OTHER RESOURCES
Steve Shaffer, Director
1220 N Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
ph: (916) 657-4956
fax: (916) 657-5017
QUICK LINKS
California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) and the Farm Bill
CDFA believes that the new Farm Bill holds great potential for conservation assistance to California growers, including producers of non-USDA commodity crops. For example, if funded and inclusive enough, the Conservation Security Program could diversify the opportunities for California growers to generate income from the variety of public benefits they provide from the management of their lands and waters. In addition, the Conservation Security Program would reward California growers for their existing conservation efforts.
To secure California's "fair share" of the Farm Bill's conservation funding, stakeholders in California will need to be engaged as the Farm Bill is implemented and funded. There is a long tradition of commodity-linked implementation that will need to be shifted to recognize the conservation needs of the primarily non-commodity states in the Western U.S. Also, depending on the federal deficit, convincing Congress that Farm Bill conservation programs should be fully funded as initially imagined will be a challenge. Perhaps the biggest challenge to effective Farm Bill conservation program implementation in California will be obtain sufficient NRCS technical assistance capacity to implement the Farm Bill without adversely impacting NRCS' existing technical conservation assistance to landowners and communities. NRCS has experienced staff shrinkage over the years and now estimates that it is 200 staff shy of meeting both the existing landowner technical assistance demands and roll-out of the new Farm Bill.
CDFA has initiated work on five fronts to ensure that California growers will be full participants in the new conservation programs of the Farm Bill.