Climate Resilience Strategy
for California Agriculture

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CDFA Wants to Hear from You

Tribal Listening Sessions Rescheduled! - The California Department of Food and Agriculture is hosting listening sessions for California Native American Tribes to gather input on challenges facing agricultural and tribal communities to inform a Climate Resilience Strategy for California agriculture. Input provided in these sessions will be incorporated into the draft strategy to be released for public comment in Summer 2025.

Updated registration links for each listening session TBD! Please check back here soon!

CDFA hosted public listening sessions on February 6th and 7th to gather input on the development of a Climate Resilience Strategy for California Agriculture.

Slides from the public listening session are available below

• PDF of Public Listening Session Presentation

Slides from the public listening session are available below

• Thursday, February 6th from 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
• Thursday, February 6th from 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.
• Friday, February 7th from 9:00 – 10:30 a.m.

If you are unable to attend the public and/or Tribal listening sessions, or wish to also submit written feedback, you may access the comment card or follow the QR code below:

Outreach Materials – If you would like to share information with your community about the Climate Resilience Strategy, please feel free to share and distribute this one-pager

One-pager for Sharing

Background

California agriculture not only is a major part of California’s economy but is critical to both the national and global food supply. California’s agricultural sector has a farm gate value of $59 billion and produces three-quarters of the nation’s fruits and tree nuts and a fifth of the nation’s milk. Agriculture also constitutes more than forty percent of California’s land use. California Ag Vision For the Next Decade, which guides areas of focus for CDFA and serves as a catalyst for action, identified the need to “Foster climate-smart, resilient, and regenerative food systems” as a strategic priority. This project seeks to create a roadmap for doing so.

Project Description

California agriculture, like many sectors, is vulnerable to the effects of climate change and faces a complex set of challenges. The Climate Resilience Strategy for California Agriculture will bring together the state’s dispersed agricultural climate actions into a single strategy, providing both the status of current action and a direction for future action. The document will catalog climate-related agricultural challenges, policies, and actions across state government, and capture current gaps and future opportunities for CDFA and California agriculture. As a summary document, the Climate Strategy is intended to guide internal activities as well as be a resource for partner agencies, the legislature, agricultural stakeholders, producers, and the public.

Strategy Outline

The strategy will cover a range of topics to build resilience in agriculture, including:

• Economic Opportunities
• Workforce & Tools
• Energy
• Water Resources
• Collaborations
• Land Use
• Pest Pressure
• Biodiversity
• Soil Health
• Air Quality
• Dairy Sustainability
• Ranching & Rangeland Management

Process

The strategy will be written through a process that includes information gathering (both internally at CDFA and with state and federal agencies and university partners), initial drafting with public input, public comment on the draft strategy, final editing, and release of the strategy. The strategy is currently in the drafting with public input phase and is anticipated to be released for public comment in Summer 2025.

Public comment for the entire document will be announced through the CDFA Environmental Farming Act Science Advisory Panel later this year and will last 60 days. Public comments will be received at Climate@cdfa.ca.gov.