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EcoFarm 2020: Climate & Justice Increasingly Part of the Conversation, Farmer Leaders Recognized

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Three CalCAN staff attended this year’s EcoFarm Conference—Executive Director Renata Brillinger, Associate Policy Director Brian Shobe and Communications and Operations Coordinator Becca Lucas. Organized by the Ecological Farming Association, one of CalCAN’s founding coalition members, this was the 40th annual conference and in recognition of this milestone, many conversations over the three days contemplated EcoFarm’s present and future direction. We were impressed with the breadth of climate-related topics, including a deep dive into farmer-led research on no-till practices on organic farms, cover cropping in orchards, and agricultural land conservation. This is clear evidence that the EcoFarm community is concerned about the climate crisis for a wide range of reasons and actively engaged in doing their part. Many of the keynote speakers spoke to the urgency of climate change and its relationship with soil and human health, holding up climate smart agriculture as an integral part o...
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Diverse Coalition Calls on Legislature to Restore Climate Smart Agriculture Funding

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Over 50 organizations and businesses recently joined CalCAN in calling on the legislature to restore funding for Healthy Soils and other Climate Smart Agriculture programs that the Governor’s proposed budget would cut below current funding levels. You can read that letter here. The group of supporters is diverse and spans traditional farm trade groups and sustainable agriculture organizations to large food and fiber retailers and conservation organizations. The letter comes on the heels of a recent Senate Budget Committee hearing on Governor Newsom’s proposed climate change budget. Many of the senators raised concerns that the Governor’s climate proposal does not go far enough. CalCAN’s Policy Intern, Grace Perry, provides a summary of the recent hearing below. An informational hearing on the Governor’s climate budget proposal was held by the Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review on Tuesday, February 18th. The Governor’s proposed climate budget would allocate $12.5 billion o...
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Announcing the Newest Resource for Organic Advocates: “Roadmap to an Organic California: Policy Report”

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California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) is a CalCAN coalition member. CalCAN is working with CCOF to advocate for an Organic Transition Option in the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Healthy Soils Program. This post originally appeared on their blog. The Roadmap to an Organic California: Policy Report is the next installment of a first-of-its-kind research project that investigates how organic is a solution to California’s toughest challenges. Tackling climate change, economic challenges, and health inequities can feel daunting, but our Roadmap offers nearly 40 policy recommendations to grow organic to combat climate change and build healthier, more secure communities. To help us create our bold vision for California’s future, we combed through over 300 peer-reviewed scientific studies that show the economic, environmental, and social benefits of organic. And we listened to experts on health, justice, agriculture, and the environment. This report outlines the n...
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Climate Change Funding for Farmland Conservation Now Available

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Climate Change Funding for Farmland Conservation Now Available Posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2020 by Jeanne Merrill The Department of Conservation (DOC), on behalf of the Strategic Growth Council, recently released its latest call for applications for the Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation Program (SALCP). This marks the sixth year of the program, which funds conservation easements and now fee title projects to protect vulnerable agricultural lands from sprawl and rural ranchette development.  The program also supports local government efforts to improve farmland conservation planning and policy development. Since 2014, SALCP has permanently protected more than 100,000 acres of agricultural land in California.  That’s more than double the acres of farmland the state help to protect in the previous twenty years. You can find the timeline with pre-proposals and full proposal deadlines here. Here is a summary of the changes made to the program in 2020: DOC will pilot fundi...
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CalCAN Endorses Newly Introduced Federal Climate & Agriculture Bill

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CalCAN Endorses Newly Introduced Federal Climate & Agriculture Bill Posted on Wednesday, February 26th, 2020 by Renata Brillinger Agriculture Resilience Act Offers California Farmers Climate Change Solutions Today, Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME-1) introduced the Agriculture Resilience Act (H.R. 5861), which addresses the role of agriculture in combating climate change with a comprehensive suite of practical, science-based, farmer-driven policy solutions. CalCAN endorses this bill and commends Rep. Pingree’s leadership. “Agriculture has so much to offer—and much at stake—when it comes to turning our farms into carbon sinks and making our food system more secure,” said Jeanne Merrill, CalCAN Policy Director.  “The Agriculture Resilience Act will provide the resources needed to turn agricultural solutions to climate change into wins for farmers, our health and the environment.” Importantly, the Agriculture Resilience Act sets out a national goal for agriculture sector of ...
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Application Period Open for Record $25 Million Round of Healthy Soils Program

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The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) opened the application period for its Healthy Soils Program (HSP) today. A record $25 million is available – up from $14 million last year. It’s a good time to apply to the Healthy Soils Program. CDFA has made a number of exciting improvements to the program in response to stakeholder feedback. Here’s what you need to know: 25+ Eligible Healthy Soils Practices: The Healthy Soils Program provides incentives grants of up to $100,000 (new!) to farmers to implement practices that improve soil health, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and sequester carbon. Over 25 practices are eligible in the program, including compost application, cover cropping, prescribed grazing, mulch, reduced-tillage, hedgerows, riparian plantings, and a number of other conservation plantings. New this year: 4-Month Rolling Application Period with a First-Come, First-Serve Award Process for Incentives Grants (new!): CDFA is introducing a rolling application...
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State Assembly Votes Unanimously for Agriculture Resilience Bill

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The California Assembly voted 78-0 recently to pass AB 1071, a climate and agriculture resilience bill by Assemblymember Monique Limón and sponsored by CalCAN. The Ag Climate Adaptation Tools bill responds to the immediate and long-term climate change risks farmers are facing by establishing a competitive grant program to achieve three objectives: 1. strong for California farmers, similar to the AgroClimate Toolkit and Adaptation Workbook that have been developed for other regions in the US. Such decision-support tools are intended to incorporate the best available climate science into farm management planning to help inform farmer decision-making about a number of climate related issues affecting their operations, including crop/cultivar selection for a changing climate and how to improve resilience to more frequent and intense droughts, floods, and heat waves. 2. Pilot the decision-support tools in three agricultural regions of the state – the Central Valley, Central Coast, and Des...
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