Conversations

Hi all,

Are you overwhelmed thinking about how to face a future of intensifying wildfires? Join our newest 7 week online course: “Farmers Build Fire Resilience, Feb 13-March 26 2020” to help you face a future of fires. Free to farmers and ranchers, though anyone interested may join as well. By the end of the course, you’ll have built your own Resilience Plan specific to your site that you can start applying right away.

Last Call - Sign up and Reserve your Space

Feel free to reach out with questions to fires@mesaprogram.org. We look forward to learning with you!

Topics Include: Land Management for Fire Preparedness & Mitigation Emergency Response Preparing Your Home, Farm Crew, Family & Livestock Community Preparedness & Organizing for Recovery Fires & Finances Health & Food Safety Understanding Fire Ecology

Katie Brimm and the Fires Resilience Team

With the current issues about fire, and air permits and insurance, we are going to have to move away from flame weeding.

Wondering if anyone has experience with steam as a weed top kill agent ? a couple weekly cycles and that should eventually starve the roots. Anyone have a system for hire, or maybe consider shared ownership or tool library. $17K for weeding 6x a year is steep..

Hi Folks,

Overwhelmed thinking about how to face a future of intensifying wildfires? Did October’s fires have you wondering if your farm, ranch and community know how to prepare, adapt or recover?

You’re not alone. With 65 years of combined experience working with farmers, MESA and CAFF/The Farmers Guild have worked hard to bring you an innovative, farmer-centered, holistic online course and network, “Farmers Build Fire Resilience, Feb 13-March 26 2020” to help farmers and ranchers face a future of fires.

By the end of the course, you’ll have built your own Resilience Plan that you can start applying right away. Free to farmers and ranchers in California.

Register Here and See Full Course Details Here

Feel free to reach out with questions to fires@mesaprogram.org. We look forward to learning with you!

Katie Brimm and the Fires Resilience Team

We ran it and tested it in my Sunol field yesterday. I would describe it as an autonomous universal tool carrying platform.

Demos in CA, AZ and hopefully NV. Ping me if you would like to host a demo or attend a demo(this week in Bay Area and one in watsonville)..it’s going to Bakersfield from there and Yuma for a bit before coming back to CA. I am helping to co ordinate northern Cali demos.

For now, we have a rotovator and sprayer. Looking for a seeder to rent for the demo. Bed width 80inches. Can’t pull high draft like ripper or subsoiler, but works with most PTO implements and those using three point hitch.

I can’t seem to attach the video I took yesterday. Will try again.

cant upload. But this is a YouTube link: https://youtu.be/oQb9qngmCoY

Penny Leff, Agritourism Coordinator of UC SAREP, announced two new guides: Guest Lodging on Your California Farm or Ranch , and The Big Event: Hosting a Festival on your California Farm .

Penny Leff, Agritourism Coordinator of UC SAREP, announced two new guides: Guest Lodging on Your California Farm or Ranch , and The Big Event: Hosting a Festival on your California Farm .

The Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) and the Farmers Guild is hosting a Small Farm Tech Expo December 8-9 in Forestville, where we’ll showcase technology, equipment, and tools useful for small to mid-scale farms through workshops and demonstrations.

We’re looking for farmers and ranchers, technical advisors, and industry folks familiar with solar, irrigation management tools and tech, and/or whole orchard recycling who are interested in hosting or participating in a one hour workshop on December 9. For industry representatives, we’re looking for someone who can speak to specific considerations around choosing and managing a system or technology for the farm without explicitly promoting a specific product. Growers and ranchers, we want to hear about what tools and tech you've used as well!

You can submit a workshop proposal through this link

If you’re interested in being part of the expo or have any questions, please reach out to emily@caff.org.

Howdy Farmers,

I am looking for specific tractor models, old or new (manufacturer, model, and year) that veggie growers have really liked, so that I can search them used on TractorHouse. Our situation is this...

My partner and I are tooling up to break ground on a 6-8 acre, diverse vegetable CSA in Sebastopol. We are researching tractors, and deep into the classic "one tractor conundrum". With the ability to only afford one tractor, we would like to have a versatile one. We'd like it to be able to do primary tillage, as well as has have properly spaced and thin enough tires to get it into our shaped beds to help renovate beds for second-plantings (to undercut, disc, rototill, or spade), to weed the furrows and to possibly flame-weed (if we can find a 60" tractor mounted flame weeder). We will cultivate in-row manually the first years.

Our requirements are: ~50 horsepower, 4WD, 60" center-to-center tread

Howdy Farmers,

I am looking for specific tractor models, old or new (manufacturer, model, and year) that veggie growers have really liked, so that I can search them used on TractorHouse. Our situation is this...

My partner and I are tooling up to break ground on a 6-8 acre, diverse vegetable CSA in Sebastopol. We are researching tractors, and deep into the classic "one tractor conundrum". With the ability to only afford one tractor, we would like to have a versatile one. We'd like it to be able to do primary tillage, as well as has have properly spaced and thin enough tires to get it into our shaped beds to help renovate beds for second-plantings (to undercut, disc, rototill, or spade), to weed the furrows and to possibly flame-weed (if we can find a 60" tractor mounted flame weeder). We will cultivate in-row manually the first years.

Our requirements are: ~50 horsepower, 4WD, 60" center-to-center tread spacing with thin <13" rear tires, a front end loader, and gearing or a transmission that can go slow enough to run a spader. We could pay ~$30k for the right machine.

This tractor does exist new. It is the Kubota M7060 outfitted with a creeper gear and thin 12.6" rear tires. Shone Farm in Santa Rosa and New Family Farm in Sebastopol have this tractor. But at $50k, this is outside of our budget, and is too much tractor for our site and scale.

I have looked at cheaper new Kubotas (L and MX series) and John Deeres (5E series), but while some of them meet many of the requirements, one key element is missed. For example, the John Deere 5055E is the right horsepower and size, 4wd, can have a loader, but it's lowest gear is a touch fast at .9mph, and right now our dealer is essentially saying "not possible" for thin rear tires.

I'm seeking advice, and if farmers could share specefic model numbers and years, of any "Goldilocks" tractors they have used and loved @60" spacing, with low gearing.

Thank you!

David

Small-scale/ Backyard Livestock and Poultry Survey

If you have backyard livestock or poultry or are a small-scale producer of livestock or poultry, this survey is for you. This questionnaire asks about the specific practices and perceptions that you apply to your animals’ health, husbandry, and antimicrobial use. It is being conducted for research and outreach purposes in order to find better ways to serve people and communities with backyard and small-scale livestock or poultry.

Conducted by the University of California Cooperative Extension and the School of Veterinary Medicine and funded by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, this survey will take about 20 minutes to complete. Provided information will be kept strictly confidential. We will not connect your name with your responses.

Originally created as part of the Healthy Animals,Healthy Peopleworkshop series in California, the

Small-scale/ Backyard Livestock and Poultry Survey

If you have backyard livestock or poultry or are a small-scale producer of livestock or poultry, this survey is for you. This questionnaire asks about the specific practices and perceptions that you apply to your animals’ health, husbandry, and antimicrobial use. It is being conducted for research and outreach purposes in order to find better ways to serve people and communities with backyard and small-scale livestock or poultry.

Conducted by the University of California Cooperative Extension and the School of Veterinary Medicine and funded by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, this survey will take about 20 minutes to complete. Provided information will be kept strictly confidential. We will not connect your name with your responses.

Originally created as part of the Healthy Animals,Healthy Peopleworkshop series in California, the survey is now open to all owners and small-scale producers of livestock and poultry in California regardless of workshop attendance. We would appreciate your time and participation in this survey, accessible here.

Thank you,

Alda Pires

apires@ucdavis.edu

With the California wildfire season already heating up, the Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture is teaming up with CAFF & The Farmers Guild to host an online fire resilience course for farmers and ranchers in 2019.

Are you actively farming or ranching? We want to create a course that serves you and those threatened and impacted by fires, so we're seeking your feedback to help us best develop this program.

It takes less than 5 minutes! We take your feedback seriously - your responses will shape the content and design of this course.

Take the Needs Assessment Here

Thank you in advance for your support building fire resilience,

Katie and The MESA Team

Questions? Email katie@mesaprogram.org

For our records! ~ The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the results of the 2017 Census of Agriculture, spanning some 6.4 million new points of information about America's farms and ranches and those who operate them, including new data about on-farm decision making, down to the county level.

Information collected by USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) directly from farmers and ranchers shows both farm numbers and land in farms have ongoing small percentage declines since the last Census in 2012. At the same time, there continue to be more of the largest and smallest operations and fewer middle-sized farms. The average age of all farmers and ranchers continues to rise.

“We are pleased to deliver Census of Agriculture results to America, and especially to the farmers and ranchers who participated,” said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue. “We can all use the Census

For our records! ~ The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the results of the 2017 Census of Agriculture, spanning some 6.4 million new points of information about America's farms and ranches and those who operate them, including new data about on-farm decision making, down to the county level.

Information collected by USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) directly from farmers and ranchers shows both farm numbers and land in farms have ongoing small percentage declines since the last Census in 2012. At the same time, there continue to be more of the largest and smallest operations and fewer middle-sized farms. The average age of all farmers and ranchers continues to rise.

“We are pleased to deliver Census of Agriculture results to America, and especially to the farmers and ranchers who participated,” said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue. “We can all use the Census to tell the tremendous story of U.S. agriculture and how it is changing. As a data-driven organization, we are eager to dig in to this wealth of information to advance our goals of supporting farmers and ranchers, facilitating rural prosperity, and strengthening stewardship of private lands efficiently, effectively, and with integrity.”

“The Census shows new data that can be compared to previous censuses for insights into agricultural trends and changes down to the county level,” said NASS Administrator Hubert Hamer. “While the current picture shows a consistent trend in the structure of U.S. agriculture, there are some ups and downs since the last Census as well as first-time data on topics such as military status and on-farm decisionmaking. To make it easier to delve into the data, we are pleased to make the results available in many online formats including a new data query interface, as well as traditional data tables.”

Census data provide valuable insights into demographics, economics, land and activities on U.S. farms and ranches.

Some key highlights include:

• There are 2.04 million farms and ranches (down 3.2% from 2012) with an average size of 441 acres (up 1.6%) on 900 million acres (down 1.6%).
• The 273,000 smallest (1-9 acres) farms make up 0.1% of all farmland while the 85,127 largest (2,000 or more acres) farms make up 58% of farmland.
• Just 105,453 farms produced 75% of all sales in 2017, down from 119,908 in 2012.
• Of the 2.04 million farms and ranches, the 76,865 making $1 million or more in 2017 represent just over two-thirds of the $389 billion in total value of production while the 1.56 million operations making under $50,000 represent just 2.9%.
• Farm expenses are $326 billion with feed, livestock purchased, hired labor, fertilizer and cash rents topping the list of farm expenses in 2017.
• Average farm income is $43,053. A total of 43.6% of farms had positive net cash farm income in 2017.
• Ninety-six percent of farms and ranches are family owned.
• Farms with Internet access rose from 69.6% in 2012 to 75.4% in 2017.
• A total of 133,176 farms and ranches use renewable energy producing systems, more than double the 57,299 in 2012.
• In 2017, 130,056 farms sold directly to consumers, with sales of $2.8 billion.
• Sales to retail outlets, institutions and food hubs by 28,958 operations are valued at $9 billion.

For the 2017 Census of Agriculture, NASS changed the demographic questions to better represent the roles of all persons involved in on-farm decision making. As a result, in 2017 the number of producers is up by nearly 7% to 3.4 million, because more farms reported multiple producers. Most of the newly identified producers are female. While the number of male producers fell 1.7% to 2.17 million from 2012 to 2017, the number of female producers increased by nearly 27% to 1.23 million.

Other demographic highlights include:

• The average age of all producers is 57.5, up 1.2 years from 2012.
• The number of producers who have served in the military is 370,619, or 11% of all. They are older than the average at 67.9.
• There are 321,261 young producers age 35 or less on 240,141 farms. Farms with young producers making decisions tend to be larger than average in both acres and sales.
• More than any other age group, young producers make decisions regarding livestock, though the difference is slight.
• One in four producers is a beginning farmer with 10 or fewer years of experience and an average age of 46.3 years. Farms with new or beginning producers making decisions tend to be smaller than average in both acres and value of production.
• Thirty-six percent of all producers are female and 56% of all farms have at least one female decision-maker. Farms with female producers making decisions tend to be smaller than average in both acres and value of production.
• Female producers are most heavily engaged in the day-to-day decisions along with record keeping and financial management.

Results are available in many online formats including video presentations, a new data query interface, maps, and traditional data tables. All information is available at http://www.nass.usda.gov/AgCensus.

NASS sends questionnaires to nearly 3 million potential U.S. farms and ranches. Nearly 25 percent of those who responded did so online.