Monthly Archives: October 2017

Follow this link to CDFA’s Office of Environmental Farming and Innovation and SWEEP.

INDIANAPOLIS – Students from Arizona, California, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky and Oklahoma have been elected by delegates throughout the United States to serve on the 2017-18 National FFA Officer team. Breanna Holbert of Lodi, an agricultural education major at California State University – Chico, was elected national president. Holbert is the first female African American elected to the office of president. …

By Cynthia Hubert As smoke and flames threatened her rural property in Suisun City, Cristina Santini’s thoughts turned to her 38 goats and sheep. She and her husband Flavio had been told to get out ahead of the Atlas Fire that was raging in Solano County. There seemed to be no time for the couple to chase their livestock down, …

California’s agricultural commissioners are holding their annual fall conference this week in Sacramento. I was honored to be able to spend some time with them and remind them yet again how much we appreciate the unique partnership we enjoy with them. Ag commissioners are our secret weapon in a complex, vibrant food production system. They carry out CDFA programs at …

From “Tech Talk,” by Phillip Lan Over the past few decades, technology has disrupted many industries including manufacturing, media, banking and retail shopping. We also now understand that it is no longer a matter of if but when technology-based solutions, such as self-driving vehicles, will transform transportation and logistics. Agriculture, on the other hand, has experienced a relatively slow adoption …

According to production statistics compiled by the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service and released by CDFA, lettuce is the fifth largest commodity in California, with a value of nearly $2 billion. Roughly 75 percent of the nation’s lettuce and leafy greens are grown in California. There are three main growing regions.  The Central Coast, which includes both the Salinas Valley and the …

With thousands of Californians suffering devastating losses due to recent wildfires, CDFA is offering a web page with resources for recovery. Included is a program from the California Employment Development Department (EDD) for individual assistance to those who have lost their jobs during the fires, in Butte, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Orange, Sonoma and Yuba counties. This is federal assistance administered …

With Fall now in full swing, Californians are again starting to turn their attention to El Dorado County’s Apple Hill, which is in the midst of its 2017 production season. From CDFA’s award-winning Growing California video series, here’s an encore presentation on Apple Hill’s draw as a tourism destination.

Note – California and all of American agriculture are seeking young people to enter farming-related fields, and not just on the farm – there are an estimated 300 positions in food production, many of them requiring increasingly sophisticated technical skills.    Technology has changed the way farmers irrigate their crops in the Central Valley, a region that produces a quarter …