July 8th’s meeting brought together a number of organizations providing assistance to farmers and ranchers.  The presenters gave a 5 minute overview of programs and producers could speak one-on-one with them during the social hour that followed.  The presenters included: Mary Fahey of Colusa County Water Resources, Casey Ryan of Colusa County Air Pollution Control District, UC Farm Advisors Franz Niederholzer, Sarah Light, and Amber Vinchesi-Vahl, Emily Buerer of Community Alliance of Family Farmers (CAFF), Kitty Bolte of Xerces Society, Khara Strum of Audubon, Wendy Krehbiel of the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), Anastacia Allen of the Colusa County Ag Department, Lisa Lindman of the Sutter Buttes Land Trust and Liz Harper of Colusa County RCD. 

A few program highlights from the afternoon’s presentations.

Fahey with Water Resources gave an overview of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program, the Bay Delta Water Quality Control Plan and Sites Reservoir.  More information can be found here.

Ryan mentioned two grant programs producers can apply for. These programs included the Carl Moyer program, which replaces stationary Ag engines, and a tractor replacement program called FARMERS.  More information can be found here.

Allen, Assistant Ag Commissioner, reported the Ag Department is gearing up to perform Ag entities “Headquarter Audits” for having the appropriate employee training records, employee safety postings and compliant to other pesticide safety regulations.  Information to help prepare producers for audits that will occur post-harvest are available at the Ag Department. More information here.

UC Advisors introduced themselves and their respective specialties.

Buerer of CAFF highlighted their programs: composting on farms, Food Safety Training, Climate Smart Agriculture program that provides technical assistance and outreach for climate smart farm practices.  There next field day will be in Colusa County at Davis Ranches where they will discuss cover cropping in Walnut orchards. Details here.

Bolte spoke about Xerces’ newest certifying program is called Bee Better which is aimed to show that your farming practices are bee safe and can be marketed as such. Learn about it here.

Strum from Audubon works mainly in Colusa County with the water bird enhancement program yet is working on a Conservation Ranching Initiative certification program as well. Learn about it here.

It was a great way to spend the afternoon, many meaningful conversations came from it and we hope to do it again soon.

Appetizers were catered by Market Street Grill, a member of Colusa County Grown.