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California State Board of Food and Agriculture to meet July 7th

Meeting will focus on groundwater and agricultural land trends

By Diego Flammini, Farms.com

The California State Board of Food and Agriculture is scheduled to meet on Tuesday, July 7th at the California Department of Food and Agriculture office in Sacramento, where they’ll discuss managing groundwater and any trends with the agricultural lands.

Meeting

“Sustainable groundwater management is essential for California’s agricultural future,” said CDFA Secretary Karen Ross. “We look forward to hearing from various stakeholders on the implementation process and how local agencies are collaborating to develop the governance structure and plans that will be the best fit for their communities.”

In 2014, California Governor Jerry Brown passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). As a result of the law, local water agencies must produce long term management based on economic and environmental needs. Groundwater is responsible for more than 30% of California’s water use during wet years and more than 50% during dry years.

With California being in an almost historic drought, water management is as important as ever.

“Our ongoing drought not only impacts agricultural production – the food we grow – but also the land we farm,” said Craig McNamara, president of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture. “What the drought is doing in regards to long-term land values and farm financing options is also critical to future planning decisions farmers will make.”

The meeting will also include a variety of guest speakers:

  • Dorene D’adamo  of the California State Water Resources Control Board
  • Erik Roget, from the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers
  • Corny Gallagher from the California Bankers Association (Agricultural Lending Committee)

The meeting will take place Tuesday, July 7th at the California Department of Food and Agriculture, 1220 ‘N’ Street – Main Auditorium, Sacramento. The meeting will run from 10:00am – 2:00pm.

People who want be take in the meeting but are unable to attend can stream it online.


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Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”