Monthly Archives: October 2018

Tackling the Ag labor shortage – California Farm Academy strives to create a new labor pipeline

October 9, 2018   Office of Public Affairs

Farmers have been struggling with not only a labor shortage on one end, but long-term supervisors, farm managers and farm owners starting to age-out of the business. The Center for Land-Based Learning, a non-profit organization located in Winters, recently created the California Farm Academy (CFA) Apprenticeship Program to help address this need. The planning and creation of this apprenticeship was …

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Get a refund for organic certification fees

October 8, 2018   Office of Public Affairs

Here in the Golden State, “organic” is a label that must be earned – but for farmers, processors and related businesses who have done the work and earned the right to use that label, there’s a way you may be able to get a refund for certain certification/registration fees. In the state of California, a farmer, retailer and/or business can’t …

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Science and can-do spirit intersect impressively in Southern California pest programs

October 5, 2018   Karen Ross, Secretary, California Department of Food and Agriculture

A trip to Southern California this week was a welcome reminder of the remarkable work our employees do to protect us from threats posed by invasive species. My first stop was the joint CDFA/USDA Medfly Preventative Release Program in Los Alamitos. Every day small airplanes fly over the Los Angeles Basin and release millions of sterile Medflies that are reared …

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New tariffs from China pressure farm exports – from Ag Alert

October 4, 2018   Office of Public Affairs

By Ching Lee  In the escalating trade conflict between the U.S. and China, more California agricultural products now face new retaliatory tariffs in one of their export markets. China has implemented a new round of tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods, including a wide range of foods and agricultural products. The tariffs came in response to new U.S. …

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Denmark inspires US delegation with biogas energy innovation

October 3, 2018   Jay Van Rein, CDFA Office of Public Affairs

By Geetika Joshi, PhD I was honored to represent CDFA last week in Denmark as part of a US delegation sent to learn about he use of biogas as a renewable energy source. I joined a contingent of 14 people from all over the US, and we traveled to a number of cities to study successful digester projects generating biogas and utilizing …

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Meet the newest recruits in California’s war on climate change: carbon farmers – from CALmatters

October 2, 2018   Office of Public Affairs

By Alistair Bland / CALmatters Loren Poncia’s idling pickup shudders in a powerful gust of afternoon wind in western Marin County. Inside the warm cab, he scans the sun-browned hills through his binoculars, counting his grazing cows. Poncia raises beef cattle. As he sees it, though, what he is really doing is raising soil. “I’m growing grass to feed to my …

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“Farm to Table Talk” podcast with Secretary Ross celebrates the progress of the Farm to Fork movement

October 2, 2018   Office of Public Affairs

When 70,000 people showed up last weekend to celebrate “Farm to Fork” at an annual festival in Sacramento, it was an opportunity for Farm to Table Talk podcast host Mark Wasson to sit down with three pioneering leaders of Farm to Fork: California Agriculture Secretary  Karen Ross; Chef and Owner of Mulvaney’s B & L Patrick Mulvaney; and Michael Dimock, President …

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Secretary Ross, Senator Lara help unveil revamped digester facility at Open Sky Ranch Dairy

October 1, 2018   Office of Public Affairs
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Decades-long Pink Bollworm quarantine lifted in California – Video

October 1, 2018   Office of Public Affairs

Following a Pink Bollworm quarantine and eradication program that endured for more than 50 years, the USDA has lifted regulations for the cotton pest in California. In this video, CDFA examines the history of the program and the innovation that brought it at long last to a conclusion.

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