November 10, 2017
CapitalPress.com
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9
California
Most USDA new farmer trainees still in the industry
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
workers replace a pump near a
levee next to the Sacramento
Weir Oct. 23 in preparation for
flood season. State officials
held a news conference on the
levee to highlight ongoing flood
preparedness efforts.
State
makes
repairs
to levee
system
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
SACRAMENTO — Water
agencies in California spent
$80 million this summer to
repair 30 of the most critically
impaired levees after last win-
ter’s rains, but they couldn’t
get to 10 others, officials said.
Many of them were in the
San Joaquin Valley, where
reservoir releases to accom-
modate late-season snowmelt
kept rivers swelling well into
June. Officials had to wait for
the water to recede to assess
the impact on the levees, said
Jon Ericson, acting chief of
the Department of Water Re-
sources’ Division of Flood
Management.
“There are still sites that
we haven’t repaired, and
we’re going to have contin-
gency plans for those,” Eric-
son said during a recent news
conference on a levee over-
looking the Sacramento Weir,
which is undergoing repairs.
The state has prepared de-
signs for those 10 future sites
and worked with local water
districts and others to prepare
contingency plans for 100
other compromised levee sites
in preparation for this year’s
rainy season.
A sense of urgency pre-
vailed this summer after high
river levels during a histor-
ically wet winter exposed
weak spots in roughly 1,600
miles of levees in the Central
Valley. Among the most trou-
bled areas is the Feather Riv-
er below the Oroville Dam,
whose spillways nearly failed
in February.
Crews spent more than $40
million, most of it state funds,
to shore up those levees, in-
cluding a $12 million project
to refurbish a one-mile stretch
of levee protecting agricul-
tural land near Yuba City that
needed emergency repairs last
winter.
Officials gathered on Oct.
23 to urge flood preparedness
among residents and to high-
light the monstrous task ahead
in refurbishing a century-old
levee system that was built for
agriculture but now protects
many urban areas as well.
“The Central Valley is one
of the highest flood risk areas
in the nation,” said Bill Edgar,
president of the Central Valley
Flood Protection Board. “The
levees have been successful
in protecting agriculture, but
over time people began build-
ing homes ... and high-value
permanent crops (in the flood-
plain).”
California has spent more
than $4 billion on repairs
since 2007 under a flood con-
trol plan passed by the Legis-
lature, Edgar said.
The effort in the Central
Valley could cost as much as
$21 billion over a 30-year pe-
riod.
California has about
14,000 miles of levees, in-
cluding those that protect ur-
ban areas, those that protect
coastal areas from flooding
because of storm surges and
others.
BERKELEY, Calif. —
More than half the partici-
pants in new farmer training
projects the USDA has spent
more than $150 million on
since 2008 are still working
in agriculture, a group’s sur-
vey has found.
Funded in the 2008 Farm
Bill, the Beginning Farmer
and Rancher Development
Program has helped more
than 250 training projects
across the country, the Na-
tional Sustainable Agricul-
ture Coalition noted in a re-
port.
Among the 40 percent of
projects led by land grant
universities, several key ones
are conducted by the Uni-
versity of California Coop-
erative Extension, including
farm business training ses-
sions and workshops in more
than a dozen counties.
The survey’s findings
should encourage the UC to
seek more grant funding for
similar projects elsewhere,
said Jennifer Sowerwine, an
extension specialist based
at UC-Berkeley who was
on an advisory board for the
USDA’s evaluation.
“As the metropolitan agri-
culture and food system spe-
cialist, I see several opportu-
nities ... to expand (the UC’s)
offerings to support aspiring
and beginning urban and
peri-urban farmers,” Sower-
wine told the Capital Press in
an email.
Urban agriculture is “on
the rise” yet growers face nu-
merous challenges, including
securing land, marketing and
distribution, implementing
best practices and navigating
laws that govern urban-pro-
duced foods, she said.
Over the next few years,
Sowerwine and other experts
will seek ways of “improving
UCANR
Rob Bennaton, center, in the white T-shirt, a University of California Cooperative Extension adviser, talks with beginning urban farmers
at the UC Gill Tract Community Farm. The training was funded through the USDA’s Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development
Program, which was part of the 2008 Farm Bill.
urban farming profitability,
ecological sustainability and
fresh food access, and will
be translating that research
into practical guides and ed-
ucational programming,” she
said.
Congress initially appro-
priated $75 million from
fiscal 2009 through 2012 for
education, training, outreach
and mentoring programs for
new farmers, then provided
an additional $20 million per
year for 2014 through 2018.
The renewed interest came as
the average age of U.S. farm-
ers continued to rise and there
was a projected decrease in
farmers and ranchers nation-
wide, the USDA explained
on its website.
The NSAC, a advocacy
group for federal policies
supporting agriculture, sur-
veyed project leaders who
estimated that more than half
their participants are now
engaged in a farming career
and nearly three-quarters felt
more prepared for successful
careers after completing the
programs.
Among the programs, 56
percent were led by nonprofit
organizations, 40 percent by
land-grant universities and 4
percent by other universities,
according to a news release.
In California, the UCCE
has been providing beginning
farming and farm business
training in Nevada and Placer
counties for more than a de-
cade.
In a 2016 survey of pro-
ducers in the two counties, 72
percent said they had taken
a business class from UCCE
and another 9 percent had
taken other business training,
the release stated.
Elsewhere, the university
offers “Farming 101” work-
shops in Sonoma County on
the second Tuesday of each
month, and is wrapping up a
three-year project for immi-
grant and low-income farm-
ers that has trained 340 peo-
ple in 10 counties.
Sowerwine said she hopes
the success stories relayed
in the survey persuade Con-
gress to continue the begin-
ning farmer program in the
2018 Farm Bill.
She said 100 million acres
of farmland is set to change
hands in the next five years.
“There is a critical need
to provide ongoing support
to both aspiring and retiring
farmers in order to secure
the transference of that land
to the next generation, and
equip these new farmers with
the knowledge, skills and
resources they need to suc-
ceed,” she said.
ROP-42-7-1/HOU