California Agriculture

California has experienced an increase in the size, frequency, and severity of wildfires in recent years, with wide-ranging impacts to agriculture. The 2020 wildfire season was particularly catastrophic, causing billions of dollars in damage to the state’s world-renowned wine industry. Wine grape growers and wine producers statewide recently took a survey to help us better understand the wildfire informational resources available to producers, as well as the role wildfire risk plays in operational management decisions. The survey results show that the negative impacts of wildfires on wine production may be the result of wildfire smoke more than of the actual wildfires. We also show that managers do not always make operational changes, even when they perceive increased wildfire risk. Despite diverse sources of wildfire-related information and operational guidance, there is not enough information to effectively manage fire risk.

Employment in California agriculture has increased over the past 30 years and has become less seasonal. There were an average of 404,000 farm jobs in California in 2020, 10% more than average employment of 367,000 in 1990. Meanwhile, seasonality, as measured by peak month employment divided by trough month employment, fell 22% over three decades, from 1.8 in 1990 to 1.4 in 2020. Most farmworkers have one farm employer a year, although that employer may be a labor contractor who moves workers from one farm to another. Most new workers in the California farm workforce are H-2A guest workers, the young and flexible Mexican workers who are legally authorized to work in the United States and who are often brought to farms by labor contractors. In the future, rising employment and declining seasonality, combined with an aging and settled farm workforce, may reduce farmworker migration and flexibility.

Urban farming is an important component of California agriculture, but lack of agricultural census data or common definitions makes it difficult to track and understand. In 2017–2018, a team of University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) researchers and extension professionals developed a workshop series for urban farmers in California based on results of a prior needs assessment. After conducting 16 workshops in the state's largest urban centers, the team evaluated what participants learned and how they put their knowledge into action. The evaluation highlighted urban farmers' ongoing challenges and found that economic issues such as profitability and land access are some of the greatest barriers for urban farming in California. An unexpected positive outcome was the opportunity for participants to network and meet other farmers. Urban farmers expressed the need for more opportunities for mentoring and building partnerships with other farmers and organizations. Evaluation results suggest that California's urban farmers may be more diverse than California farmers as a whole, and that they are often beginning farmers.

Drawing out too much groundwater, or overdrafting, is a serious problem in California. As a result, groundwater sustainability agencies are considering using recycled municipal wastewater to recharge aquifers. In our study, we employ suitability mapping and the models C2VSimFG and Ichnos to identify appropriate areas for managing aquifer recharge with recycled water in California’s Central Valley. The factors that influence suitability include soil properties, proximity to recycled water sources, and the residence time, or amount of time that recharged water spends underground. There are many suitable areas in the Central Valley that are immediately adjacent to water recycling facilities. However, adequate supply is an issue in most locations. Roughly half of the groundwater sustainability agencies in critically overdrafted basins of the Central Valley have enough potentially suitable locations to meet their recharge goals, but not all of them have access to enough recycled water. The methods demonstrated here can serve as tools for agencies considering using recycled water for aquifer recharging.

Strengthening young people's scientific literacy and civic engagement are important educational goals for Cooperative Extension. We implemented youth participatory action research (YPAR) projects over three years at five schools. The YPAR approach integrates science learning and civic engagement by empowering youth, with the help of adult facilitators, to decide upon a community issue to research, design and implement their research, and then plan a service project based on research findings to address the issue. We explored young people's and educators' perspectives on which project elements influenced youth participation, examined opportunities for youth science and civic-related learning, and asked educators to reflect on their own learning and development. Using data generated from youth focus groups and educator interviews, we found that YPAR grounds science learning in young people's lived experience. It also provides a meaningful approach to science learning through raising young people's critical consciousness of community issues. YPAR may be used in other extension programs to increase motivation for deeper and sustained participation in learning experiences.