{"id":14493,"date":"2021-03-02T10:00:50","date_gmt":"2021-03-02T18:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calcanstaging.kinsta.cloud\/?p=14493"},"modified":"2021-03-01T15:33:50","modified_gmt":"2021-03-01T23:33:50","slug":"wildfire-solutions-for-agriculture-part-3-improving-access-to-farms-and-ranches-during-wildfire-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calclimateag.org\/es\/wildfire-solutions-for-agriculture-part-3-improving-access-to-farms-and-ranches-during-wildfire-events\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildfire Solutions for Agriculture, Part 3: Improving Access to Farms and Ranches During Wildfire Events"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: This is the third blog in a 4-part series on solutions to address the impacts of wildfire on agricultural communities. The <\/em>first blog<\/em><\/a> covered controlled burns. The <\/em>second blog<\/em><\/a> covered prescribed grazing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Wildfires often result in road closures, evacuation orders, and restricted areas that pose a variety of challenges to farmers and ranchers, including preventing them from irrigating their crops or watering, feeding, sheltering, and transporting their livestock. Sometimes these orders and restrictions prevent farmers and ranchers from sharing their useful skills and local knowledge to support firefighting efforts. Farmers and ranchers who choose to ignore these orders and restrictions risk being charged with a misdemeanor.<\/p>\n

Firefighters\u2019 first priority during wildfires is to protect lives and residential homes, which often results in farms and ranches being underserved during fire events, despite the fact that fields, vineyards, and grazed landscapes can serve as strategic fuel and fire breaks<\/a> (e.g., disking the edge of a field, irrigating a vineyard, and maintaining grazed grasses can all slow or stop the progress of a wildfire). In recent wildfire disasters, state firefighting resources have been stretched so thin that some rural agricultural regions have been left to fend on their own.<\/p>\n

The Capay Valley in northwest Yolo county was one of those regions. Recounting her experience in 2020, Full Belly Farm co-owner Judith Redmond wrote: \u201cOur Valley was the eastern edge of the LNU Complex Fire<\/a> in the summer of last year. We soon realized that we weren\u2019t going to see air or ground support from CalFIRE because they were stretched way too thin. Volunteer fire departments plus local farmers and ranchers worked day and night to keep the fire off the Valley floor and away from homes and farm buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n

One Policy Solution: Support County Ag Pass Programs<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Image by Brennan Emerson from Pixabay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To address these issues, Ventura County created an Ag Pass program, administered by the County Agricultural Commissioner\u2019s Office. The first-of-its-kind program in the state allows certified \u201cAg Pass-carrying\u201d owner-operators of commercial farms and ranches, along with their employees, access to areas that may otherwise be restricted to the public so they can care for agricultural assets (e.g., by irrigating crops or caring for and transporting livestock) and provide auxiliary support to emergency personnel (e.g., by identifying access roads and water access points).<\/p>\n

UCCE Range Advisor Matthew Shapero and UCCE Wildfire Specialist Max Moritz recently wrote an article about the Ag Pass concept and Ventura County\u2019s experience, called “Preparing for Disaster: Establishing an Ag Pass Program in Your Community<\/a>.”\u00a0In a follow-up Policy Brief, Shapero and Moritz identified the following set of policy actions that would enable more counties to establish their own Ag Pass programs:<\/p>\n