Water shortages. Urbanization. Food Access. Cumbersome regulations. The list of challenges we face in ensuring a healthy future for farmers, their farms, and our food system in California goes on and on.  That is why the California State Board of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) embarked on the California Agricultural Vision (Ag Vision) — “a process to result in a strategic plan for the future of the state’s agriculture and food system.”

During the past year, the committee I co-chaired with CDFA Board Member, Luawanna Hallstrom, and managed by AFT’s California Director, Ed Thompson, convened a series of workshops for almost 100 agricultural leaders, environmentalists, farm labor representatives and hunger/nutrition advocates to start the process of charting a more sustainable course for the state’s agriculture industry and others who have a stake in it.  A set of draft policy options and discussions on long term challenges emerged from these workshops.

The following five recommendations for immediate action were recently completed by our 20-member blue ribbon advisory committee and accepted by the State Board of Food & Agriculture to help generate momentum toward a strategic plan:

• Smarter regulation of agriculture to improve environmental quality
• Better food access for California families in need
• Resource stewardship and conservation for long-term sustainability
• Fairness to agricultural workers and employers
• Regional food marketing opportunities

As a California rancher, to me the urgent need to address our farm and food issues in a comprehensive manner is clear –  and I look forward to the work ahead as the advisory committee develops short-term steps that can be taken this fall to start dealing with the highest priority issues.

All Californians are being called upon to submit comments through August 20th on the full list of policy options.

About the Author: Ralph Grossi, a third-generation Marin County, California farmer, is the former  president of American Farmland Trust.

Before I came to American Farmland Trust, I was the Counselor to the Administrator for Agricultural Policy at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). One of my primary efforts at EPA was to start the first-ever agricultural advisory committee for the agency so that they might advise the agency on how environmental policy issues affect farms, ranches and rural communities.

Why? To foster a better understanding between farmers and the EPA so that each group might have a better sense of the challenges each face in their work.

Nearly 150 people from farmers, ranchers, rural suppliers, academics who study agricultural and environmental issues and others applied to be on the committee for a two-year term, with a diverse group of 29 selected to make up the group. Our former president, Ralph Grossi, just completed a term—and I was glad to have someone from American Farmland Trust on the advisory board.

The group was charged with several tasks: to help the agency understand the effects on agriculture of EPA programs, policies and regulations related to climate change and renewable energy; to help develop a national environmental strategy for livestock operations; and to find a framework to address the common interests between sustainable agriculture and protection of the environment.

I learned a lot from this experience. First, that the agency and farmers are challenged to communicate because each group has a very different language and lots of acronyms for describing their work and what they want to accomplish. Second—both face challenges—one group in running viable farms and ranches, the other in running a regulatory agency with lots of statutorily prescribed duties. An important perspective that the advisory group brings is to help the agency find ways to meet its environmental goals in ways that will allow farmers to remain profitable.

But I also learned that after all is said and done, both groups have a common goal: to leave the land better than when they started.

As a second group of citizens from across the country are selected to serve on EPA’s Farm, Ranch and Rural Communities Federal Advisory Committee, I have some words of wisdom to share:  a common understanding isn’t something that always comes overnight. Stick with the process—after a few meetings, you’ll have developed stronger relationships and better solutions to the very real environmental issues we face in our country.

About the Author: Jon Scholl is President of American Farmland Trust. Prior to AFT, he served as Counselor to the Administrator for Agriculture Policy at the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Jon and his family operate a corn and soybean farm in McLean County, Illinois.

Way to go, Pennsylvanians! In 2009, Pennsylvania’s commonwealth and county governments invested $50 million in farmland protection. With that kind of help, Pennsylvania and its residents were able to preserve over 21,500 acres of farmland on 232 farms. That brings the state’s all-time total to 425,000 acres of protected farmland – more than any other state in the nation.

Within Pennsylvania, significant all-time farmland protection milestones were also crossed this year in Berks, Bucks, Franklin and Lancaster counties.

Pennsylvanians farmland protection success illustrates what can be accomplished when governments, organizations and active citizens work together to save the land that sustains us.

Pennsylvania is one of only a handful of state governments with a Bureau of Farmland Protection. The state’s well-funded purchase of agricultural easement program is run through county governments with local ties that recognize the important role of agriculture in their communities, and the threat of development to their longstanding sense of place. And active citizens and non-profit groups, like the Pennsylvania Farmland Preservation Association and Lancaster Farmland Trust, work at the grassroots to organize and educate agricultural landowners and their neighbors on how to secure a bright future for farmers and farmland.

We are proud of the progress that Pennsylvania has made and will continue our efforts to make this kind of success a reality in communities across the nation.

If you are interested in the history of farmland protection, particularly how agriculture land trusts are able to protect our nation’s working lands, listen to this recent interview on An Organic Conversation featuring our former president and a leader in the farmland protection movement, Ralph Grossi.

Or visit American Famland Trust’s Pennsylvania state page

About the Author: Jim Baird is Mid-Atlantic Director for the American Farmland Trust