California state agencies released new targets today for scaling nature-based climate solutions across California’s diverse landscapes, including agricultural lands. The targets and the government agency actions to support them were developed as a requirement of Assembly Bill 1757 (C. Garcia). 

California farmers and ranchers face growing climate-exacerbated threats from floods, wildfires, droughts, and pests, as well as threats from sprawling development. The targets released today aim to build agriculture’s resilience and permanently protect farmland and rangeland from development threats. Healthy soils practices and organic systems, for example, improve water infiltration and holding capacity, increase pest and disease resistance by improving plant health and beneficial insect habitat, and reduce the need for fossil fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers.

These statewide targets mark an important step forward in integrating the power of nature and agriculture into the state’s climate mitigation and resilience strategy. Achieving these targets, however, will require greater investments in research, technical assistance, regulatory efficiency, workforce development, infrastructure, and incentives to give farmers, ranchers, and other land stewards the tools they need to scale these solutions. 

The governor and legislature can take immediate action to address that funding gap by passing a climate bond measure with at least $1 billion for food and farm resilience investments, as called for by the Food and Farm Resilience Coalition and its 130+ supporting organizations. This proposal includes investments that are explicitly connected to achieving the targets, such as $100 million for HSP, $150 million for farmland conservation and land access, and $30 million for organic transition. In the face of the state’s budget deficit, a climate bond that accelerates agricultural climate solutions is vital for continuing to make investments in tackling the climate crisis. 

Two other CalCAN-sponsored bills in play this year also offer strategies for natural and working lands: AB 2313 (Bennett) would establish a cooperative equipment-sharing program to give small farmers access to equipment for healthy soils practices, and SB 675 (Limón) would advance planning and infrastructure for prescribed grazing as a wildfire mitigation and recovery strategy.

“The targets identified here reflect the total amount of collective climate action on California’s lands that is needed, regardless of ownership, to enhance the health and resilience of communities and ecosystems under the accelerating threat of climate change and deliver on the Scoping Plan’s carbon stock target. Healthy and resilient communities and ecosystems are a prerequisite to durable and sustainable carbon stocks. Meeting these long-term NBS climate targets will require time, effort, funding, and collaborative partnerships across many governments and sectors…”

— California’s Nature-Based Solutions Climate Targets (p. 6)

What are the targets?

Taken directly from the report released today (see pages 13-21), the following targets for the years 2030, 2038 and 2045 are included for Croplands, Grasslands, and for Wildfire Risk Reduction.

How did the targets get established, and are they enough?

The agencies developed these targets based on the best available data and science, recommendations from an expert advisory committee that met throughout 2023, and input from stakeholders, including CalCAN and a group of agricultural, climate, and conservation organizations. The agencies also considered the following:

• How lands are currently managed and associated carbon implications
• Most effective nature-based solutions (NBS) at the scale required by science that build resilience, and durable, sustainable carbon stocks
• Technical and practical feasibility of NBS actions
• The State’s ability to measure and track progress over time

The targets released today included an appendix with the methodology the agencies used to justify the targets. For healthy soils practices, for example, the appendix says the agencies first made a conservative baseline estimate that healthy soils practices are currently being used on one million acres based on 2022 Ag Census data on cover crops and conservation tillage. The agencies then considered the most ambitious healthy soils implementation scenario in the 2022 Scoping Plan Update and an increase in incentives available through local governments (e.g. the Agricultural Resilience Initiative of Santa Clara County), air pollution control districts (e.g. incentives for whole orchard recycling), and the federal farm bill and inflation reduction act to arrive at what CDFA Secretary Ross calls an “ambitious but doable” target of an additional 140,000 acres/year by 2030.

As the healthy soils example above illustrates, the agricultural targets are significantly constrained by limited data on practice adoption and by perceptions of what funding may be available to incentivize the solutions in the future. As such, it will be important to refine these targets in the next Scoping Plan update in 2027, including disaggregating healthy soils practice adoption and targets, based on new data and incentive funding availability.

Why are targets important?

For many years, the state of California has had climate change-related targets for almost every sector of the economy except the land sector, which includes agricultural lands as well as forests, wetlands, deserts, etc. Targets are used to guide and justify state policies and investments as well as measure progress. In this context, the lack of targets for California’s 100 million acres of natural and working lands put nature-based and agricultural climate solutions at a disadvantage in the annual competition for limited climate investment dollars and the state’s climate research and planning efforts. For that reason, CalCAN strongly supported the years-long effort, starting with AB 284 (Rivas) in 2021, that led to today’s announcement and targets.

The targets released today offer a north star for guiding agencies and the legislature in planning, policies, and investments.

What actions are state agencies planning to achieve the targets?

Importantly, the Nature-Based Climate Targets document identifies 81 actions that 45 state entities are planning to achieve the targets. We highlight below some of those actions that are most relevant to achieving the agricultural targets, many of which CalCAN and others have been recommending for years. We look forward to working in close partnership with these agencies and our partners around the state to implement as many of these as possible in an effort to unleash the potential on working lands for a healthy, just and resilient agriculture system.

All State Agencies (full list):

• Track efforts to deliver on California’s NBS climate targets and report on them through biennial reporting called for in AB 1757. 
• Adopt and utilize the standard methods developed by CARB to measure and track climate actions and benefits of State investments in nature-based climate solutions.
• Explore the opportunity to deepen collaboration with federal land-owning partners to deliver on the NBS climate targets, in addition to positioning California for successfully securing the unprecedented federal NBS climate funding available.
• Explore opportunities as appropriate to align procurement policy in support of delivering on the NBS climate targets.

California Department of Food & Agriculture (full list):

• Increase trainings and technical assistance for farmers interested in using organic and sustainable pest management crop practices. 
• Expand markets for climate-smart agricultural products produced by a diverse range of farms and ranches. 
• Develop a Climate Resilience Strategy for California agriculture to implement the State’s NBS climate targets and other actions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, reduce climate risks to and build resilience of the agriculture sector. 
• Invest in the development of California’s circular bioeconomy, supporting initiatives to utilize agricultural biomass to create new useful products, create high-paying local jobs, and improve the environment.
• Collaborate with entities doing R&D to support on-farm soil carbon testing and analysis. 
• Build lab capacity in California to analyze and process soil samples and evaluate soil health metrics. 
• Develop a network of farms that have implemented climate smart practices to serve as demonstration sites so farmers can see those practices in action. 
• Significantly increase climate-smart agriculture technical assistance across the state in collaboration with federal and State agencies and community-based organizations. 
• Support the rapid development of conservation agriculture plans. 
• Increase outreach, including to Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers, to facilitate equal access to block grant and direct-to-farmer grant funds from the Healthy Soils Program to implement healthy soils practices. 
• Significantly increase participation of ranchers in the Healthy Soils Program Identify and consider incentives for commercial nursery producers and providers to increase availability of climatically appropriate species for restoration plantings. 
• Coordinate with relevant State agency and department partners to consider pathways to reduce annual conversion of California’s grasslands.

California Air Resources Board (full list):

• Update the NWL inventory of ecosystem carbon, incorporating additional landscapes, data sources, and methodology updates.
• Initiate research to improve understanding of current and historical carbon storage, the potential for future carbon sequestration with restoration, or management, and the risk of carbon loss due to climate change or land use change in California’s land sector. 
• Improve statewide modeling tools for projecting how climate smart agricultural practices impact carbon stocks in California. 
• Increase understanding of economic feasibility and economic benefits of implementing climate smart land management practices. 
• Develop a road map outlining the air quality needs to support a future where California will gradually ramp up to 1.5M acres of beneficial fire annually by 2045. 
• In conjunction with the NWL inventory of ecosystem carbon, develop with CNRA and CDFA, a monitoring program to meet CARB, CNRA, and CDFA specific needs, that will assess the impact of climate and management. 
• In support of the 2027 Scoping Plan, work with other agencies to enhance CARB’s ability to model and monitor carbon stocks across more landscapes where possible, e.g., coastal wetlands.

Department of Fish and Wildlife (partial list):

• Complete the development of a statewide, fine-scale vegetation map through CDFW’s Vegetation Classification and Mapping Program.
• Expand the use of CDFW-managed lands for grazing, where consistent with the ecological purposes of those State lands.

Labor & Workforce  Development Agency (full text): 

• Explore the development of a Nature-Based Solutions Workforce Development Program in partnership with relevant State agencies to increase essential pipelines/supplies for workforce in a suite of regionally appropriate skills-based climate jobs in the lands sector (ex. land restoration, organic agriculture, wildland and urban foresters, etc.). Convene regional roundtables to identify opportunities that support local priorities as well as the hiring needs of NBS employers offering quality jobs. 

Office of Planning & Research (partial list):

• Create a zoning and planning map that incorporates relevant plans for permitted existing growth and planned future growth to identify where growth pressure is greatest, where local governments can foster densification and infill, and where open space easements may most effectively limit urban expansion.
• Coordinate with relevant interagency partners to identify opportunities for grant program guidelines to reward regions, cities, and counties for planning for stable long-term urban perimeters while meeting their Housing Element commitments, identifying models among state programs for limiting developed land expansion and encouraging infill to increase equity and promote environmental justice. 
• Develop a menu of local planning strategies, policies, and incentives in updates to the General Plan Guidelines to support implementation of California’s NBS climate targets

Department of Pesticide Regulation (full list): 

• In partnership with CDFA and UCANR, significantly increase the availability of Department of Pesticide Regulation accredited continuing education credits for Pest Control Advisors that address sustainable pest management practices in California.
• Increase the number of Pest Control Advisors trained in sustainable pest management crop practices as part of a holistic way of reducing pest pressures in partnership with CDFA and UCANR. 
• Develop a cross-agency plan to accelerate integrated pest management and sustainable pest management on State-owned lands in partnership with relevant agencies, including CDFA, Caltrans, DGS, and CNRA (including State Parks, CDFW, and DWR). 

CalRecycle (full list): 

• Identify and implement permitting efficiencies for small and medium size organics recycling and composting facilities.
• Facilitate relationships between jurisdictions, farms, school districts, and food banks to increase recovery of edible food and education on best practices around fresh food recovery and recycling organics. 
• Partner with CDFA to assist composters in complying with regulations and encourage on-farm composting. 
• Develop an approach to increase investment in community composting and increase community composting sites throughout California.
• Incentivize the application of certified high quality compost, whole orchard recycling, and the construction of facilities that allow the production of marketable agricultural and municipal-derived compost and manure compost.
• Invest in the production and application of high-quality compost from municipally derived feedstocks suitable for application on lands; support expanding or building composting facilities and related equipment and transportation costs. This equipment could be cooperatively owned and deployed regionally.
• Develop an overarching soil amendment strategy for the State, in partnership with relevant agencies, to estimate availability of compost and other soil amendments in support of the State’s climate goals.