Below are farmer, rancher and farmworker resources for coping with the several challenges facing our agricultural system today such as drought, heat, wildfire, and mental health.

¿Busca recursos relacionados con la inmigración? Se pueden encontrar en esta página.
Looking for immigration-related resources? They can be found on this page.

General Resources

  • The National Healthy Soils Policy Network has launched a public resources page to share a sampling of the tools and strategies powering farmer-led soil health campaigns across the country. The Living Healthy Soils Knowledge Base is an extensive internal library that serves as a collective memory and strategy toolkit for advocates. Examples of resources are a searchable library of toolkits, reports, and key articles related to healthy soils campaigns, an overview of policy types and their strategic value, a directory of enacted state legislation establishing state Healthy Soils Programs, a curated list of “podcasts worth digging into,” and much more.
  • CalAgroClimate, is an online decision support tool to help farmers make production decisions regarding heat risk, frost risk, pests and crop phenology by integrating historical weather data, forecast information and crop-specific information.
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Drought

Below are some resources for coping with the effects of drought for farmers and ranchers.

  • The state has a Drought Preparedness website with links to current conditions – including reservoir, snowpack and precipitation summaries. The website also includes current state actions.
  • California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Drought Assistance includes updates on state actions and activities as they relate to farmers and ranchers and relevant funding.
  • California Water Boards Drought Information & Updates has regional drought information and other resources for Californians.
  • U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency – several disaster assistance programs provide funding for producers affected by drought in disaster declared areas.
  • USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) drought assistance website includes steps farmers and ranchers can take to be more resilient in the face of drought, including:
    1. creating a conservation plan for managing water resources
    2. finding financial and technical assistance through NRCS
    3. cultivating healthy soils
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Flood

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Heat

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Wildfire

Agricultural Solutions to Wildfire

  • Learn more about policy solutions to scale up agricultural solutions to wildfire resilience in our blog series:
    Part 1 – controlled burns.
    Part 2 – prescribed grazing.
    Part 3 – improving access to farms and ranches during wildfire events.
    Part 4 – improved working conditions for farmworkers.
  • CalCAN hosted a webinar series, exploring two solutions in more depth: managed grazing and controlled burns.
  • See the below list for resources for farmers and ranchers to prepare for and recover from wildfires. Track active fires, number of incidents year-to-date, acres burned and more on CalFire’s Incident page.

Wildfire Preparedness

Wildfire Recovery

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Mental Health

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Federal Freeze

At CalCAN, we are concerned about the impacts that many Trump administration actions are having on California agriculture and on efforts here and across the country to support producers with resources to make their farms and ranches more environmentally sustainable, more resilient to climate change, and to improve the health of their communities and workers. 

In the face of so much uncertainty and chaos, we are launching a monthly “Federal Bulletin” to share what we are reading and tracking. This will not be an exhaustive summary but rather will focus mainly on developments relevant to California at the nexus of agriculture, climate change and social justice. The Bulletin will appear regularly in our monthly newsletter and on this page.

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