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“Human well-being is wrapped up with how food is produced. Ingenious systems were developed over the past century to supply food, with remarkable reliability, to a good portion of the world's 6.7 billion people. But these systems need a fundamental restructuring over the next few decades to establish sustainable food systems that both slow and are resilient to climate change.”

- Worldwatch Institute.
State of the World: Into a Warming World.
Chapter 3. 2009.

“It will take both individual actions, and partnerships at all scales, to change behaviors, industries and the way we think about our place in the world.”

- California Agriculture.
Editorial overview.
April-June 2009.

 

Need for Leadership
 

One third of all CO2 emissions globally come from agriculture and land use changes such as forest clearing. Fertilizer applications account for most all of the world's nitrous oxide emissions (298 times more potent than CO2), and agriculture contributes two-thirds of all methane emissions (25 times more potent than CO2). California is the twelfth largest producer of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the world, and agriculture is responsible for six percent of GHG emissions in California, according to the Scoping Plan pursuant to California's Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32). Solutions to the climate change challenge require a comprehensive and integrated approach that addresses food and farming as a system.

The vision for California's agricultural future that has long been articulated and modeled by sustainable agriculture provides powerful solutions to the climate crisis. These include practices and policies that minimize nitrogen-based fertilizer use, decrease tillage, increase biodiversity, conserve water, encourage local food production, protect farmland, produce on-farm renewable energy, and build the organic content of soil to sequester more carbon - all of which mitigate climate change.

Staff:

  • Renata Brillinger, Executive Director

    (707) 874-0316
  • Jeanne Merrill, Policy Director

    (916) 441-4042

Executive Committee Members:

Farmer Advisory Council:

  • Bruce Rominger, Rominger Brothers Farm
  • Craig McNamara, Sierra Orchard
  • David Gates, Ridge Vineyards
  • Joe Morris, Morris Grassfed Beef
  • John Anderson, Hedgerow Farms
  • Judith Redmond, Full Belly Farm
  • Russ Lester, Dixon Ridge Farms

 

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