Karen Ross Archives - Page 4 of 6 - California Agriculture News Today

California State Board of Food and Agriculture Visit Compton to Discuss Food Access Issues

Source: CDFA

The California State Board of Food and Agriculture discussed urban food access issues at its August 5, 2014 meeting at the Dollarhide Community Center in Compton, in Southern California.

“Increasing the availability of healthy food products within local communities should not be a monumental challenge,” said CDFA Secretary Karen Ross. “Yet we have communities that face this barrier. The work of community leaders, non-profit organizations and retailers in addressing food access issues has been very impressive, but more must be done.”

Nationally, in terms of food access, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that approximately 23.5 million Americans live within a food desert and about half of those (13.5 million) are low income individuals. A food desert is defined as an urban/rural community without ready access to fresh, healthy and affordable food. Typically these communities lack a supermarket or grocery store within a 1-to-10 mile radius. In California, almost two million individuals live in a designated food desert.

Speakers included: Mayor Aja Brown, City of Compton; Iris Hernandez, Blue Line Farmers’ Market; Neelam Sharma, Community Services Unlimited; Dr. Michael Prelip, University of California, Los Angeles; Tiffany McDaniel, Community Health Council; Robert Egger, L.A. Kitchen; David Rosenstein, EVO Farms; Amanda Musilli, Whole Foods Market (via videoconference); Marion Standish, California Endowment; Jin Ju Wilder, Valley Produce; Alexa Delwich and Clare Fox, Los Angeles Food Policy Council; and Michael Flood, Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.

The California State Board of Food and Agriculture advises the governor and the CDFA secretary on agricultural issues and consumer needs. The state board conducts forums that bring together local, state and federal government officials, agricultural representative and citizens to discuss current issues of concern to California agriculture.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:10-07:00August 8th, 2014|

California and Mexico – a win-win relationship

By: Karen Ross, California Agriculture Secretary

It speaks volumes that during our meetings in Mexico, the notion of “ganar-ganar,” or a “win-win” relationship was mentioned more than once. Our discussions have focused not only on building stronger trade relationships between our two markets, but in also in capitalizing on the shared resources of our people, climate and economy. A strong and growing Mexican market is a win for California and a win for Mexico.

In our meeting with Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food we discussed the great opportunities for cooperation between our two markets that can have long lasting benefits for both of our economies. Working collaboratively to solve cross-border trade delays that impact businesses on both sides of the border is an issue that can be resolved. Further, we wish to explore opportunities that jointly leverage our resources and production capacity.

We can no longer consider a California/Mexico divide. We need to see how cooperation can benefit us both in the long-run. I’ve committed to SAGARPA that within the next 60 days we will have progress in moving forward with a collaborative relationship that involves the public and business sectors finding solutions to cross-border issues that benefit both markets and producers.

Following our meetings with SAGARPA we had the pleasure of meeting with Walmart Mexico and Central America. The company also stressed cooperation and a “win-win” relationship that California and Mexico can share.

In celebrating the successes of the 20th Anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), we should also celebrate the ongoing trade benefits of this relationship. Demonstrating this success, Walmart shared that their imports of U.S. produce has increased more than 10 percent each year for the last three years. This underscores that Mexico’s economy is growing and California is benefiting.

I look forward to furthering our trade relationship and cooperation with Mexico. It can be a “win-win” relationship like no other.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:12-07:00July 31st, 2014|

Global Food Safety Agreement Signed by China and UC Davis

Officials from China’s Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University in Shaanxi province, and the University of California, Davis, signed a memorandum of agreement on July 23, 2014 that lays the groundwork for establishing the Sino-U.S. Joint Research Center for Food Safety in China.

The signing ceremony was held in the city of Yingchuan, China, during a meeting between high-level officials of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and China’s Ministry of Science and Technology.

“Today’s agreement is a landmark event for UC Davis and for our World Food Center and serves as yet another indication of our worldwide leadership in food and health,” said UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi. “We are incredibly pleased to join forces with Northwest A&F University and look forward to making discoveries and realizing solutions that will promote food safety in China and around the world.”

Signing the agreement today were Harris Lewin, vice chancellor of research for UC Davis, and Wu Pute, professor and vice president of Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University. Also present were Catherine Woteki, undersecretary for research, education and economics at the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and Vice Minister Zhang Laiwu of China’s Ministry of Science and Technology.

The memorandum of agreement, which will extend over the next five years, calls for the center’s two lead universities to form a joint research team and research platform, carry out collaborative research projects and cooperate on other food safety-related projects. UC Davis’ World Food Center will identify a director to coordinate the research program. The Chinese partners will provide substantial funding for the new center, with details to be announced this fall.

“This is clear evidence that the entire UC system is fully committed to be front and center on the critical issues of food security, sustainability and health,” said UC President Janet Napolitano. She recently launched the UC Global Food Initiative as a systemwide collaboration to put the world on a path to feed itself nutritiously and sustainably.

Both the Sino-U.S. Joint Research Center and the UC Davis World Food Center will contribute to the UC Global Food Initiative.

“With UC Davis’ commitment to food safety research and China’s ever-increasing demand for food, the Joint Research Center is a natural partnership,” said Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. “Food safety will benefit from global scientific collaboration, and new findings will help the food and agriculture sector meet new challenges, improve the health of consumers and maintain the integrity of the global food supply chain.”

Roger Beachy, executive director of the UC Davis World Food Center, noted that the new food safety center is a logical outgrowth of many well-established research collaborations between scientists from UC Davis and China.

“Working closely with Chinese scientists and policymakers, the new center will have significant impacts on food safety in China and elsewhere around the globe,” he said.

Beachy said that the catalyst for the new collaborative effort was a visit to China last fall by Chancellor Katehi. During that visit, Chinese officials and UC Davis alumni identified food safety as a topic of key importance for China. Beachy, who has longstanding ties with China’s research community, became head of the World Food Center in January and has shepherded the collaborative agreement for UC Davis.

About the new food safety center

The Joint Research Center for Food Safety will promote international collaborative research and extension for food safety in China and the U.S. It will conduct research on global food safety-related policies; establish an international, high-level research platform for food safety research; propose solutions for hazards in the food-industry value chain; and develop models for implementation of international food safety standards and risk management. UC Davis and Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University will engage other research faculty from the U.S. and China in the new center.

Students from both UC Davis and China will be offered opportunities to study and train in each other’s countries. UC Davis faculty members currently have extensive collaborations with several Chinese universities, and the new joint research center is intended to expand these and initiate new activities.

On the September 12, 2014 celebration of the 80-year anniversary of the founding of China’s Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University, working details for the new center will be laid out.

“The food industry has become the largest industry in China; and food safety is a critical area for China and the U.S. to have creative cooperation and learn from each other,” said Zhang Laiwu, China’s vice minister of science and technology. “It not only involves technologies, but also policies and management. The fruitful cooperation will also be important to ensure food security.”

He added that the new cooperative agreement among UC Davis, Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University, Yangling National Agricultural High Tech Demonstration Zone, and Zhuhai Municipality of China is a creative platform for cooperation in improving food safety.

World Food Center at UC Davis and the UC Global Food Initiative

The World Food Center at UC Davis was established in 2013 to increase the economic benefit from campus research; influence national and international policy; and convene teams of scientists and innovators from industry, academia, government and nongovernmental organizations to tackle food-related challenges in California and around the world.

The UC Global Food Initiative is building on existing efforts such as the World Food Center and other endeavors at UC Davis, while creating new collaborations among the 10 UC campuses, affiliated national laboratories and the systemwide division of Agriculture and Natural Resources to support healthy eating, sustainable agriculture and food security. More information about the UC Global Food Initiative.

Other food-related collaborations with China

UC Davis faculty are currently involved in numerous collaborative research projects in China, including four food-safety efforts that specialize in the genomics of food-borne diseases, dairy safety, waterborne diseases and livestock, and environmental chemicals.

Additionally, the campus hosts the BGI@UC Davis Partnership, which focuses on genome sequencing, and the Confucius Institute, a cultural outreach program emphasizing food and beverages.

Graphic Source: Food Safety News

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:13-07:00July 27th, 2014|

CDFA Secretary on California Drought Solutions

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross talks about the California drought and some steps the state is making to circumvent the crisis.

“We know from the UC Davis preliminary study that was released last month, that farmers are adapting because of groundwater, and that’s what we store groundwater for, its to help us get us through droughts. But when we have back to back years with surface allocations have been dramatically reduced combined with the drought, our reliance on that groundwater could in some cases mean that we wont have it available for the future,” said Ross.

Ross explained that California Governor Jerry Brown asked various industry leaders, including Secretary Ross, to come up with a “Water Action Plan” in an attempt to solve the water crisis currently facing the state.

Secretary Ross details some aspects of the collaborative “Water Action Plan” for California.

“It was specifically looking at all the things that we could be doing over the next five years, specific actions that were doable over the next five years that could help address California’s water situation going forward. It is groundwater management, it is more storage, it is much more conservation, it is really utilizing better recycled water, storm water capture. So its a whole list of things, and we think it is pretty comprehensive list at everything we need to do going forward.” said Ross.

Ross comments on her point of view on the potential tropical storm El Nino.

“I’ve certainly been in some briefings with some NONA climatologists and our own people at the department of water resources watch this very closely. When you look at the words and how many times the words probability, possibility, uncertainty are used in these descriptions I think El Nino with more than moderate rainfall and snow-pack is what we hope for, but we would be irresponsible to plan that way,” said Ross. “So we must plan the most conservative way possible to have water going forward and hope that El Nino is one that has more than moderate precipitation events come next winter. But we need absolutely need more precipitation, the lack of snow pack is very troubling this year, normally we would be having snowing melt filling our streams and reservoirs,” she added.

Ross added:

“We just our very dependent on mother nature. At the end of the day we are coexisting with mother nature.”

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:19-07:00July 3rd, 2014|

CDFA Official on California Farming Innovation

It is a big challenge to increase production for a hungry world.

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross spoke at a recent Soil Health symposium to discuss the critical need to increase production with less resources such as water.

“There’s a huge challenge for us to more than double our productivity and yet we are going to do it with less arable land, less available water on a global basis. So really understanding soil health and having the metrics to know what that is and what were doing is improves that as a way to maximize productivity and still get these environmental benefits that come with it. Its the demand of the time and I think California should be a leader,” said Ross.

Ross said that California has a good knowledge base to find answers.

“We’ve got some understanding world renowned Soil Microbiologists who are looking at this. But its not just going to come from academia its going to come from private companies, it’s going to come from farmers and ranchers who are innovative themselves. And really bringing it all together, and creating that roadmap to prioritize what is it what we know? what are the gaps? How do we prioritize what needs to happens next? and go out and seek the funding, the investment. This is a huge investment for the sustainability for our food supply and humankind,” said Ross.

Ross said that California growers are innovative in new systems of farming.

“And we see so many of our systems that are constantly adapting and seeking out the information,you know the early adopters who are willing to do some of those systems on their farm. One example is the just all the work on conservation tillage. and it usually takes a few who are willing to go first, kind of prove the concept and share it with their neighbors. Then all of a sudden it becomes the standard practice. It goes from best practices to standard practice,” said Ross.

Ross added: “But we can’t just stop with that, we have to be constantly looking at all those ways of adapting our systems.”

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:19-07:00July 3rd, 2014|

CDFA Official on Success and Future of California Dairy

Karen Ross, Secretary for the California Department of Food and Agriculture, talks about the role of California Dairy has on the current global market, and what the future hold for the industry.

“So we really have seen a couple things going on. One is this huge constant demand for California milk-based products. the export markets looking for powders, they can’t get enough powders, they have huge confidence in the food safety of our milk production here, we‘re strategically located,” said Ross. “So that demand has really drive up prices, but at the same time fortunately for us our friends in the Midwest had great corn and soybean harvest and so those grain prices had moderated so that farmers are finally to the point where their realizing some margins and they need to rebuild their equity,” she added.

Ross mentions that industry leaders are already looking towards the future.

“We also to the credit of the leaders and the producers and processor community, are still meeting as part of their California Dairy Futures Task Force, and we actually have a couple different proposals for some reform to of our pricing system going forward, that we are taking a deeper dive in. We have some economists that are doing some analytics on that and concurrently the cooperative continues to work on the petition and we will find out people are willing to consider seriously going into a federally milk marketing order. ” said Ross.

Ross explains some aspects of the dairy industry need to change.

“So I think its healthy for the industry now that we have some margins in the business and to really think about our future and this almost 60-year old pricing system, and what works, and we want to retain and where we need to create some flexibility so that we can be very competitive and maximize our opportunities in the export market.” said Ross.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:20-07:00July 3rd, 2014|

Secretary Ross Teams Up With Visit California to Promote Agritourism

Two top state officials for agriculture and tourism paid Fresno a visit Monday to talk about how local growers can benefit from the fast-growing trend of agritourism.

About 60 agriculture and business leaders gathered at the California State University, Fresno campus to hear Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross and Caroline Beteta, Visit California’s chief executive officer, explain how the CA Grown and Visit California brands will work with Sunset and Food and Wine magazines to promote agritourism.

Self-proclaimed foodies want to see where their meals comes from and meet the farmers behind this farm-to-fork movement.

“It’s about, ‘here’s what farmers and ranchers are doing as your neighbors,’ their environmental stewardship,” said Ross. “It’s about the pride of what we produce here, and it’s about this wonderful lifestyle and supporting the economy at the same time.”

Fresno County is the top producing agriculture county in the nation with the value of the 2012 crops reaching $6.5 billion. Of the $112 billion spent on tourism in 2012 in California, about a fourth of that was spent on food.

That same year, tourism brought $1.3 billion to Fresno County, according to Ross. Much of this is due to Yosemite tourists, the Blossom Trail and Fruit Trail, she said.

The Blossom Trail is a self-guided motor and bike tour of blossoming orchards along Fresno Country roads. The Fruit Trail is similar to a wine trail and features a drive through the county where visitors can taste and purchase local produce fresh from the farm.

The University of California at Davis runs the agricultural tourism directory for the state. Penny Leff, the agritourism coordinator with UC Davis and the Small Farm Program, said that from 2007 to 2012, agritourism has really picked up in California.

“Most families don’t have anyone on the farm anymore to go visit,” said Leff. “Farmers are interested in educating the public in what’s going on, what goes into making the food. They really want to share with the public and make them understand.”

According to UC data, the amount of sales from agritourism and recreation services has increased 84% in the state from 2007 to 2012, to $64.5 million.

A Sanger couple has seen the rise of agritourism first hand. Debbie Van Haun and her husband, Jim, own a bed and breakfast with a winery attached. She said that during the busy summer season, the area could use more businesses to handle all the tourists.

Van Haun said that most of their business comes from tourists traveling to Yosemite or Sequoia Kings Canyon National Parks, but they do see local couples trying to get away for an anniversary weekend.

“It’s a lot of hard work and is a labor of love,” Van Haun said. “We moved here thinking agritourism would make a difference in the area and it has.”

The couple opened Sequoia View Bed and Breakfast first about 15 years ago, and fixed up the vineyard in 2003. They produce 130 barrels, or 7,800 gallons, of mostly red wines annually.

Van Haun said that the Blossom Trail and Fruit Trail have increased the agritourism in the Sanger area, and the couple attributes much of the credit to the Fresno County Office of Tourism.

With the booming wine industry and traffic picking up at the bed and breakfast, Van Haun said she is seeing their revenue return to what it was in 2008.

Through CA Grown and Visit California, the state hopes to create the kind of interest in locally grown food to rival the desire people have for California wine, Beteta said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:20-07:00July 3rd, 2014|

UC President Janet Napolitano Presents Food Initiative Plan to CDFA

University of California President Janet Napolitano today (July 1) presented the university’s plans for a comprehensive food initiative to the California State Board of Food and Agriculture.

The UC Global Food Initiative is intended to marshal the university’s resources — including curriculum and world-class research, student efforts and operational efforts in place across the university’s 10 campuses — to address global challenges related to food.

“This initiative grows out of a commitment made by all 10 UC campus chancellors and myself,” Napolitano said. “It is a commitment to work collectively to put a greater emphasis on what UC can do as a public research university, in one of the most robust agricultural regions in the world, to take on one of the world’s most pressing issues.”

The food initiative will build on UC’s tradition of innovative agricultural research to support farmers and ranchers. Future efforts will build on work already begun by UC’s 10 campuses and its Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) to address internal and external issues with a variety of approaches.

UC research, for example, taught Californians how to remove salts from the alkali soils in the Central Valley, transforming that barren landscape into one of the world’s most productive farming regions, Napolitano noted in her presentation to the California State Board of Food and Agriculture.

Today, the World Food Center at UC Davis stands with 26 other centers dedicated to food and agriculture on that campus; students and faculty at UC Santa Cruz are transforming the field of agroecology; and the Berkeley Food Institute is studying the relationship between pest control, conservation and food safety on Central Coast farms. The cutting-edge Healthy Campus Initiative at UCLA taps all members of the campus community.

The initiative is not limited to seeking any single solution or set of solutions to the myriad food issues confronting the world, Napolitano said.

“The idea,” she said, “is to provide the intellectual and technical firepower, as well as the operational examples needed for communities in California and around the world to find pathways to a sustainable food future.”

In describing the building blocks for the initiative, Napolitano noted that the university’s agricultural outreach and public service programs — in every California county and more than 100 nations — bring UC resources to individuals and communities to help them access safe, affordable and nutritious food while sustaining scarce natural resources.

The university’s work also will help inform and drive policy discussions from the local to the international levels, and expand partnerships with government agencies such as the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

“This initiative shows great vision and leadership from President Napolitano and the University of California,” said CDFA Secretary Karen Ross, “Climate change and population growth will greatly strain our ability to provide healthy food to people here and around the world.

“President Napolitano’s proposal to leverage the strategic assets of the entire UC organization makes it a valuable partner in addressing the significant challenges and opportunities for our production agriculture and food system.”

Emphasizing that student engagement is key, Napolitano announced, as one of her first actions, the funding of three $2,500 President’s Global Food Initiative Student Fellowships to be awarded on each campus to undergraduate or graduate students. The fellowships will fund student research projects or internships.

Among other early efforts to be undertaken as part of the initiative are the following:

Internally, campuses will heighten their collective purchasing power and dining practices to encourage sustainable farming practices, and model healthy eating and zero food waste; food pantries and farmers markets that exist on some campuses will be spread to all 10. Partnerships with K-12 school districts to enhance leveraging procurement for these purposes also will be explored.
Food issues will be integrated into more undergraduate and graduate courses, catalogues of food-related courses will be developed, and demonstration gardens will be made available on each campus to increase opportunities for students to participate in experiential learning.
Data mining of existing information will be deployed to help develop insights and action plans for California agriculture and responses to climate change.

New policies will be enacted to allow small growers to serve as suppliers for UC campuses.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:20-07:00July 1st, 2014|

UPDATE: ACP Quarantine and Advocacy for Unimpeded Eradication

by Laurie Greene, Editor

CDFA filed a proposed emergency amendment TODAY to expand the ACP quarantine area in response to an “infestation” of the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP), Diaphorina citri, detected in the Farmersville/Visalia area (June 4, 2014), Tulare County. One adult female was found in the area. The proposed 14-mile expansion will include the Visalia area, and the state’s vast ACP quarantine will cover 46,544 sq. miles.

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross

The regulation defines emergency as” a situation that calls for immediate action to avoid serious harm to the public peace, health, safety, or general welfare.” The government code provides,”if the emergency situation clearly poses such an immediate, serious harm that delaying action to allow public comment would be inconsistent with the public interest, an agency is not required to provide notice.”

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross believes that this emergency clearly poses such an immediate, serious harm that delaying action to give the notice would be inconsistent with the public interest. Therefore, Ross proposed that the CDFA Director may adopt reasonably necessary measures such as bypassing the mandatory notice five working days prior to emergency action in order to carry out emergency provisions. Additionally, she requested that the Director be permitted to establish, maintain, and enforce quarantine, eradication, and such other regulations necessary to circumscribe and exterminate or prevent the spread of any pest which is described in the code.

This comes after the California Citrus Industry’s recent backlash against the Executive Committee of the California Citrus Pest and Disease Prevention Committee’s proposed easing of the state’s ACP quarantine and eradication efforts.

Joel Nelsen, CA Citrus Mutual President

And, while CDFA uses the word, “infestation”, Joel Nelsen, President of California Citrus Mutual, commented at the recent United Fresh Convention in Chicago, “There were two more ACP finds found in the northeast part of Tulare County. They were individual finds. Intensive trapping and tapping on the trees, looking for the ACP, hasn’t found any more. So one would argue that we’ve got a population—given the finds in the last year—but we’re still talking single digits.” Nelsen believes this demonstrates the eradication programs are working. “We’re supposed to find the ACP before finds a commercial citrus industry, and we’re doing that.”

Nelsen said the Executive Committee’s recent proposal to significantly modify the program was, “based upon some subjective analysis by a team of scientists who in fact believe that there’s more out there than what we can find.”

“So,” he continued, “we’re obligated to prove a negative; and as long as we do the intensive trapping program, as long as we continue the mandated treatment program, as long as we’re aggressively looking for the Asian citrus psyllid—I don’t see how, and industry doesn’t buy into the fact, you have an endemic population. We’re not finding them in volume; everything is isolated.”

“So, when the industry first became aware of this possible change in the treatment zones of the quarantine mandates, the industry challenged CDFA.”

Now, not only does the ACP program remain intact, but TODAY, CDFA Secretary Ross proposed measures for an unhindered and immediate eradication response by CDFA to ACP discoveries.

Featured Photo Credit: Ted Batkin, Citrus Research Board, “Invasive Pests in California” 1/10.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:35:24-07:00June 18th, 2014|

Climate Change Funding for Ag Part of Budget Debate at State Capitol

Source: Nick Miller; Sacramento News and Review

If Sacramento is truly the nation’s farm-to-fork capital, then the state Capitol has an opportunity this week to prove so by putting millions of budget dollars where its mouth is.

Here’s what’s at stake: California’s cap-and-trade carbon tax is expected to generate a cool $850 million next fiscal year. This money needs to be spent on projects that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposes that $25 million of this nut go toward agriculture. That’s not a ton of funding, but it is direly needed, and would be spent on fertilizer management, methane mitigation at dairy farms, biofuels, farmland preservation, plus other sustainability programs that combat climate change.

The catch is that some Democrats in the Senate and Assembly have the governor’s ag money in their crosshairs. They want to use the millions for their own pet projects: urban infill, mass transit, etc. To that end, both houses of the Legislature have proposed their own budget plans.

This concerns sustainable-agriculture advocates. Since most lawmakers represent urban areas, not rural districts, they fear that farmers might end up losing out on some of the state’s first ag-related funding in years. Lawmaker’s budget deadline is next Sunday, June 15.

“I can’t predict how this will go,” said Jeanne Merrill, a policy director with California Climate and Agriculture Network, or CalCAN. But what she does know is that “you can’t seek agriculture solutions to climate change without protecting land.”

When most Californians think of the fight against climate change, they picture doing so by switching out lightbulbs and not running the air conditioner, or by buying hybrid cars and driving less.

“But agriculture’s total emissions … are roughly about 7 percent of the state’s total emissions,” said Ryan Harden, a staff researcher at UC Davis who works on studies for the California Air Resources Board and the California Energy Commission.

He concedes that 7 percent is “not very much compared to electricity use and cars.” But it can make a dent. “Every little bit helps.”

For sure, agriculture has definitely been part of the mix when California’s leaders look at ways to reduce emissions and meet the celebrated Assembly Bill 32’s global-warming goals.

“Natural- and working-land strategies to reduce greenhouse gases aren’t at the top of the list in the building,” said Merrill, “but I think we’ve seen good progress.”

One of the main ways agriculture addresses climate change is with fertilizer. Almost all crops in California need it. But UCD’s Harden said, “One of the bigger sources of greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture is nitrous-oxide emissions from soils,” which comes from chemicals in fertilizer. Some 50 percent of ag’s overall emissions derive from this, he explained.

Harden and others aren’t saying we should stop using fertilizers, however. Farming is too complex and vulnerable to advocate for that, he said. The state does encourage farmers to adopt greenhouse-gas-mitigation tactics on a voluntary basis.

Brown’s budget would allocate $5 million to research ways to improve fertilizers and manage their emissions. Again, that’s not a huge chunk of change. But it’s needed, experts say.

“There are a 400 different kinds of crops in California, with different soil and different watering systems,” said Karen Ross, head of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. She argues that there’s “a huge need to develop a research road map” for how to manage fertilizers, and this funding will help pave the way.

But the feud over farm-to-fork’s funding future is over more than just fertilizer.

Democrat leaders in the Assembly have a different plan. They want to split the $850 million in cap-and-trade money into two pots: Some of this would eventually go toward reducing agricultural waste and “carbon farming,” a method of reducing emissions that is popular with farmers. But there aren’t any guarantees, and critics of the Assembly plan remain uncertain that money will be set aside for priority projects.

The governor’s plan would be managed by Ross’ Department of Food and Agriculture, while the Assembly’s would be under the Strategic Growth Council’s purview (of which Ross is a member).

Over in the Senate, lawmakers recommend setting aside a specific amount of the cap-and-trade revenue, $30 million, but for nonspecific emissions-reduction and water-efficiency projects. This plan builds off the governor’s drought bill, and the California Wildlife Conservation Board would oversee it.

Sustainable-ag groups put up a good face and say they are happy to have any state monies. “We want to make sure some funding goes to agriculture,” Merrill said. “And we’re pleased all three proposals recognize the agriculture as a solution to climate change.”

In a perfect world, however, farmers and advocates would like to see more investment in farmland preservation. This means investing in ag land and ending sprawl policies.

“If you look at the rate of emissions for an urban area, they tend to have 70 times higher emissions than your typical plot of agriculture land,” said Harden. This means that the more farmland conservation takes place, the more Sacramento and the rest of the state can stabilize—and hopefully reduce—emissions.

But, no surprise, conservation often takes a backseat to industry. This is why a large piece of the governor’s budget, $12 million, will go to big-time dairy producers, who hope to install pricey digesters to reduce methane emissions.

That’s not a bad thing. And Ross says it’s a priority, “considering that we have almost 2 million dairy cows in the state and only a handful of dairy digesters.”

But she also advocates for strategic growth, conservation and sustainability: investment in modernization of water irrigation, renewable energy on farms (more than 5,700 state farms primarily use renewable energy, she said), alternative fuels and soil health.

“We can do all these things, and we know they’re the right things to do,” Ross said. But it comes down to money and time.

“When I think about the next generation, I think we’re really going to see tremendous change,” she said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:35:26-07:00June 11th, 2014|