New APG Ambassadors Shine!

American Pistachio Growers Introduces New Ambassadors

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Deputy Editor, California Ag Today

American Pistachio Growers (APG) held its annual summer luncheon late last week in Visalia, shared the organization’s marketing plans with a large crowd of growers, and introduced the newest APG ambassadors.

Richard Matoian, executive director of APG, framed the meeting, “We’re voting on our budget for the upcoming year, so it is a good opportunity to tell our growers what we are doing on their behalf to promote and to help sell pistachios.”

From Left, Sanya Jones, Cheryl Forberg and Judy Hirigoyen, APG

Bree Morse, recently crowned Miss California and now serving as an ambassador for American Pistachio Growers, effused, “We have so many once-in-a-lifetime opportunities being here today at the annual luncheon. It’s neat today because I get to meet and interact with the people in the industry, APG staff and the growers themselves, who are behind what I’m representing. We have amazing opportunities; I get to go to China in December to be Ambassador of American Pistachios abroad, and I’m just really excited to be the face of pistachios.”

Another great APG Ambassador introduced at the lunch was Sanya Jones, the recent Season 16 Biggest Loser television show runner-up, who lost 144 pounds. And guess what? Jones considers pistachios an important part of her success, “Well the funny thing is, I always loved pistachios. I would always get them for my dad as a kid and we would sit in front of the tv and eat them mindlessly.” Anecdotally, Jones shared that pistachios was the one food that her dad would put his teeth in to eat!

“But once I got to the ranch,” Jones continued, “Cheryl Forberg, chef and nutritionist for the tv show, got them on the menu for us. Pistachios are nice when you are a food-addict or a bulk-eater because they make you slow down. I can’t just inhale them; I have to slow down and crack them open. Plus, they are so nutritionally wonderful and keep me fuller longer.”

Who can argue with success?

Featured Photo: Bree Morse, Miss California

California Ag Today2016-05-31T19:28:09-07:00July 30th, 2015|

California Safe Soil Honored

California Safe Soil Honored By Forbes Reinventing America

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Associate Editor, California Ag Today

At the recent invitation-only Forbes Ag Tech Summit “Reinventing America: The AgTech Summit” in Salinas, California Safe Soil (CSS) was awarded the Thrive Accelerator Sustainability Award. The Thrive Accelerator program is a highly selective mentorship and investment program for technology-enabled startups in precision agriculture.

Mark Bauer, California Safe Soil

Mark Bauer, director of business development for CSS said, “Forbes just started this process over a year ago when they interviewed over 100 companies throughout the world. About three months ago they notified us we were among the top ten finalists, and today we found out we won the Sustainability Award! So we are extremely pleased and quite honored to receive that award, ” said Bauer.

California Safe Soil, based in West Sacramento, is a fresh food recycler that increases a farm’s productivity at a low cost, while helping to improve the environment. The company converts food that supermarkets cannot sell or donate into its Harvest to Harvest (H2H) fertilizer which promotes sustainable agriculture by returning nutrients to the soil and increasing plant vigor and crop yield.

“We think it is really important to find sustainable solutions in agriculture today,” Bauer explained. “We have partnered with Save Mart Supermarkets because Save Mart recognized the value of our process. We take all of the organic food waste that Save Mart can’t sell or donate, interrupt that trip to the landfill, and we put it through a three-hour enzymatic-digestion process that takes all the available food energy and forms it into small particles that growers apply to the roots of their crops through their existing drip lines.”

Bauer noted, “We are seeing terrific response in a number of crops, especially with strawberries, raspberries and processing tomatoes. We are growing thousands of acres of almond trees right now and seeing great results. We’ve been working in the areas of leafy greens as well growing broccoli, cabbage and lettuce crops,” he said.

California Safe Soil (CSS)

“The H2H material moves with the irrigation water through the drip or micro-sprinklers and supercharges the soil microbes,” Bauer explained. “After it goes through our process, the H2H material is composed amino acids, fatty acids and simple sugars–not what plants eat, but what soil biology needs. H2H is the food for the microbiology of the soil; it makes the micronutrients and macronutrients in the soil more available to the plant,” he said.

CSS’s unique full-cycle process assists supermarket customers in recycling their organics, improving store hygiene, and reducing costs. In addition, H2H is a safe, low-cost, high-volume and high-quality liquid fertilizer that helps agricultural customers save money, increase crop yield, and reduce nitrate runoff. These benefits deliver improved quality in air, water, and soil environments, while employing safe, efficient, and effective solutions.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:28:09-07:00July 27th, 2015|

We are being lied to!

Assembly Member Patterson Accuses NRDC and Governor’s Office of Bias

By Laurie Greene, Editor

“We are being lied to,” declared Jim Patterson, who represents the 23rd Assembly District in the California State Assembly since 2012, at his recent drought forum in Clovis.

“I have come to the conclusion there is a power structure led by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the governor’s office and in the bureaucracies,” Patterson explained. “They are not telling us the truth. They do not abide by their own agreements, and they have a bias against the very water technology and the water systems that have made California a ‘Golden State’. They are biased against dams, reservoirs and conveyance, and every time I turn around, I find another example.”

Jim Patterson, California Assembly Member

Jim Patterson, California State Assembly Member

“We need to have regulatory relief from the State of California in order to build Temperance Flat (a proposed dam project on the San Joaquin River) and its conveyance systems and to build the improvements at Shasta Dam and Reservoir and at Sites Reservoir,” said Patterson.

“And yet,” he continued, “I know for a fact that we are not going to get that regulatory relief. Nevertheless, the governor and this legislature have given that very same regulatory relief to the Kings’ Basketball Stadium in Sacramento (Golden 1 Center) and to two big NFL football stadiums in the state.”

To build water saving and conveyance systems, Patterson expects to face a gauntlet of litigation from the NRDC. “Though we have tried over and over again, unsuccessfully, to get the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) reformed,” he stated, “the Democrats will do it for basketball and football, but they won’t do it for water. That demonstrates to me they are absolutely disingenuous.”

“Secondly, we were promised money in this budget for the Central California InterConnect,” Patterson said. “Putting an interconnect between the federal Central Valley Project (CVP), best illustrated by the Kings River and San Joaquin River Watersheds in the Central Valley, and the state’s California State Water Project (SWP), exemplified by the San Luis Reservoir system, is critically important. We need to connect those projects so we have water conveyance alternatives to improve water reliability and to save us from the kinds of hard decisions that we’ve had to reach now—to starve a portion of the Valley. Because we can’t get water between the two systems, the situation is real and dire.”

“The governor promised those of us who negotiated the bond the budget would include appropriations for the InterConnect,” Patterson reported. There is no such thing. It doesn’t exist, and it didn’t show up in this budget. The governor didn’t come through on his promises.”

“I have tried repeatedly to talk with the water bureaucracies—appointees of the governor—and ask how I could help them understand the importance of giving us back the water,” Patterson commented. “For example, the water behind Shasta Dam right now has been paid for and banked by our farmers. I’ve asked repeatedly, ‘Why can’t we get the InterConnect funded? You promised us that you would do that.’ I’ve asked, ‘What is it going to take for you to understand the importance of storage in the San Joaquin River Watershed?’ It’s like talking to a wall; I get no answer.”

“So, I have had to come to the conclusion that we’re being misled, and it’s on purpose,” he said. “I just don’t believe this governor anymore. That’s a sad conclusion to have to come to, but I think we are seeing a ‘behind-the-scenes hand of power’ called the NRDC, that runs the governor’s office and the state legislature.

When asked what concerned citizens can do, Patterson answered, “Today we heard a lot of passion. I think we need to turn that passion into significant efforts, politically and organizationally. We have to make a real nuisance of ourselves to the governor and to the legislature until they pay attention to us. I have learned in public life, as mayor and now in the legislature, that those people who stand up and are persistent and persuasive get heard. We have got to continue to step up in ever-increasing numbers and be heard.”

“We also have win some elections,” he emphasized. “We are under a one party-dictatorial rule right now. And I would be saying this even if Republicans were the party in rule. Our founders believed there should be separated powers in government and people in office from all walks of life. These kinds of checks and balances get us to good policy for most people, most of the time.”

“You can’t do that in a dictatorship,” Patterson explained, “and that’s really what we have—one party that has all the levels of power and is using them all against us in Central California. And we’re seeing the result of it.”

Patterson tells other members of the legislature on the committees he serves, “You are literally putting a bait fish that striped bass are eating, ahead of the lives and the wellbeing of people and their property, and you’re blaming us for it. The reality is you’re making a drought that is bad into a drought that is a nightmare.”

“If this were to be compared, for example, to a forest fire,” Patterson conjectured, “and the firefighters were told by the governor, ‘Stop trying to save lives and stop trying to save property; go make sure you save that tree over there because there’s a spotted owl in it,’ people would very quickly tell the governor where to go and what to do.”

California Ag Today2016-05-31T19:28:09-07:00July 21st, 2015|

Almond Growers Conserve Water

Almond Growers Conserve Water…Period!

By Laurie Greene, Editor, California Ag Today

At a recent drought forum, California Ag Today spoke with Mike Mason, an almond grower and partner with Supreme Almonds near Wasco, as well as chairman of the Almond Board of California. Noting breakthroughs in the almond industry, Mason said, “Facts bear out that we use 33 percent less water today than we did 20 years ago for every pound of almonds grown. There’s no reason not to expect a similar result over the next 20 years given the ongoing research and funding we do through the Almond Board. We will continue to become more and more efficient, not just with water use, but with fertilizer and everything else we do in farming as well,” said Mason.

“Keep in mind that almonds, like all flowering plants, transpire 95 percent of the water they take up,” said Mason. “Water moves through the vascular system of the plant and exits the stomata of the leaves. When the stomata open, pure water exits and carbon dioxide enters the leaves. The carbon is used in photosynthesis to make carbohydrates that enable the almond almond tree to produce almonds. It’s all part of the universal water cycle that enables life to exist on the earth!”

Though current public opinion on water use seems to focus on almonds primarily, Mason remains confident that the facts will speak for themselves. It is simply a matter of getting the information out there. Mason elaborated, “We’ve got to go back to education because there are so many ways of comparison, and it is pretty hard to refute some of the things people are saying out there. But I think, over time, as we get the facts out there, public perception will be different.”

Because almonds are proving to be profitable at the moment, other countries are starting to take notice and planting more almond orchards of their own. Currently, California accounts for about 80 percent of the world’s supply of almonds. Mason believes, in spite of increased international competition, California will remain a world leader. “I wouldn’t call it a threat;” he said, “it is more like an opportunity than anything else. I think California will continue to be the world’s supplier, but there are other areas around the world where almonds can be grown, and that’s perfectly fine,” said Mason.

American consumption of almonds has increased roughly 220% since 2005. As a result, almonds have become the most-consumed nut in America, after surpassing that of peanuts. This explosive increase in demand has been the driving force for almond production expansion.

Now, almonds cover about one million acres in California. On maintaining this level of success, Mason commented, “Markets go up, and markets go down. There are all kinds of different factors that cause these fluctuations, from oversupply to environmental issues. We think we have a bright future with a healthy product. Time will tell,” he said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:28:11-07:00July 7th, 2015|

New Partners Offer MRL Database

Agrian and Bryant Christie Inc. Partner Up for MRL Database

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Assistant Editor, California Ag Today

They’re called “Maximum Residue Levels”(MRLs) and nearly all crop protection products have them; however, keeping track of MRLs for export is difficult. To this end, two companies have joined together to provide an MRL Database, globalmrl.com, to help the Ag industry comply with MRL regulations. Bryant Christie Inc. of Seattle, helps open, maintain and expand international markets by eliminating trade barriers for Ag exports. Agrian, Inc., a Fresno-based service-oriented company, provides subscription-based online information on most crop protection and nutrient products.

Nishan Majarian, chief executive officer and cofounder of Agrian Inc.

Nishan Majarian, ceo and cofounder of Agrian, reported, “Several years ago we had a large ag retail customer who became concerned about MRLs and global export. We developed recomendation writing tools that ensure the safe application of crop protection materials, and MRL’s are an extension of that. We did not have an MRL database, so we called around and found out that Bryant Christie had the premier global MRL database.”

So Majarian reached out to James Christie, president and managing director of Bryant Christie, “And we began the process of partnering for a hybrid system that uses both his data and our data to ensure the safe application of a material, and give insight into the export requirements of that crop.”

James Christie, president of Bryant Christie, Inc.

James Christie added, “At Bryant Christie, we work on preventing trade violations, such as chemical and food additive violations, and on ameliorating consequences when they occur. So for us, this collaboration makes so much sense. If we can avoid violations, we can help the ag industry considerably.”

And those consequences can cost ag exporters significant amounts of money, “The consequences range from a single cargo load lost to a violation,” said Christie, “to bad public relations, to having an entire commodity prohibited from entering a foreign country.”

They developed an MRL database, a one-stop resource, Christie explained, “in 1992, with our first client for the hop industry. It is just the best way to keep and manage the information. As database technology advances, it’s made even more sense to have it in that format.”

Majarian said the successful partnership with Bryant Christie is a matter of being at the right place, at the right time. “We think domestic and global compliance are growing in irreversible trends,” Majarian elaborated, “and as more field-level users move to digital record-keeping, these tools and the database will only grow in importance over time. We are excited to be on the cutting edge of online technical solutions. Sometimes I call it the ‘bleeding edge’ because it is a little painful to be innovators.”

Resource Links:

Bryant Christie, Inc.

Agrian, Inc.

Global MRL Database

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:28:12-07:00July 7th, 2015|

MRLs and Crop Protection Materials are Improving but Complicated

MRLs and Crop Protection Materials are Improving but Complicated!

By Laurie Greene, Editor and Patrick Cavanaugh, Associate Editor

Rachel Kubiak, Environmental & Regulatory Affairs director with the Western Plant Health Association, based in Sacramento, commented that crop protection materials are improving. They target specific pests and they are set to maximum residue levels (MRL’s) when sold domestically or internationally. Yet, they are quite complicated.

“The materials are getting better,” Kubiak said, “but I would say that there is a large component that I don’t believe the activist community understands,” noted Kubiak.

Richard Cornett, director of communications for WPHA, blogged, “What most people are unaware of is that there is a highly integrated and multi-layered process of safety procedures to assure that pesticides are accessed for their safe use around humans and in the environment.”

U.S. EPA (a) scientifically reviews all pesticides for safety before registration, (b) involves EPA scientists at the Office of Pesticide Programs, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, as well as other departments, (c) guarantees that any pesticide used in the U.S. has been accessed and is safe and (d) applies tolerances only to produce grown in or imported into the United States.

In California, the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) enforces EPA tolerances by sampling produce for pesticide residues from throughout the channels of trade, both domestic and imported, including wholesale and retail outlets, distribution centers, and farmers markets.

“There are complications in making those products available to our growers,” Kubiak said, “because so much of what we produce in California is exported to other countries, and this MRL issue complicates things.”

Foreign countries follow an international standard called CODEX Alimentarus which contains a list of pesticide MRLs. EPA tolerances and International Codex MRLs are not harmonized; residue on an imported commodity can trigger a no-tolerance-established assessment and removal by California DPR while being a legal residue in other countries.

“I think this is a large area in which we could do better. Educating those who don’t live in our world on the difficulties in bringing new products to market isn’t as simplistic as they like to make it seem,” said Kubiak.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:28:12-07:00July 2nd, 2015|

Wine Cork Debate: Synthetic vs. Natural Corks

St. Francis Winery Returns to Traditional Natural Corks

By Laurie Greene, California Ag Today Editor

Christopher Silva, President and CEO of St. Francis Winery in Sonoma County, spoke with California Ag Today on the cork debate: synthetic vs. natural corks.

“Our founder, Joe Martin, back in the 1990’s, was not satisfied when he was traveling around the country,” said Silva. “He discovered too many bottles of St. Francis wine were compromised by faulty corks. TCA (trichloroanisole) was creating bacteria issues and damaging the integrity of the wine.”

“So, starting in 1993, we moved to synthetic corks,” Silva explained. “However, internally, we tested and even bottled a case or two of our own wines in natural cork, and we’ve been satisfied that the technological advances in growing natural cork, culling the very best cork from cork forests, and significantly elevated sorting and testing techniques have contributed to eliminating much of the taint problem.”

“There is no perfect closure,” lamented Silva. “I hope that someone finds it! I promise you, I will call California Ag Today the day I find that perfect closure. But we are satisfied that the quality of natural cork has evolved so significantly that the issues we encountered twenty years ago have been largely eliminated,” said Silva.

“Our shift back to natural cork has been a logical choice because it’s been part of our certified sustainable practices,” Silva said. “Remember that natural cork is biodegradable, so it is certainly a certified, sustainable choice. We are trying to care for not only the grapes and the wines that we are so very proud of, but we are all neighbors and inhabitants of this planet, and we think that moving towards significantly consistent sustainable practices is the right thing to do—which makes it the right way to run a business,” Silva said.

“Our biggest issue in winemaking has been cork taint,” Silva explained. “We don’t want a wine that we made compromised by a cork that is contaminated, even slightly, by bacteria. But, we are satisfied that, over the years, there have been all kinds of improved techniques regarding examining the corks, cleaning the corks, and x-raying the corks. Significant advances in technology have eliminated the problem to such an extent that we don’t need to worry about cork taint, which was the biggest issue for us,” Silva said.

“We want the customer to know that when they buy a bottle of St. Francis wine, they are not just buying a product—as wonderful as that product is—and as proud as we are of it—they are buying an experience. Everything from looking at the bottle, studying the bottle, opening the cork, and enjoying the wine inside,” he said.

Featured Photo: Christopher Silva, St. Francis Winery

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:28:12-07:00June 30th, 2015|

BioConsortia Invents the Future

BioConsortia Plans New Ag Bio Products

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Associate Editor

Marcus Meadows-Smith is with BioConsortia, a research and development biodiscovery company in Davis, Calif. He and his company have big plans to invent the future for Ag.

“The company was founded about 20 years ago in New Zealand and was funded by a U.S. private equity,” said Meadows-Smith. “We decided to globalize the technology, and I became the founding global CEO of the company as it was established in the U.S. about 1 year ago.”

The company in New Zealand is called BioDiscovery. For many years, it was a contract research company that was very successful in the microbial space, working with companies like Monsanto and Syngenta. Then Biodiscovery made a R&D breakthrough. “We have totally restructured the company so that the global headquarters and global R&D are now run out of the United States,” noted Meadows-Smith, “and the New Zealand company has become the subsidiary that handles complementary R&D functions.”

Meadows-Smith mentioned that UC Davis and surrounding areas such as West Sacramento are teaming with bioscience researchers. “It’s turning into a bit of a hub for microbial expertise with several of the big players. Obviously you’ve got UC Davis, which is always credited as being the number one U.S. agricultural university. I’ve heard that it is now the world’s best agricultural university, so it’s a great place to be.”

“We’ve got an excellent team of scientists in Davis, and the historic team in New Zealand has a lot of experience. They’ve been working together now for about five years, so the R&D down there is really humming at a great pace,” said Meadows-Smith.

“We’ve been able to rapidly bring together a group of scientists in the U.S.,” said Meadows-Smith, “that have jelled. We have set up a series of experiments, and we’re putting discoveries together. It’s a very exciting time to be doing pure research in the lab.”

“The other very exciting progression for us is we have just planted our second year of field trials, having completed our first year of field trials in 2014–just after the company was established,” he said.

The company is biological- and microbial-based. “We are looking at teams of microbes to improve plant traits and increase plant yield . We are developing products for fertilizer-use efficiency, abiotic stress tolerance, and biotic stress,” said Meadows-Smith.

“Pests and disease control are important, as well as metabolite expression,” he continued. “We’ve identified teams of microbes that instruct or enable the plant to deposit more sugar. As you can imagine, this provides the double productivity benefit of increasing both yield per acre and sugar content per plant.”

“While getting the plant to have increased sugar deposited in its leaf structure is a good thing; but that is actually not our main focus,” Meadows-Smith said. “We look at all the crops we want to target and ask what are the biggest needs today?”

“Fertilizer, for example, is a significant cost for the grower, so fertilizer-use efficiency products, we believe, would experience a large demand,” Meadows-Smith stated. “There are also concerns about fertilizer leaching into groundwater, so the more efficient you can make plant take up the fertilizer, the better,” he added. “And of course, living in California, we are acutely aware of the importance of drought, so we are working on that as well. We are hoping for a yield increase per acre for the grower in everything we do.”

“We are moving products down the pipeline as we speak,” he commented, “and, obviously, we want a large body of data to demonstrate to growers how to best use our products. We are looking for two years of good field trial results and then we’ll go through the registration process. So we are expecting to get our first product on the market by 2017.

“We are developing products that contain beneficial bacteria, beneficial fungi, and good plant colonizers,” Meadows-Smith declared. “Some will colonize the root system, and some the outside of the plant. Still others, endophytes, that will actually grow through the plant tissue. Just as we humans have microbes in our guts to aid digestion, plants actually have beneficial microbes, bacteria and fungi growing within the plant tissue,” Meadows-Smith explained.

Meadows-Smith said BioConsortia’s revolutionary platform will take biologicals to the next level “by assembling teams of microbes that perform complementary functions; so while some microbes will enhance the root system, others will aid the root in nutrient uptake,” he said. “This will bring consistency and superior performance to the marketplace. It’s a very exciting time for the industry as a whole,” he said.

“We are looking to transform food production in a way that is sustainable, bringing benefits to the grower and feeding the world with nutritious, affordable food. That’s what we are in this industry for. These are very exciting times!” Meadows-Smith said.

Featured photo: Marcus Meadows-Smith, with Bio Consortia Scientists.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:28:13-07:00June 20th, 2015|

Building Trust Between California Farmers and Consumers

William Clark, Harvard Professor, on Building Trust Between California Farmers and Consumers

By Courtney Steward, Assistant Editor

Social and conventional media are sharing widespread and varied opinions about California farmers and farming across the Central Valley and beyond, using soundbites in place of fact-based dialogue.

William Clark, Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy and Human Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

At a recent workshop called “Food for a Healthy World: Monitoring Progress Towards Food Security,” sponsored by the UC Davis World Food Center and the UC Agricultural Issues Center, William Clark, Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy and Human Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, at first appeared to dodge giving his opinion. “It would be dumb beyond belief for me to have opinions about farmers in California,” explained Clark, “except I enjoy what they produce.”

The goal for the group of campus and visiting experts who attended the workshop was to reach agreement on the major factors that must be considered to sustainably feed the world’s population. “The reason I’m here,” he said, “is because I work on sustainable development issues broadly, and much of what is going on here in California in the farming sector as well as in the energy sector are some of the most fascinating and useful experiments anywhere—in grappling with these issues. And I come out fairly frequently to UC Davis because I find it a wonderful point of contact with the farming community here. I’ve borrowed some UC Davis students, and I learn a lot when I visit.”

Clark explained, “I think California is a state that obviously thinks hard about how it can be a productive, vibrant economy, while taking care of the environment and of the people,” evidenced by great creativity and ingenuity among California farmers and researchers. “My colleague, Tom Tomich, director of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis recently co-authored one of the first peer-reviewed articles* to emanate from the California Nitrogen Assessment (CNA), an ongoing project at UC Davis.”

Assessment research indicates that while there are many pathways through which nitrogen can enter the environment, inorganic fertilizer use is responsible for the largest fraction of new nitrogen introduced in California annually. Currently, over 600,000 tons of nitrogen fertilizer are sold in the state each year.

Tomich maintains that better nitrogen use information is indispensable for the collaborative development of effective solutions to increase nitrogen use efficiency and save farmers money. The article describes both how nitrogen flows in crop production, but also how farmers can limit the flows that create problems in the environment. Also included are recommendations on how data could be better compiled to improve understanding of statewide trends in fertilizer use.

Clark claimed, “That’s the best nitrogen study that’s been done anywhere in the world in terms of showing how farmers are working and could be working to capture the benefits of fertilizer without offsite damages to the environment.”

Regarding these offsite flows, Clark emphasized, “I’ve almost never met a farmer who does not care deeply about the land, or the fisher about the health of the fishery or of the sea. And I think sometimes the debates that between the conservation and farm communities go completely nuts on this,” Clark explained. “I mean, you start with somebody who is making their living—has chosen a life—on the land. That’s where you start.”

“That said, all of us end up sometimes doing stuff that has some consequences we didn’t intend,” stated Clark. “I look to the science community to help all of us, including farmers, see some of the downsides of some of the practices that we do that are invisible. So, perhaps science discovers this chemical we thought was safe turns out not to be safe. Or the way we are turning over our crops has impacts on biodiversity that we didn’t know about.”

“But again,” Clark continued, “it’s the responsibility of my community, the science community, to bring those invisible but measurable discoveries into light in a conversation with farmers to reach a joint understanding of why one might want to use less of these applications and how one could use less of them while still turning out an attractive crop.”

Clark said it’s been his experience that most growers listen and try new approaches.

Clark concluded that trust between farmers, consumers, retailers, and health advocates is an all-time low. “I think food is one of the most complicated personal issues there is. If I were trying to build trust in an arena, there’s none harder, except maybe nuclear energy, than food issues. I think we all know that we have had less dialog and more soundbite exchange, and I don’t think any side is blameless.”

“My pitch here,” Clark summarized, “is simply I don’t see how we can move forward without starting meaningful dialogues that aren’t soundbites.” Clarke wants to inspire people to ask themselves, “What am I worried about?” instead of throwing blurbs into the middle of a on-air radio conversation. He elaborated, “Whether I’m a consumer advocate, a farmer, or a retailer, ‘What am I worried about? What do I think you guys are doing that I wish you weren’t doing?’ We aren’t brain dead; we should be able to work together, as long as we can talk instead of yell.”

*Rosenstock T, Liptzin D, Six J, Tomich T. 2013. Nitrogen fertilizer use in California: Assessing the data, trends and a way forward. Cal Ag 67(1):68-79. DOI: 10.3733/ca.E.v067n01p68.

California Ag Today2016-05-31T19:28:14-07:00June 11th, 2015|

USDA Awards Grants to Support Schools Serving Healthier Meals and Snacks

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will be awarding over $30 million in grants to help schools prepare healthy meals for their children. Twenty-five million dollars in grants will help schools purchase needed equipment to make preparing and serving healthier meals easier and more efficient, and up to $5.5 million will provide additional training for school food service professionals.

“Schools are successfully serving more nutritious meals to America’s students, and healthier meals mean healthier kids. We’re working to do everything we can to support schools as they work to provide kids the nutrition they need to learn and develop into healthy adults,” said Vilsack. “These grants will help schools obtain better equipment and additional training for their hardworking school food service professionals. With doctors, parents, teachers and schools all working together, we can make sure we’re giving our kids the healthy start in life they deserve.”

Since 2009, USDA has provided $185 million in kitchen equipment funding to states and schools participating in the National School Lunch (NSLP) and School Breakfast (SBP) Programs. USDA provides the funding to states, which then competitively award grants to school districts in order to purchase necessary equipment, giving priority to high-need schools where 50 percent or more of the enrolled students are eligible for free or reduced price meals.

The school equipment grants announced today are another example of how USDA is supporting schools as they implement the new meal standards resulting from the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. USDA works closely with schools to address implementation challenges, and provides funding, training and technical assistance to overcome barriers.

To further assist school food workers USDA is also announcing the availability of up to $5.5 million in Team Nutrition training grants for FY2015. These grants are only open to state agencies administering the NSLP, SBP, the Summer Food Service Program, or Child and Adult Care Food Programs. Through a competitive grants process, Team Nutrition training grants will be funded for the period of September 30, 2015 – September 30, 2017. State agencies may apply for up to $350,000. To apply for the grants, state agencies should visit www.grants.gov.

These competitive grants focus on the implementation of Smarter Lunchrooms – an innovative strategy using behavioral economics to encourage healthy eating in the cafeteria – as well as the healthier meal standards, HealthierUS School Challenge, USDA Foods, nutrition education, and wellness activities in schools and child care institutions. These funds may be also used to assist the state agency in providing training and technical assistance to school staff in creating Smarter Lunchrooms.

The Team Nutrition Training grants are two-year grants that have been awarded to state agencies on an annual basis since the inception of the program in 1995. They serve as key delivery systems for supporting the implementation of USDA’s nutrition requirements for meals served in schools and child care centers.

USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service administers America’s nutrition assistance programs including the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, the Summer Food Service Program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Together these programs make up the federal nutrition safety net.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:30:28-07:00March 10th, 2015|

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