker’s rights.”

Bedwell said the request from the ALRB is distinctly not about a union’s rights, and “it’s never been about the employer’s rights,” Bedwell said. “We know that. But in this case, we think it’s at best premature to talk about workplace access without first understanding the issue of knowledge [or the lack thereof] out there currently and the best ways to conduct that education.”

Pointing to heat illness prevention and Cal/OSHA as a great example, Bedwell said, “Cal/OSHA did not ask for access to go onto someone’s private property. Instead, they said, ‘We will create the information systems through various media and through seminars which agriculture helped to organize and fund.’ We think that’s a great model for educational services, and we could help.”

California Ag Today2016-05-31T19:28:05-07:00September 10th, 2015|

Grape Harvester Safety

Grape Harvester Worker Safety

By Charmayne Hefley, Associate Editor, California Ag Today

Worker safety is top-of-mind for agriculture, and a special raisin and wine grape mechanical safety training event was held in the Fresno County town of Easton. Grape harvester safety suggestions were conveyed in both English and Spanish to more than 150 attendees.

Ryan Jacobsen, CEO of the Fresno County Farm Bureau, one of the event sponsors, said, “It’s no secret, grapes are one of the top crops here is Fresno County. So this raisin and wine grape mechanical harvest safety training is really just to make sure that all of our employers and employees have a safe harvest.”

“They’re working with some machinery that is used only during the harvest time,” said Jacobsen, “which is only a six-week to eight-week period of time. So we just want to get more familiarized with safety as the upcoming season approaches.”

“Most importantly,” Jacobsen continued, “farmers and farmworkers are working a lot of long hours during the harvest season, and this is just a constant reminder that safety is the number one priority. It’s most important that our folks go home safe every evening,” Jacobsen said.

Clint Erling, and his employer, Kingsburg Cultivator, also known as KCI Equipment, which manufactures vineyard equipment such as mechanical raisin harvest machines and almond harvesting equipment, wants to make sure everybody’s safe and gets to go home at night. “Some of this equipment can be extremely dangerous,” Erling explained, “so we engineer guards for areas of the machine to increase worker safety, while maintaining the machine’s effectiveness in the field.”

Worker safety is important to Erling, even after the sale. “We go to the field and work with farmworkers during the harvest or on any projects they’ve got going on,” he said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:28:09-07:00July 23rd, 2015|

Monterey County and Farm Worker Advocacy Group Negotiate Accord

Center for Community Advocacy (CCA) and Monterey County Ag Commissioner’s Office Join Hands

A farmworker advocacy group and the agency that regulates pesticide use in Monterey County TODAY announced the establishment of a farmworker advisory committee to advise the agency and to connect field workers to resources that the agency can use to help them.

“The advisory committee gives us direct access to farmworker leaders; to their concerns and to their suggestions,” said Eric Lauritzen, the Agricultural Commissioner of the County of Monterey.

“This gives us the opportunity to engage in positive, productive conversations that will help us fulfill our obligations to the farmworker community and to the agricultural industry in general.”

Farmworker leaders trained by the Center for Community Advocacy (CCA) will compose the advisory committee.

“CCA strives to develop leadership capacity among farmworkers at the neighborhood level,” explained Juan Uranga, CCA’s executive director and lead attorney. “We use CCA’s housing, health and programs to spot, recruit and engage neighborhood leaders throughout the Salinas and Pajaro Valleys. These leaders first improve conditions in their housing units and neighborhoods. We then create venues where these neighborhood leaders can use their collective power to strengthen their families and create positive change in their communities.”

Six of these CCA-trained neighborhood leaders will comprise the advisory committee.

“We are excited about creating this opportunity,” said one of the CCA neighborhood leaders. “We are pioneers and we hope we’ll be able to work together to help our brothers and sisters who work in the fields. We had a ‘meet and greet’ session with the Commissioner and his staff and we were impressed by their willingness to work with us.”

The Committee will advise the Commissioner’s Office on policies and practices as they impact field workers in Monterey County. The advisory committee and the Agricultural Commissioner’s Office will strive to improve protocols that protect farmworkers from pesticide exposure and other protocols within the Commissioner’s jurisdiction that protect the health and safety of farmworkers. The partnership will also help disseminate information about resources and programs that the Commissioner’s Office can make available to the farmworker community.

The advisory committee comes after negotiations that led to a Statement of Purpose between CCA and the Agricultural Commissioner’s Office. The Statement describes the following functions for the committee:

1. To meet at regular intervals with the Commissioner and his/her staff to exchange information and ideas that will improve the safety of farmworkers.

2. To help disseminate safety information from the Commissioner’s Office to the farmworker community, as the need arises

3. To host annual community dialogues where farmworkers and the Commissioner’s Office meet to discuss the Commissioner’s jurisdiction over agricultural lands in Monterey County.

4. To promote a more sustainable agricultural economy in Monterey County by protecting its most critical resource: farmworkers.

Discussions about forming the committee began several years ago. Working through a rocky start, both the Commissioner’s Office and CCA saw the incredible potential in developing a working relationship.

The two agencies had never worked together. Each had questions about the other’s willingness to work cooperatively. The two agencies developed their relationship by working together on several projects including the AgKnowledge Program hosted by the Grower-Shipper Foundation and a series of small forums between the Commissioner’s Office and CCA-trained leaders. Now, both the Agricultural Commissioner’s office and CCA look forward to this joint effort.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-08-29T21:03:53-07:00August 22nd, 2014|

Heat Illness Prevention: Warning for Farmworkers This Week

Heat Illness Prevention

Extreme Heat Wave Expected to Continue Throughout this Week

With really high temperatures throughout the Central Coast, Cal/OSHA will probably focus enforcement in coming days in these areas. Please remember the key points of compliance with the Heat Illness Prevention Standard:

* Water — 1 quart per worker per hour, with a plan for replenishment throughout the work shift

* Shade — enough for 25% of the crew working at the location; use of natural shade is acceptable if no shadow is cast; air-conditioned vehicles are acceptable; provided at all times when temperature exceeds 85 degrees

* Rest — allow workers to rest in shade if they feel the need for no less than 5 minutes

* Training — workers & supervisors must be trained about heat illness and emergency response procedures before being exposed to heat

* High-Heat Procedures — ensure effective communications in case of emergency; observe employees carefully for signs of heat illness; remind employees to drink water throughout the shift; closely supervise un-acclimatized employees for first 14 days of exposure to high heat

Patrick Cavanaugh2017-05-04T16:51:11-07:00May 14th, 2014|

Previous 12