California Ag Network

Tag: SGMA

  • New Report on Intersection of SGMA and Cover Crop Water Use in California’s Central Valley

    A multi-disciplinary authorship group of over 30 individuals has published a report comprised of literature review, policy analysis, and recommendations pertaining to the water impacts of cover crop practices in California’s Central Valley under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).

    The report, entitled “Cover Cropping in the SGMA Era,” is the product of a convening process jointly developed by the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts (CARCD), California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), Natural Resources Conservation Service of California (NRCS-CA), and University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) and assembled by Sustainable Conservation.

    Cover Crops and their Potential

    Cover crops are non-income generating crops that are used to protect and improve the soil between regular annual crop production (such as tomatoes), or between rows of perennial tree and vine crops. The benefits of cover cropping include improved pollinator habitat, infiltration, water storage, carbon capture, and soil health, as well as decreased runoff and erosion – all vital factors in California’s changing agricultural context. These potential benefits are especially salient in the San Joaquin Valley (SJV), where groundwater challenges are more acute. Thus, this report evaluates the water implications of cover cropping practices to lay the groundwork for their adoption in the context of SGMA.

    Report Findings and Recommendations

    To understand the potential of cover cropping under SGMA, the report’s authors came together to answer the following questions:

    1. What are the impacts of cover crops on water cycles (both benefits and use) for California farms?
    2. How does SGMA management account for cover cropping and is it capturing cover crop benefits alongside their water use?
    3. How can we ensure that this practice remains available to growers where and when it makes sense?

    This report synthesizes the learnings from the collaborative initiative including 100+ multidisciplinary experts, a policy analysis, interviews with Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) staff and consultants, and the expertise contributed by its 30+ authors. In light of these findings, the report advances a series of recommendations aimed at bridging critical knowledge gaps, enhancing the integration of cover crops into policies and incentive programs, and bolstering data infrastructure and other mechanisms to support sustainable groundwater management initiatives. One vital throughline is the need for additional guidance from the state to support local GSAs in facing the complex challenges of developing and implementing groundwater management strategies for their local watersheds. These measures aim to maximize the water benefits of cover crops within SGMA frameworks and promote sustainable water management practices crucial for the region’s agricultural resilience and environmental health.

    Side-by-side of Donny Hick’s almond orchard without (left) and with (right) cover crops after a big rain event

    Testimonials

    “Cover crops are one of the most popular practices we see farmers employ through our Healthy Soils Program,” said Karen Ross, Secretary of the CDFA. “Cover crops supply a host of benefits, such as helping to protect against soil erosion, improving soil health, crowding out weeds, controlling pests and diseases, and increasing biodiversity; and they can bring increased profitability as the number of other inputs are reduced. They also provide water benefits such as improved infiltration and reduced runoff. Yes, cover crops require a nominal amount of water to establish – and sometimes rainwater is sufficient — but the myriad co-benefits are worth it.”

    “This report is unique because the University collaborated closely with state agencies and private sector partners to ensure that the different perspectives provided both the best science available as well as viable policy options,” said Glenda Humiston, University of California Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR). “By taking a comprehensive view, we can advance recommendations for cover crop policy that help us meet multiple goals, manage our natural resources more effectively, and avoid unintended consequences.”

    “Cover crops are a valuable soil health practice that can help ensure the resilience of California farms to climate extremes,” said Sarah Light, UC Cooperative Extension Agronomy Farm Advisor. “As we balance the complexities of water and soil management, it is important to understand the role that cover crops play in an annual water budget so that they are not disincentivized in certain parts of the state. UC ANR expert participants provided science-based information during the convening sessions and co-authored the white paper. This paper can provide guidance to GSAs and policy makers who are charged with implementing SGMA in their regions.”

    View the Executive Summary

    View the Full Report

  • California Growers Celebrate Legislative Win Supporting Groundwater Recharge

    Last Fall, Governor Newsom signed SB 659, The California Water Supply Solutions Act of 2023, sponsored by the California Association of Winegrape Growers and the Regional Water Authority in Sacramento.  But what does this mean for California farmers implementing groundwater recharge practices in the coming months?  Watch this video with Michael Miiller from the California Association of Winegrape Growers to find out.

  • LandFlex Succeeds as an Incentivizing Farmer-Driven Solution for SGMA Compliance

    Permanently retiring millions of acres of productive California farmland is not a solution the growing world population needs right now.  That is why a new program, known as LandFlex was created, providing an alternative solution to assist farmers in meeting the requirements of SGMA. Millions of dollars of LandFlex funding have recently been awarded to serve farmers within critically overdrafted basins of California.  Watch this video with Anja Raudabaugh, CEO Western United Dairies, to learn more about the success of the program.

    Please thank this video’s sponsor afimilk for their industry support.

  • Application Deadline Approaching for On-Farm Water Recharge Incentive Funding

    It’s very important for California farmers to know that not only will there be more funding available in the next round of the NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), but the application deadline is coming much earlier this year. And for growers that are interested in getting some incentive funding for participating in on-farm groundwater recharge, applications are due by Nov. 3rd. Watch this brief interview with Wendy Rash from NRCS to learn more.

    Please thank this video’s sponsor afimilk for their industry support.

  • NRCS Incentive Funding for On-farm Groundwater Recharge Projects

    As drought conditions persist in California, farmers are making the most of every drop of water they use. However, there may be more they can do during the rainy season to put water back into the ground with assistance of the USDA-NRCS.  Watch this brief interview with California Water Quality Specialist Wendy Rash to find out.

    Please thank this video’s sponsor Suterra for their industry support.

  • Tree Nut Grower Invests in Groundwater Recharge

    While much is expected of the state in resolving California’s water crisis, farmers are trying to do their part as well in conserving water for the future. Watch this brief interview with Tipton pistachio grower Dominic Pitigliano as he talks about his family’s groundwater recharge project. Read more in Pacific Nut Producer Magazine.
    Please thank this video’s sponsor Suterra for their industry support.

  • California Ag Coalition Requests Immediate State Action on Water Needs

    Due to an economically crippling drought and the overwhelming regulatory demands of California, several agricultural groups formed a coalition and recently sent a letter to the governor and state legislature, both informing them of the challenges impacting farming families and requesting immediate action and funding to boost water storage and supplies. Watch this brief interview with Emily Rooney from the Ag Council of California as she explains.
    Please thank this video’s sponsor Suterra for their industry support.

  • Could Rangeland Return to the Central Valley?

    Public Policy Institute of California — California’s farmers are struggling to irrigate their crops during the current severe drought. At the same time, they’re in the early days of a major longer-term transition that will see them using less water overall to safeguard the long-term availability of groundwater, under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). A significant amount of irrigated farmland in the Central Valley—including many fruit and nut trees—will need to come out of production over the next two decades to help bring local groundwater basins into balance. This fallowing will have both environmental and economic consequences. Converting formerly irrigated farmland into rangeland—one of its historical uses—is one possible alternative to fallowing. It would keep the land economically productive, and the transition might bring other benefits—including avoiding some of the negative consequences of fallowing.

    We spoke with two experts about converting former orchards back into rangeland: University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) farm advisor Theresa Becchetti and UCCE county director and natural resources advisor Fadzayi Mashiri, who work in Stanislaus, Merced, and Mariposa Counties. They made it clear that establishing functioning rangelands on these lands will require coordination, complex decision-making, and concerted investment.

    Will ranchers be interested in grazing their animals on fallowed orchards? What would be the consequences of such a transition?

    Theresa Becchetti: There would definitely be interest in that. The Central Valley has a shortage of grazing lands available, and it gets competitive to find a lease. If there’s an opportunity, people will be waiting to fill it.

    Fadzayi Mashiri: The downside is that growers will lose the high economic returns that come from almonds and other orchard crops. These production systems offer as much as 10 times more economic returns than rangelands. But if the alternative is fallow, then rangelands have several upsides. They support more plant diversity, which is really important, especially when talking about mitigating climate change and ecosystem function and stability. Rangelands also offer habitat for wildlife and impact hydrology. Our research shows that conventional almond orchard management can lead to soil compaction, which means less water infiltration rates into the soil.

    What are some constraints to establishing functional rangeland on formerly irrigated cropland?

    TB: For the land manager, the big thing is cost. If it’s trees, there’s the cost of pulling out those trees, chipping and hauling them offsite, or keeping them on-site. There’s the cost of removing all that black plastic drip irrigation tape. There are infrastructure costs: interior fencing would have been pulled out. Perimeter fences would likely need to be rebuilt. And you’d need to replace water troughs—they’ve all been removed from orchards. The land will probably need some inputs to give it more plant diversity and livestock forage options. One advantage is that orchards have gotten rid of one invasive grass that’s predominant on rangelands: Medusahead grass. So we could start from a cleaner slate.

    FM: For ecologists, the issue is ecosystem integrity. We expect certain functions from rangelands, like plant diversity, water infiltration, and wildlife habitat. If orchards transition to rangelands, will we get those functions back? If so, at what level and how fast? We’ll definitely have to replant and add more species. We may not have the native grasses rangelands did historically, but we’d bring them closer to that by making sure diverse plant groups are represented.

    Are environmental regulations—which are intended to protect the integrity of ecosystems—hampering important land use transitions?

    TB: To me it’s not necessarily so much about regulations as policy. For example, for carbon-smart agriculture programs, the policy requires native perennial grasses on rangelands. But I’ve tried to plant natives and have not been successful—we just don’t get enough precipitation. I don’t think we can get back to perennials, even with a lot of inputs and herbicides. Policy changes that would allow more flexibility might help.

    FM: We have to really pay attention to the intended use and select plant species that can meet it. We need to add enough diversity, including nitrogen-fixing plants, deep-rooted perennials, and annual plants that are adapted to the area. That diversity will prevent soil erosion, build soil carbon, and build ecosystem stability in the areas that we’re trying to restore.

    What could make the transition from irrigated farmland to rangelands easier?

    TB: We need to work on paying for things like wildlife habitat and plant diversity; that will help level the playing field a little bit. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has some incentives: if you manage transitioning land with seeding, rotational grazing, etc. to increase wildlife habitat and plant diversity, you can get a payment for Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), but payments are not equivalent to profit from orchards. Are there opportunities for other payments for ecosystem services?

    What’s the big picture takeaway?

    FM: Landscape-level planning and climate-smart management strategies are needed because all these landscapes, although under the different land uses, are connected. Currently, we’re headed in the wrong direction. One piece of well-managed land will not help under these climatic conditions—we need more coordinated, integrated, and holistic efforts.

    —By Caitlin Peterson, Public Policy Institute of California

  • Water in 2021: Looking Back on a Year of Extremes

    In California, 2021 was a year that climate change hit home. The increasingly frequent, warmer droughts that climate scientists have been predicting have arrived. Although this past December brought some welcome storms, California remains in the grips of an historic, fast-moving drought that has followed close on the heels of the last one. The non-partisan PPIC Water Policy Center tackled the thorny issues of this moment—as we often do—by providing data and analysis to inform tough conversations about managing drought today and into the future.

    In May, for example, we hosted a virtual event, “Is California Ready for Drought?,” which examined how to avoid the worst outcomes. We forecast where drinking water wells were likely to go dry this year and next, in an effort to help communities better plan for the future. And then we looked at solutions, releasing an updated fact sheet about groundwater recharge, one of the best hedges against drought.

    But we didn’t just look at the human impacts of the drought, we also examined the severe costs to wildlife and the environment. Our researchers, with 2021-22 CalTrout Ecosystem Fellow Sarah Null and other partners, wrote about the challenges facing reservoir operators, who are struggling to manage water effectively for both people and the environment. And we released Advancing Ecosystem Restoration with Smarter Permitting, a report examining how the state could speed ecosystem restoration efforts to meet the biodiversity crisis head-on.

    The state experienced yet another year of record-breaking fires, driven by decades of fire suppression and fuel build-up, made worse by higher temperatures and the lack of rainfall. We evaluated current forest stewardship efforts and brought together a panel of experts to discuss both what’s possible and what’s needed to better protect the state from catastrophic wildfire. We followed that event with a four-part blog series that laid out how to build capacity for long-term forest stewardship. And we interviewed one of the state’s premier experts on forest fires: UC Berkeley’s inimitable Scott Stevens.

    As California confronts its many water and headwater forest challenges, it faces yet another controversial question: how to pay for needed changes. We released fact sheets about water affordability and paying for California’s water system, two increasingly urgent issues. We championed the importance of ensuring access to safe drinking water, including for California’s tribes. And we released Groundwater and Urban Growth in the San Joaquin Valley, a report that looks at how to ensure a smooth transition for the valley’s groundwater-dependent cities and suburbs as the region adapts to less groundwater pumping under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).

    We also took the conversation around California’s water system in new directions. Improving California’s Water Market looked at how both water trading and formal programs to store water underground could help water users manage scarcity; the report also laid out practical ways for local, state, and federal agencies to make the process easier. And we explored top priorities for California’s water, recommending a swifter transition to groundwater sustainability and other urgent actions.

    California faces serious challenges around water—and the ground is shifting beneath our feet. As the panelists at our fall policy conference on responding to the changing climate noted, it’s time to think big and look for effective, equitable solutions. And apparently, many of you agreed: we saw between 1,200-1,500 registrants for each day of our three-day virtual conference. We gathered a stellar group of panelists that included Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources; Tim Ramirez of the Central Valley Flood Protection Board; Rosemary Menard of the City of Santa Cruz; Don Cameron of Terranova Ranch; and Adel Hagekhalil of the Metropolitan Water District. They spoke about what’s keeping water managers up at night, whether it’s making our infrastructure climate-ready, paying for a resilient water system, or embracing transformative change.

    We know that changes are coming in water, and we need to prepare. We also know that PPIC must remain a non-partisan, trusted source of information for difficult debates about our water future. This year, we will take on some vexing problems, including how to store water for the environment, how to prepare better for drought, and how to manage land transitions as irrigated cropland declines in our warming, drying climate.

    All this work relies upon you, our ever-expanding family of agency staff, community and environmental groups, growers, researchers, water managers, and others. We appreciate your help, your engagement with our work, and your willingness to listen to our analyses and ideas. We couldn’t do this without you.

    Finally, look to our weekly blog to keep you up to date on pressing issues in water and watershed health. Who knows—if this winter continues to be wet, we may get to write about too much water for a change! — By Ellen Hanak, Public Policy Institute of California

  • Improving California’s Water Market

    Water trading and banking are important tools that can help California bring its groundwater basins into balance by the early 2040s, as mandated by the 2014 Sustainable Water Management Act (SGMA). But the expansion of the state’s water market still faces some bottlenecks, including aging infrastructure and complex regulations. The stakes for preserving California’s groundwater are rising, however, as is interest in improving the state’s water market.

    “Groundwater…is a really important drought reserve for California,” said Ellen Hanak, director of the PPIC Water Policy Center, at a virtual event last week. “By the time you get into the second and third dry year, you really need to lean on your groundwater very heavily. One of the challenges in California is that we’ve been leaning on it too heavily.”

    Water trading and banking can help. Hanak and PPIC research fellow Andrew Ayres convened a panel to discuss a new report about how to improve the state’s water market in order to aid SGMA implementation and increase drought resilience across the state.

    “Water trading, whether it’s temporary, over a long-term basis, or a permanent sale, can significantly lower the cost of managing water demand,” said Hanak. She said flexible water trading within the San Joaquin Valley, for example, could reduce the cost of getting basins into balance by about two-thirds—thereby saving jobs and preserving the region’s economy. Groundwater banking is also a key tool for augmenting the water supply and managing increasing climatic risk, she said.

    But creating effective and responsible water markets within the state will take work. Andrew Ayres moderated a discussion with three experts about the challenges and opportunities they face.

    Kathy Cortner, general manager of the Mojave Water Agency, described her basin as something of a groundwater success story. After an adjudication process that lasted six years, the basin entered into a judgment in 1996. “What that judgment did was set the framework for allocating a base water right. Over time, the judgment called for a rampdown…it provides a path for people to adjust to a declining amount of water to pump.” There were difficult years, she said, but trading allowed farmers to adjust gradually.

    Stephanie Anagnoson of Madera County says her county has land in three sub-basins. The county is the lead groundwater sustainability agency (GSA) for ground-water dependent lands in these basins. The GSA has been working to address groundwater overdraft through a portfolio of programs, including aggressive recharge activities and land repurposing. It is also one of the first to adopt groundwater allocations under SGMA. “What would have been helpful for us was step-by-step [information] on how to develop an allocation, because that took about two years,” Anagnoson said. “And while there are some white papers, there certainly wasn’t state guidance on that.” The GSA has also been exploring the establishment of a groundwater market for trading allocations of sustainable yield—initially with a tool that allows water users to simulate trading.

    Thaddeus Bettner of Glenn Colusa Irrigation District said that despite glitches with water markets, things are improving. “DWR has been great about funding the development of our GSPs…We really appreciate the groundwater division in DWR for that effort,” he said. Furthermore, “DWR and the Bureau of Reclamation have also developed on an online approval process [for surface water transfers] that has been really helpful to expedite the process.” Still, hurdles remain.

    Near the end of the discussion, Ellen Hanak shared the news that 15 minutes before the event began, the governor had signed several bills that include money for improving the state’s water resilience, including a new program for multi-benefit farmland repurposing under SGMA. “I know it’s small, but it’s a piece of good news,” she said, ending the event on a positive note for a drought-plagued state.

    We invite you to watch the event video. — By Sarah Bardeen, Public Policy Institute of California