Wednesday, April 28, 2010

California and Water Conservation in 2010

When it comes to water, the world generally doesn’t consider that we are in a problem. Unfortunately, only small areas of our country are realizing the crisis that is going on.

California, the nation’s leader in agricultural production also happens to rank as the nation’s top water user. While looking back on history, many different issues have been brought to attention over the years. One we have never really been concerned about until recently is our water. With the United States using approximately 400 billion gallons of water per day, it isn’t any wonder why we are now asking ourselves, “Where will it all come from?”

Out of that 400 billion gallons of water, about half, is allocated to create energy. With using this water for such uses, is then returned to its source be it river or reservoir.

Currently, Agriculture is the nation’s leading user in water consumption. Using more than 80 billion gallons per day, it is our main source to cut back from. How can we be more efficient? How can we use less? How can we reuse what we have already used? How can we hold rainfall that isn’t being used affectively? These are all questions on the minds of many government leaders and agricultural dependants.
While looking into history, we can see many things that indicate a quality improvement in water consumption, yet it still is not enough. Between 1980 and 2000 the California Farm Bureau Federation reported that crop production increased by a whopping 35%. Seeing these production increases it would only make sense that water allocation would need to be increased, but this is not the case. With growers moving to more economical and efficient irrigation systems, along with using different types of fertilizer products like Ferticell, they have proved that they will succeed through tough times.

That being said, it does eliminate us from the leering loss of water supply. We must still be active to conserve as much water and rainfall as possible to eliminate the risk of even higher spikes in water cost.

If you are interested on how to get more out of your water allocations by increasing your yields, give us a call at (602) 233-2223.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

California Agriculture Teams Up with the MVD

With all of the support surrounding the California Agricultural community, its suprising to not have seen this sooner, but it could come at not a better time. With agricultural interests in the younger generation dwindling by, some step of assistance is needed. CDFA Kawamura has induced a new specialized license plate reading, “California Agriculture”.
The license plate will be used to generate educational interests through leadership development and career awareness activities. General registration fees will be lower than the California Ag plate costing $50 to start and $40 per year to renew the plate. Farmers and citizens alike can help support their agricultural followers by putting their California Agriculture plate on autos, commercial vehicles, and trailers.
Unfortunately the demand must be present prior to having the DMV product the plate. A minimum amount of 7500 registrants must apply prior. So please, Californians, get to your DMV and support the youth of tomorrow by getting your Calfornia Agriculture License Plate.
If you are looking for more information about the plate, you can visit www.calagplate.com.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Santa Barbara County Boasts Big Growth

From 2008 to 2009, many families, farms, and business saw terrible drops in wages, sales, and a raise in unemployment. One county though, pushed through recession bound California with flying colors. Santa Barbara County, which reported a 9.1% growth netted a little over $1.2 billion in agricultural production.

Santa Barbara’s cash cow, the strawberry, which rose $35 million since 2008 to $1.2 billion is by far the leading crop for the area. With such a calm climate, Santa Barbara produces a high amount of different crops as well, which has reached higher production. While Broccoli, which dropped $10 million, their wine grapes rose $51 million.

Along with other crops rising in production like Cauliflower, Avocados, Leaf lettuce, and cut flowers, it is nice to see somewhere in CA making a quality profit. Agroplasma says keep it up Santa Barbara!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Farmers Voices Heard Via AgChat

Nowadays, it seems ever so important for farmers to express their voice in the world. Recognizing this need, one group has come together to help that voice become heard.

AgChat, the only foundation of its kind is out helping farmers deliver their message. Via the connection of Social Media, AgChat Foundation offers services to enable growers to learn how to access agricultural online communities through social media sectors such as YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, or where the group originated, Twitter where AgChat holds weekly discussions.

The AgChat Foundation has four program areas focused on social media. First is the Agvocacy 2.0 Training: Which is designed to educate farmers through basic, mid-level & expert training to move mindsets up the technology ladder. They also have Strategic Agvocacy Coordination: which empowers agricultural voices through coordinated industry-wide efforts. They then have Data Analysis to provide tools to assist agvocates with targeted community efforts, and to top it off they also provide Technology Scholarships in order to equip farmers with infrastructure to enable full use of social media.

Last Friday, about 300 people sent tweets (Twitter message) and over 1,500 people accessed AgChat.org and reached over 1.4 million impressions.

Thank these ground breaking accomplishments to the growers/farmers and these board of directors.

• Chris Chinn, Farmer
• Jeff Fowle, Rancher
• Mark Gale, Agribusiness Liaison
• Eliz Greene, Consumer & Healthcare
• Darin Grimm, Farmer
• Mike Haley, Farmer
• Shaun Haney, Seedsman
• Michele Payn-Knoper, #AgChat Founder
• Ray Prock, Farmer
• Dr. Chris Raines, Extension
• Dr. Katherine Swift, Veterinarian
• Tricia Braid Terry, Check-off Representative
• Chuck Zimmerman, Agribusiness Liaison

For more information on the AgChat Foundation, visit www.agchat.org.