County Corner
Our farmers braved fires, then fought for coverage Highlighting county Farm Bureaus working on behalf of California’s agricultural communities
access to basic property insurance provided by the FAIR Plan, leaving commercial agri- cultural infrastructure,wineries, farmingequipment andother componentsunprotected. We worked tirelessly in connecting with our members as the legislation was drafted to ensure their needs and concerns were being addressed. We worked to educate our membership, and the community as awhole, about the importanceof SenateBill 11 and the positive impact that it could have onmembers unable to obtainwildfire insurance. We worked constantly with Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, who was a tremendous help in working with the Insurance Commissioner’s Office to address the concerns of our members inNapaCounty. It was key throughout this process that the legislation reflect- ed the specific needs of agricultural operations, given how nuanced those needs are. Senate Bill 11was passed in the Legislature and, in amere 144 days from its introduc- tion, it was signed into lawbyGov. GavinNewsom. It was a feat that truly demonstrated the power of the FarmBureau, both the California FarmBureau and our many county FarmBureaus, in advocating for the needs of our members. Subsequent to passage, the Napa County Farm Bureau held a number of press in- terviews and educational meetings withmembers and the community at large on the benefits of this newly passed legislation and howmembers could now access wildfire insurance coverage through the California FAIR plan. This public policy issue was a great example of why the FarmBureau exists and how effective it is for itsmembers on a county and statewide level. This effort demonstrated how dues Farm Bureau members pay went into hundreds of hours of advocacy and, ultimately, achieved victory with passage of legislation, which now delivers direct benefits tomembers and their communities. I couldn’t have been prouder to be a part of this effort and to advocate for so many Farm Bureau members and see that we achieved enduring results. It demonstrated the strength of the FarmBureau—andwhy we have advocated on behalf of agriculture since 1913.
Ryan Klobas Napa County Farm Bureau CEO
The mission of the Napa County Farm Bureau, as with any county Farm Bureau in California, is to advocate on behalf of its members to ensure the proper political, social, and economic climate for the continuation of a strong, viable and sustainable agricultural economy. Nowhere has this been more evident lately than in the advocacy for wildfire insur- ance coverage for FarmBureau members, who were hit by recent wildfires and found themselves unable to obtain proper insurance coverage for their operations. In Napa County, we have seen countless members with wineries or vineyards who were denied coverage to protect their businesses. During a townhall event with California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, the commissioner heard fromFarm Bureaumembers inNapaCountywhoneededhelp after insurers backed away or raised premiums after wildfires. A number of members expressed concern over their insurance costs tripling or quadrupling for a fraction of the coverage they used to have. This financial impact placed a burden on agricultural operations in our county, causing our members to look for help. As we continued to work on this issue with the California Farm Bureau, we also worked with members to champion the effort to address this issue with the California FAIR Plan, with the state’s insurer of last resort serving as a starting place to make some coverage available as we continued efforts to address competition in the private marketplace. Last year, our starting place was through Senate Bill 11, which stood to authorize farms to access the FAIR Plan for basic property coverage and to provide a necessary property insurance backstop for Napa County’s agricultural infrastructure. Before itspassagewithour support, farmingandranchingoperationsdidnot evenhave Davis wheat research team awarded $15 million grant
University of California, Davis, will be studyingways to acceleratewheat breed- ing to meet the challenges of hotter con- ditions in the growing season. Under a $15 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture, a UC Davis research team will partner in a consortium of 41 wheat breeders and researchers from 22 institutions in 20 states, Mexico and the United Kingdom. In announcing the Davis research grant, the NIFA said in a statement that “breeding crops for the future will re- quire new traits, breeding platforms built for quick transfer of traits to elite cultivars, coordination of breeding ef- forts in public and private domains, and training for current and future plant breeders and researchers.” Some 60%of wheat varieties are devel- opedby public breeding programs rather than private corporations.
“This grant allows us to do breeding at a level that a good, modern compa- ny would do,” UC Davis plant geneticist Jorge Dubcovsky said in a statement. “This grant is essential tomaintainmod- ern and effective public breeding pro- grams in the U.S.” The effort is also intended to prepare a new generation of plant breeders. The project will train 20 doctoral students in breeding programs, in which they will participate in fieldwork, collect data from drones and DNA samples, and in- tegrate that information to accelerate wheat breeding. Data collected in the project can al- low researchers to document the plants throughout their life cycle and deter- mine which fare better under certain climate conditions. “If we can breed fast, we can adapt to change,”Dubcovsky said. “Weare trying to make sustainable improvements in time.”
February 23, 2022 Ag Alert 19
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