By Craig W. Anderson
Air pollution is an issue for agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley and San Joaquin Farm Bureau members face challenges meeting air pollution control board mandates.
The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District has, over the past decade, provided funding for multiple programs with participants numbering in the thousands. Funded projects covered on-road trucks, ag irrigation pumps, ag mobile off-road equipment including sweepers, loaders, harvesters, forklifts, shakers, sprayers, choppers, dozers and tractors.
Add fireplace change-outs and school bus projects and the outreach covers a wide range of vehicles and equipment affecting agriculture and the citizenry of the county.
According to the district’s website, it is “consistently working to ensure that the Valley receives its fair share of available federal, state and local funding for incentives. [A combined] public/private investment of more than $5 billion” has resulted in the reduction of tens of thousands of tons “of harmful emissions through a variety of cost-effective voluntary…incentive programs.” explained the district’s website.
The $5 billion has dwindled, experts say, and in some important venues, vanished due to the state’s multi-billion-dollar deficit. The exact amount – somewhere in the range of $50 billion to $78 billion – is being debated in Sacramento but SJFB President Andrew Watkins said California’s budget problems have “caused funding to be pulled back for programs such as this.”
SJFB Executive Director Andrew Genasci said there is no debate about the effect the lack of dollars has on the district’s ability to fund expensive anti-pollution and other related projects.
“The district is looking for more money because it’s running out of funds,” he said. “The programs were helpful when the state had the money. Now, the governments’ attitude seems to be ‘We can’t help you financially, but you have to do it anyway.’”
However, financial help could be right around the corner, according to San Joaquin Supervisor Robert Rickman, who is also member of the district’s governing board.
He said significant funding – $575 million – is scheduled to be available for 2024-2025, including funding for Ag Burn Alternatives ($41.8 million), Ag Equipment Replacement ($156.4 million), Electric Ag Irrigation Pumps ($1 million), Electric Ag Utility Vehicles ($5 million) and Dairy Feed Process Electrification ($5 million)
“The San Joaquin Valley faces difficult air quality challenges, but our air quality has seen major improvements in recent years,” Rickman said. “Our farmers feed the world and coordinated efforts are necessary to support farmers’ ongoing transition to sustainable and air-friendly practices. Unfortunately, we face a major challenge in dealing with this year’s state budget, and… I’ve urged the Legislature to restore the California Air Resources Board FARMER (Funding Agricultural Replacement Measures for Emission Reduction) funding to this year’s budget.”
The state’s budget deficit makes it more important that “critical investments are made in programs that yield maximum benefits for limited dollars,” Rickman said. “FARMER funds will ensure the state and San Joaquin Valley can continue with the agricultural sector to reduce emissions in a manner that is feasible for our vital agricultural sector.”
That sector has been hit hard over the past two years with almond and walnut orchards being removed due to high production costs and, explained almond grower and processor Dave Phippen, low prices, slumping demand coupled with a high carry-in and the subjective estimate of a 3 billion pound crop for 2024 has shaken the almond industry.
“A very large number of almond orchards are going out,” he said. “And many of those have diseases.” He added that the process for him to get a burn permit for the virus infected wood, including roots, lasted the better part of a year.
Instead of burning the disease infested wood the local inspection agency suggested the hulls be used as dairy feed, ground up and spread on roadways as a dust suppressor or worked into the soil.
“It’s a dead-end road if you don’t work it into the ground,” Phippen said. “The last thing a grower with virus tainted wood wants to do is put it back into the ground. But if there’s no disease it helps the soil.”
He added that the oak root fungus and other diseases are widespread in the Ripon area but added, “It’s good to have these programs to help with the costs when we have to take such serious measures to protect agriculture.”
Genasci said, “Reincorporation of ground-up material still containing a virus is not a good idea because of the possibility of reinfection.”
Vineyards have likewise suffered because of declining consumption and disease which have caused vineyards to be uprooted.
Brent Holtz, director of the UCCE (University of California Cooperative Extension) explained, “Many of these diseases don’t have a lot of research on them, so it’s just an assumption that burning kills the disease.” About taking diseased material to a co-gen facility, Holtz said, “It could go to a co-gen plant but most of them have shut down over the years.”
He pointed out that vineyard waste presents a special problem because of the metal wire and stakes that tend to be part of the debris pile which chipping companies say can be removed by magnets during the grinding process. “The metal tends to encourage burning but the grinding still can leave small pieces of metal in the mix so it might not be a good addition to the soil.”
Incentives are in place to encourage chipping or shredding agricultural material mandated to be used for soil incorporation or application on agricultural land as an alternative to open burning.
As the need to abandon burning and shift to chipping and shredding becomes prevalent, the “program provides incentives for the purchase of new agricultural wood-chipping equipment to chip orchard and vineyard removals [in] the San Joaquin Valley,” noted the sistrict website.
However, the website also says concerning Fleet Equipment – chippers, shredders and other equipment used in the process by companies that do such work – “The Ag Burn Alternatives program is currently oversubscribed and is no longer accepting new applications.” Not good news for a program integral to the removal of orchard and vineyard material.
The application process is: 1. Applicant submits complete application packet to district staff through application portal; 2. District staff notifies applicant if application is incomplete; 3. Pre-inspection by district staff; 4. District staff issues voucher to applicant; 5. Applicant completes the project and pays in full; 6. Applicant submits a claim for payment packet to district requesting reimbursement; 7. Post-inspection by district staff; 8. Reimbursement is provided by the district, typically within 60 working days.
Both the San Joaquin County Agricultural Commissioner’s office and the UCCE are involved in this process at various points.
“The funding isn’t enough,” said SJFB Second Vice President James Chinchiolo of Chinchiolo Farms. “When too much chipped-up wood is reincorporated, the soil isn’t able to process it.”
Chinchiolo commented that despite the lengthy application process and the assorted aspects involved that require much time and effort and, eventually, produce costly methods, he’s “grateful these programs are out there” but they need “some fine-tuning. I’m pleased that orchards can be removed with district and NRCS (Natural Resource Conservation Service) funds combined. Unfortunately, in large programs like this there are unintended consequences we have to deal with.
One of which is, he said, is co-gen locations, the few remaining, are “filled up; the agencies involved in these programs need to understand reality.”
In January of 2025, grape and nut growers removing their vineyards or orchards will observe the following, said the district website: “All operations prohibited from burning all sizes of removals except in cases of disease and pest concerns.”
