Specialty Crop School Scheduled in Salinas Oct. 7-9

Salinas Valley Short-Course to Focus on Business and Regulatory Drivers for Coastal Crops

The October 7-9  Specialty Crop School features California’s Salinas Valley where lettuce, cole crops, strawberries and wine grapes reign.

This intensive 3-day course has been specifically designed for suppliers to specialty crop businesses who require an in-depth understanding of key drivers impacting Salinas Valley growers and their purchasing and management decisions. The year-round production cycle of the Salinas Valley sends fresh leafy greens, vegetables and other cool season crops to markets around the world.

Participants will return to their organizations equipped with new information to refine their business strategies according to new food safety, pest management, traceability and water requirements as well as meeting retailer demands.

The Salinas Valley School, headquartered in Watsonville, will include field visits to farms, processing facilities and research centers as well as discussions with growers, pest management experts, agronomists, regulators and university scientists. Field stops are planned in lettuce, cole crops, artichokes, strawberries, seed production and winegrapes.

Featured speakers include Bonnie Fernandez from the Center for Produce Safety at UC Davis; Richard Smith, Monterey County Cooperative Extension; Becky Sisco from the IR-4 Minor Use Registration Program; Richard Spas, CA Department of Pesticide Regulation and representatives from several local farming companies.

Early-bird rates are available until September 10 and registration closes on October 1. Class size is limited and seats are available on a first come, first served basis.

For complete Specialty Crop School course topics and registration information, go to www.specialtycropschool.com

2016-05-31T19:33:29-07:00August 25th, 2014|

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.

2016-08-29T21:03:53-07:00August 22nd, 2014|

NOTICE TO ALL GROWERS IN THE SALINAS VALLEY

The Monterey County Farm Bureau office has learned that Department of Labor is currently conducting inspections and audits in the Salinas Valley on a random basis.

The focus appears to be on the following:

  • child labor law violations
  • transportation of field workers
  • van inspections
  • payroll record keeping.

Please make your field supervisors aware of possible inspection visits. Indications are that they will be in Monterey County for two weeks or more conducting these inspections.

2016-05-31T19:38:03-07:00April 11th, 2014|

PROPOSED DESALINATION PLANT IN SALINAS VALLEY

Salinas Valley Worried about Desal Plans

 
California American Water could threaten the ground water supply of the Salinas Valley where up to 60 percent of the vegetables and leafy greens are grown for the nation.

The water company, which serves about 100,000 people on the Monterey Peninsula, was ordered 20 years ago to reduce using their source of water from the Carmel River by 60 percent by 2016.
 
Norm Groot, executive director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau, commented, “They’re searching frantically to find an alternative source. Unfortunately, they have had twenty years to do that and the voters haven’t really been necessarily sympathetic and voted for their particular projects when proposed.”
“So, now we are to the point of looking at a desalination plant that is supposedly going to replace all that water from the Carmel River,” Groot said. “There are a number of issues there as well—not only the cost—but the energy footprint and a number of other things that really have some of the people here quite concerned right now.”
 
“The test well for the proposed desal plant may be fairy close to the shoreline,” Groot said, “but any water taken from that well could impact the Salinas Valley. I think our biggest concern is what is that cone of depression, which is a scientific term for the influence that a source water intake has in a particular area. And because of the confluence between the lower aquifer, the Salinas Valley Basin, and the shallow aquifer from which they propose to take the water, we really don’t know how large a cone of influence is going to be felt. And since the actual aquifer goes offshore quite a distance, there is potential for some sort of impact there.”
 
“We’ve been involved in the whole CPUC process for the Public Utilities Commission trying to insert our particular viewpoints into the process” Groot explained, “so that everyone is fully aware of the ramifications of placing the source water intakes over the aquifer. And what if pumping is determined to cause harm to source water that includes Salinas Valley, either brackish or fresh water?”


2016-09-07T21:04:00-07:00January 9th, 2014|
Go to Top