“Fire, Fire on the Mountain!”

Speaker 1 00:00:08 Good planet's, a hard tempera zone. Tropic climbs thriving. Sea wind is blowing some breathing trees and strong on, and so good planets are hard to find. Speaker 0 00:00:34 Good planet. Speaker 2 00:00:36 Hello, Case squid listeners. It's every other Sunday again, and you're listening to sustainability now, a biweekly case, Good radio show focused on environment, sustainability and social justice in the Monterey Bay region, California and the world. I'm your host, Ronnie Lipshitz, Farming as tough enough as it is, but when farmers face the loss of organic certification due to climate related disasters and wildfires, what can they do? My guests today are Amber Scott and David Ober Miller, who will talk about their experience with such challenges and about programs that address them. Amber Scott is a wildfire resilient specialist with the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, a statewide nonprofit that focuses on building sustainable food and farming systems through policy advocacy and on the ground programs that create more resilient family farms, communities, and ecosystems. David Ober Miller is a farmer with Unearthed Farm and Harvest Fields Organic Farm in Fresno County, which was impacted by wildfire on July 1st, 2022. Speaker 2 00:01:40 David has also gone through a certification by the California Certified Organic Farmers, CCO F and he'll talk about that. I have to read this disclaimer before we proceed. Although CALF has a strong relationship with California certified organic farmers and regularly collaborates with them to provide quality technical assistance to farmers. None of the speakers on this session are employees or representatives of cco F or other organic certification organizations. However, CCO F staff were supportive of this discussion and provided comments on some of the questions and suggested resources for follow up. David OER Miller and Amber Scott, welcome to Sustainability now. Speaker 3 00:02:26 Thank you. Excited to be here. Thanks for pronouncing my name correctly. Speaker 2 00:02:30 Well, I'll keep trying. <laugh>, let's start with a few questions about who you are and what you do. So Amber, can you tell us about your work and about calf, the, the program you run and how you got there? Speaker 3 00:02:43 Sure. Yeah. Super excited to be here. CF is the Community Alliance with family farmers, and I work under the Farmer Services program area. We have a new program called Wildfire Resilience, and basically the need for this came up in 2018, um, uh, and 17 in Sonoma County with the Tubs fire and just chronic impacts across the west happening, and farmers bringing to our attention through our policy listening sessions, the need for support in this area. And so Kathleen in and found some money, and so my position is seed funded through the American Red Cross, and we're looking to sustain that further into the future. But right now we work in three buckets, primarily preparedness, response and recovery. So through our recovery program, we offer things like an emergency fund for farmers that have been impacted in different ways. And that's how we met David actually. So, um, and through that process, it was really interesting that David was able to bring to our attention something that wasn't on our radar yet, because it's a new program, which is the impacts of wildfire retardant on organic farms. Mm-hmm. Speaker 2 00:03:50 <affirmative>. Well, how, how are farmers affected by wildfire? Maybe it's, it's useful to make a list. Speaker 3 00:03:57 Yeah. So we kind of create two different categories, indirect impacts and direct impacts. So the direct ones are pretty obvious. Like if you have a fire come through your farm or your property that you're leasing, then you've got direct issues, right? Like melted irrigation line and damage to infrastructure. Maybe you've lost buildings, you could have injury to livestock, right? All kinds of crop damage, that sort of thing. But you can be affected by wildfire in other ways too, where you could just be in an area that has extended periods of smoke and that smoke can affect the light and productivity of your plants, or you can have extreme heat fluctuations within an area like that. Or as we're also seeing now, toxic ash can be an impact that's indirect as well. Speaker 2 00:04:42 Yeah. Okay. Um, well, David, why don't you tell us a little bit about your farm, you know, where it is, what you grow, and how you I I'm particularly interested in how you got into farming. Speaker 4 00:04:54 Yeah, great questions. Um, and thanks for having me on as well, Amber. And, um, um, well, I, in 2014, I moved to Fresno from Arizona, and I started a small farm in partnership with a local private school. And, uh, we, uh, were there on their campus until, uh, the end of 2019. And, um, we, our, our lease ended, we wanted to move on to a different piece of property, and we were looking for property, and then covid hit and kind of messed everything up a little bit. So we actually found the property we're on now at the end of 2020, and, uh, took us about a year to develop all the infrastructure. This property had been vacant for a long time, and all the plumbing in the ground was old iron pipe, and there was nothing here but power and a well, that's all we had to work with and old pipe. Speaker 4 00:05:58 So we spent the last, um, or the first year or so just building infrastructure and, uh, started planting and selling in the fall of 2021. Got our organic certification in the fall of 2021, and, uh, that led us into the spring and the wildfire we experienced this summer. Um, my personal background, um, I became a vegetarian in 2000, roughly, and that's a whole nother conversation, but kind of a variety of reasons for it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, but that led me into the food quality, uh, conversation, how food is raised, how food is grown, uh, whether it's factory farming or industrialized food. Um, everything from chemicals and, uh, animal feed lots was all very interesting to me from, um, uh, first from a human health perspective, food quality perspective. Um, also, I guess you could say ethical questions about food and how food is raised. Well, once I was into the vegetarian scene, uh, the question for me was, Well, why don't I try growing some of my own food? Speaker 4 00:07:17 I started a small garden and I kind of liked it, and it kind of developed from there into, Hey, maybe I wanna do this more full time. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and I went and worked on a farm in Arizona for about four years. I was living in Arizona at the time, Uhhuh <affirmative>. Uh, and I spent four years on an organic farm in southern Arizona, uh, just outside of Tucson, uh, until I got the invitation to work with this school here in Fresno. Um, so yeah, kind of a, uh, kind of been of an interesting journey along the way, going from, um, born in the Midwest to a steak and potatoes family, to becoming, uh, an organic farmer's. Probably not quite what was on my family's radar nor mine, but here I am. Speaker 2 00:08:02 Did you, did you get any kind of formal training in, in farming and agriculture in college or something like that? Speaker 4 00:08:10 No, studying. It's completely unrelated subjects in college. Okay. And, uh, other than the few years on the farm in Arizona, everything else has been trial and error or mm-hmm. <affirmative> trial by fire or however you might say that. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:08:24 Yeah. Um, well, so you've got an organic certified farm, and, and yes. I mean, I think our listeners might be interested in, in hearing what that means and how you get that certification. Speaker 4 00:08:39 Yeah, good question. So the, the federal government, um, early 2000 established the National Organic Program, and the National Organic Program has a set of standards that regulate the definition of the word organic. Uh, they regulate practices that organic farms can use, uh, if they want to, or I should say not only practices they can use, but things that they can't do. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, if you want to obtain the organic certification, um, this might be over generalized, uh, or, or overly simplistic, but I think line is, is there are certain inputs that a farm cannot use if it wants to be organic, uh, whether that's herbicides or pesticides, uh, fertilizer. Um, there are just certain things that a farm can and cannot do if it wants to be organic. Um, the idea behind it is to give the word organic integrity, um, for the word to have meaning. Speaker 4 00:09:50 So if you see a certified organic farm, or in your, if you're in the produce department and you see a organic label on something, the idea is to give, uh, uh, um, an a reasonable degree of integrity to that label, and so that it's not just a marketing ploy mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, for me as a farm, uh, what that might look like is fertilizers that aren't synthetic. So I have to use naturally derived fertilizers mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, or a naturally derived pesticide. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, you know, there are organic pesticides. Yeah. Um, and we can't think of pesticide as, you know, inherently bad, but there are organic pesticide, organic herbicides, organic fertilizers, and those things are all naturally derived products, either from plants or other naturally occurring products. So you set your, your farm up in such a way that it's practices are consistent with the standards in the National Organic program. Speaker 4 00:10:58 Then you go through an inspection and an inspector comes out and does a site walk of the farm, um, looks through your paperwork, you have to save receipts, you, it's like an inspection combined with an audit, a paper trail audit mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and, um, you pass that inspection and your granted certification. Um, given that, uh, so like for, for me, in my case, we, we picked up this piece of property at the end of 2020. Right. Thankfully, it had been vacant. Somebody had been grazing their horses here as all that had happened. And the land has to have three years of clean history prior to its certification. So whether you're the original landowner, or in my case, there was a different landowner before me, there could be no prohibited substances applied to the land for the prior three years. And then of course, to maintain that going forward. Speaker 2 00:11:58 Okay. Um, so when, when you're, you know, during the three year period, you're allowed to grow crops, right? They just can't be certified as organic. Is that correct? Speaker 4 00:12:11 If, So, for me, I, I'll use my dates. So we were certified of 2021 since the land was vacant and there were no prohibited materials applied to the land mm-hmm. <affirmative> prior mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the three years prior to November, I could start growing and selling organically right away. Speaker 2 00:12:33 Oh, I see. Okay. Speaker 4 00:12:35 Yeah. So let's say the prior landowner had applied some pesticides or some herbicide in, uh, 2020, Uh, I would have to wait three years to certify the land as organic mm-hmm. <affirmative> from the date that a prohibited substance was last applied. So I'd have to wait till 2023 if somebody had applied something in 2020. Speaker 2 00:13:02 Are you surrounded by organic farms? Speaker 4 00:13:05 No. In my case right now, uh, I'm in a rural community. Yeah. So everything's residential around me or vacant. Um, when I was in the, Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. Speaker 2 00:13:17 No, no. I'm, I was gonna ask, do you have any kind of problems with, you know, drift, chemical drift or, or water contamination from your neighbors? Speaker 4 00:13:28 Not on this property here, no. Um, pretty grateful in that way that, um, most of the people here in this community are letting the land, um, kind of do its thing. It's mostly grassland with, uh, Native Oaks here in the area. Uhhuh, Uhhuh <affirmative>, got some people with horses or, you know, sheep or something, but most of it's pretty, pretty natural just with houses around. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:13:53 So, so this question may be is for Amber. I know that in the Salinas Valley, you know, there are small organic farmers, but there are also big farms, uh, that use synthetic pesticides. And so what happens to an organic certified farm if, uh, chemicals or pesticides, uh, drift onto the farm, you know, or the water's contaminated with synthetic substances? Speaker 3 00:14:20 Yeah, sure. Um, I'm happy to respond as best I'm able and just like putting the caveat that I am not a, you know, certified inspector. Um, uh, but yeah, there, and there are a number of certifying agencies. Um, the one that's, uh, closest in working with David is CCO f the California Certified Organic Farmers. Um, and we do collaborate with them and, and try to provide as, as best of, you know, uh, quality technical assistance that we can mm-hmm. <affirmative> in concert. And, um, they're very supportive of this discussion cuz a new area. But in terms of like the, the drift, often there are mitigation practices like having hedgerows and a certain distance from other conventional ag operations. Um, for the most part, like folks have kind of gotten away from doing like airplane applied pesticides. Right. They'll do ground level. Um, and that's for al also human health concerns right outside of the farm area, like schools and hospitals, like people with, um, maybe sensitivities. Speaker 3 00:15:23 But, um, yeah, so I can't really speak to say, um, exactly what the, uh, process is if you have a, a, a scenario where there is drift. Um, but I think it, it's generally, um, the concern is aerial drift, not so much water contamination or transport. Um, although that's a general concern, right? And our storm water, like runoff is an important factor in what ends up in the Monterey Bay, so we should absolutely be concerned about that. Um, but yeah, it's, uh, probably I'll kick that one to David since he's been through the training and maybe actually had some more specific, um, data on that. Speaker 4 00:16:04 Yeah. So the, the question was, um, what does the farm do if there's contamination? Is, is that right? Yeah. Speaker 2 00:16:12 From neighbors, basically. Yeah. You know, you, Speaker 4 00:16:15 You've gotta, Yeah. So what you're supposed to do is, um, you're supposed to notify your certifier. So as Amber mentioned, like, our, our farm is certified with C C O F, uh, but the first step would be to, to notify your certifier that something happened. Um, then the next step would be for you to fill out a report detailing what happened, um, when it happened, uh, any details regarding that event, um, uh, which part of your farm might have been affected. Um, all of those details are gonna be very important to your certifier. Um, did you have a buffer zone, um, between you and your neighbor? Um, and, and so like on buffer zones for, uh, moment here, kind of a, a side note, but, uh, buffer zones are all relative to, um, what you're trying to prevent. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So if your neighbor, uh, if your neighbor has a, a spray rig on the back of his quad and he spraying weeds with his sprayer, you know, a foot off the ground, the possibility of contamination's very different then if your neighbor is having his field sprayed with a crop duster that's flying, you know, 75, a hundred feet off the ground mm-hmm. Speaker 4 00:17:41 <affirmative>, and if you have a wind, then material can drift much further. If it's, um, distributed through a crop duster, then a guy running around with a backpack sprayer or a quad. Yeah. So your buffer zone between you and your neighbor would be sized based on how your farmer neighbor practices. If he does an aerial spraying, you want a bigger buffer zone. If he does, um, other types of spraying, you could maybe shrink that buffer zone. So your, your buffer zones are all dependent upon your neighbor's practices and what you're trying to prevent. So, you know, and your certifier's gonna wanna know that too, how much of a buffer zone did you have? And, um, then they're gonna take all of this into consideration and, and, um, issue some sort of, of decision or ruling on what happens to your certification. And there's a distinction too, that certifiers make between direct applications, as they call them, direct applications versus drift. Speaker 4 00:18:44 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So going back to your neighbor and he's got, you know, acres and acres of, uh, almonds say, and he's having his crop sprayed with a crop duster in the air. Yeah. Um, if the crop duster releases the chemical and stops at the end of your neighbors row, but the wind blows and drifts the material into your property, that's one thing. If the crop duster miscalculates and is still spraying when he flies over the top of your field, that would be a direct application. And certifiers, look at that, I shouldn't say certifiers. The, the National Organic Program Standards. Look at those events differently mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, where it's directly applied versus, uh, its drift. Um, and that that difference is, um, if a direct application, you're probably looking at a three year suspension of your certification. If it's drift, then you're more likely to be one year suspension. And I think that has to do with the amount of, of material that actually winds up in your field, because if it's directly applied, you're gonna have a much higher level of contamination than if, if some drifts in on the wind. Speaker 2 00:20:11 Right. Right. I, um, but there's no, um, the, the, the neighbor is not, subject is not subject to any kind of, of laws or regulations. Right. This is basically, um, they, they don't, they, if they're nice guys, they won't do it. Right. But they have no particular obligation to be careful. Speaker 4 00:20:34 You know, that's a great question. I've never had, um, I've never had neighbors that I had to worry about. Like e even when I was in Fresno on my lease ground originally, we never had any neighbors that were, um, you know, a source of risk to us. Um, but I think, so I, I'm, I don't wanna go out too far on a limb, but I believe that when you have neighbors and you certify your land is organic, I'm talking about neighboring farmers. Yeah. That you are required by your certifier to contact your neighbors, notify them of your operation, and, uh, the impacts of their practices potentially upon your farm. And in that process of notifying your neighbors, there may be some legal protection for farmers who are contaminated, contaminated by, um, um, maybe negligent neighbors who are careless. There, there may be some legal protections there for that. Um, Don't hold me to that a hundred percent. Well, I believe there may be some stuff there. Speaker 2 00:21:41 I mean, I can see, I can see the possibility of a civil suit if there are considerable losses Right. As a result of Yeah. Negligence. But, you know, and who knows how that would work out. I, I imagine there have been cases, but we're not lawyers, and so we haven't looked into those cases, and it's just that I was, cco f sent us answers to some questions that we had about this. And, and here it's basically says if contamination drift is, is due, is no fault of the grower, the grower would be required to take steps to prevent such contamination from happening in the future, such as notifying their neighbor that they are organic or enhancing their buffer, which is, you know, basically what you said, but you're relying on the goodwill of the neighbor. Um, Yes. Which we find is a, is often a thin read, you know, <laugh> on which to uh, uh, uh, you know, base your hopes. But anyway, um, well, so let's, why don't we talk about what happened, happened to your farm and maybe, uh, Amber can say a little bit about, about this, um, about what the, uh, the contaminating chemical was. Uh, it was, it was fire retardant and obviously it's dumped on wildfires. Um, what's, first of all, what's the problem with the retardant amber? Speaker 3 00:23:06 Yeah, so I, I will actually give credit to David cuz he's the one that contacted CalFire and asked, Hey, what is in, you know, the material you applied? Um, and it can be, um, different depending on probably the region you're in and, um, just where that particular unit is at in terms of, um, switching over to more recent, um, formulations mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But basically, um, the Cal fire retardant, um, that had, they provided an FAQ from their 2018, um, formulation, and it's basically, um, two components. It's 88% water and the other 12% is ammonium phosphate, which is commonly found in a synthetic fertilizer. Right. That's basically what it is. And so that's why it's problematic for anyone with an organic certification is because synthetic fertilizers are considered a prohibitive substance. Um, in our case, you know, we view this as, um, a less benign, um, impact than a pesticide, because typically pesticides will have a longer half life. Right. They're gonna stick around in the soil and the water longer than a fertilizer which will cycle through the system faster. You Speaker 2 00:24:21 Mean more benign right? You said less than I You mean more benign? Sorry, It's not as Speaker 3 00:24:26 Retardant. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:24:27 Yeah. Yeah. So, so David, what happened to your farm? What, what's the story about the, the fire retardant? Speaker 4 00:24:34 Yeah. So, uh, this was Friday, July 1st. Um, probably a date I'm gonna remember for a while. It's also Speaker 2 00:24:41 My birthday Speaker 4 00:24:43 <laugh>. Oh, Speaker 2 00:24:44 Anyway, Speaker 4 00:24:45 Go on. Um, so yeah, I was working on a few things here. Um, and I smelled smoke and I thought, um, that's not good. That honestly was my first thought. And, uh, from where I was where I was out on the property, I, I walked over to the west and looked westward and I saw a big column of smoke off in the, uh, near distance. And, uh, real quick I called 9 1 1 and they were already aware of it. Um, I, I was not the first one to call. Um, and then I took a short video and that was at 1:47 PM on Friday, July 1st. And I took a few minutes. Um, one of my neighbors came over here right at that time too, so he and I jumped on the tractor and forklift and started moving as much of my equipment off my property line as I could mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and 15 minutes later that fire was at my fence line. Wow. And so Speaker 2 00:26:01 It was grass fire then primarily? Speaker 4 00:26:03 Yeah. This is, this is a grass fire. Yeah. Um, they don't know what caused it, but it started next to the road mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, so, you know, somebody threw a cigarette out the window or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But, um, grass fires pretty impressive. I'd never been around one before. I mean, impressive in a kind of scary way. Um, burns really fast. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, there was a, there was a 15 mile an hour wind out of the west that day too. Um, so it burns really fast. Um, I think Cal Fire said the flame length was 10 feet. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, so they measure flame length, not flame height, uh, because if the wind is blowing then the flame will lean a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So 10 foot flame length. But yeah, it was all really fast. 15 minutes later, the, the fire was at the property line and I was like, Okay, I guess I better, um, I guess I better go. Speaker 4 00:26:59 So I grabbed my dog and jumped in the truck, drove to the east side of my property where the, the road is going in out of my property and met Cal fire, uh, supervisor coming down the road on the truck. And I said, Hey, this is my property. Um, I was like, I can open these gates, tell me what you need. And right about that time, they dropped fire retardant on, uh, the west side of my property. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, um, I didn't actually see it. I mean, it's kind of a whole lot going on. I remember hearing the plane fly over, but by the time I turned to look and realized what had happened, everything was just kind of pink, uhhuh, <affirmative>. Um, so, um, yeah, I was stuck here that day. Uh, Fresno County Sheriff said, you know, I should leave, but, uh, if I leave, then they weren't gonna let anybody back in. Speaker 4 00:27:55 So it's kind of stuck here for the day. Watched, um, watch Cal Fire do their thing and learned quite a bit about wildfires and, um, things I can do to make the farm more resilient and such. But yeah, then after that it was just start the cleanup process. So how much of the farm was affected by this? Um, so I have, I have 12 acres mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and if you can imagine my 12 acres as a rectangle that runs north, south long ways. Uh, they applied the material right on my Western property line. They were trying to protect, um, I should say the flight path of the plane was over the western property line, slight southwest angle to it. They were trying to protect a few structures I have. And then, uh, in the same drop they were trying to protect a neighbor's house as well. Speaker 4 00:28:52 So the, the direct application of it was a, like a 75 foot wide swath, maybe a hundred feet swath. It ran mostly south but slightly south southwest. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> through the western edge of my property, and then into the neighbor's property. But then I mentioned that 15 mile an hour wind and the smaller particles, um, I should say droplets cuz everything in that 75 foot path or a hundred foot path, it was basically a blanket of pink uhhuh, rocks, trees, the ground buildings, equipment. Um, so the, the, the heavy blanket was just a solid blanket, but the droplets all drifted eastward and, um, affected a pretty good chunk of, of my property. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, I can't say exactly, but I'd say probably good half of the, the 12 acres for sure. Um, everywhere we were growing things was affected. All the crops we had in the ground were affected, except for one that I had a silage tarp on top of for weak suppression, Uhhuh <affirmative>. Um, but yeah, it was pretty, pretty thorough coverage. Speaker 2 00:30:08 So, So then what did you do about it? I mean, did you just, did you have to just leave it? Is there a way to, Does the stuff disappear? Does it wash off? I mean, or do you have, do you have pink crops for the rest of the season? What's, what's, what happens? Speaker 4 00:30:22 Yeah, great question. So, um, well the, the material first, the, the material's on, on everything. It's, um, on my tractor, on all my implements, it's on vehicles. Um, I have an outdoor packing area with shade cloth over it, so it's on all of my packing equipment. Um, I had shade cloth on my, uh, propagation house where we grew our seedlings. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, it, you know, went right through the shade cloth. And so it's all of our transplants, all of our propagation tables, It's like on everything. Um, and, and Amber mentioned, um, yeah, it's mostly water and then the active ingredients, ammonium phosphate, but they have an emulsifier in it as well to make it sticky. And then that, um, that red dye to make it stand out. So, um, the stickiness of it though, it, it really clings quite well to everything. And Cal Fire told me, you know, get it off as fast as you can. The sooner you get it off the better. So, uh, we just got the pressure washer out and you start blowing it off of everything Uhhuh, um, including kind of annoying, Speaker 2 00:31:37 Including the crops, or they, the Speaker 4 00:31:40 Crops is a separate, uh, the crops a separate issue. So just getting it off the equipment is all done with a pressure washer. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then, uh, we <laugh> it took, it took the better part of a week to do that, to get it off of everything. Wow. Real clean. Um, but regarding the crops, so we had a mix of crops in the ground. Uh, we still had some leafy green crops, we had some lettuce, um, bo choy, chard, um, all of the leafy crops, we just pulled them all out and threw 'em out. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we were left with a small amount of, I guess you could say fruiting crops, uh, like summer squash, zucchini, um, peppers, bell peppers. And as we were, we were talking with our certifier, looking into food safety issues, what we decided to do was to remove all of the fruit that had been contaminated and throw all of that fruit out. Speaker 4 00:32:46 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then, you know, plants like zucchini and bell peppers, they're constantly flowering and producing new fruit. Yeah. So we just waited for the new fruit to come on mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and then we resumed selling that fruit to the local store that we sell to mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, and, um, and selling it as non-organic, so we had to sell it as conventional mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, the only other thing we had was like basil, um, basal, you can cut back really hard and then it produces a lot of new growth. So it's kinda the same thing there is you just pull out and throw away everything that's, you know, an edible vegetable leafy type crop, and then we save whatever would regrow and, and produce new fruit that would be clean. Speaker 2 00:33:34 How does this affect your certification, your organic certification? Speaker 4 00:33:38 That was, that was what we were wanting to know too. Right. Good. Um, you know, my, my my gut response was, Oh, this is bad. Like, we had just gotten certified in November. We, it hadn't even been, what, just barely six months. And I was like, This is terrible. Um, and by the way, I'm really grateful for Cal Fire. Uh, these guys were amazing. Um, their response time was fast. Um, they hit it really hard. Um, they stopped the fire at 65 acres and, um, though they applied retardant to my property, um, it would've been a lot worse if they hadn't done what they did. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that fire would've burned straight through. Um, I actually purchased this property, as I mentioned, in 2020, and at the time, we had the big creek fire burning up in the Shaver Lake, Huntington Lake area mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Speaker 4 00:34:41 Um, and that was a, that was a huge fire. And so no one was offering fire insurance in my area. So all of my structures are unprotected. So, you know, like I I'm extremely grateful, uh, to Cal Fire and their response time. And, you know, while it's inconvenient in many ways to have retardant dropped on your property, it was certainly better, uh, than the potential alternative of it burning straight through and, and losing a lot more. Yeah. Um, but, you know, so I contacted my certifier and I, you know, I told them what happened over the phone, and then as I mentioned earlier, they, they asked me to fill out a report and detail everything that happened. And, um, uh, I, you know, again, Cal fire helped me out a lot, helped me identify their flight path, um, and to designate where on the farm they thought the material was directly applied versus where it was drift. Speaker 4 00:35:42 And, you know, helped me with knowing the wind speeds. And, and Cal fire again was just tremendously helpful. And we submit all of that information to CCO f and we wait, uh, wait for them to do their internal review and, and, um, and make a decision. One of the questions I had asked c o F and I had been consulting with several people that are in the industry, uh, people that I know have been in organic for a long time in, in some capacity or another. And one of the questions that came up was a exemption that's in the NOP standards. Um, so there's a, a portion of the N O P that makes exceptions for state or federally mandated applications of pesticides. So, for example, um, California has a huge stature industry, and there's a, let's say there's an insect that's a, a threat to the, the industry. Speaker 2 00:36:43 I think there is an insect, I sort of remember it from the 1980s when, uh, we were getting sprayed as well, you know, and residential neighborhoods. Can't remember what it's called now, but, uh, anyway, go on. Speaker 4 00:36:56 It's Speaker 3 00:36:57 Probably the Asian citrus solid. Speaker 2 00:36:59 No, no. It was a fruit fly. Um, and I can't remember now. Anyway, Speaker 3 00:37:05 There, there's a new pest on the scene Speaker 2 00:37:07 Now. Well, there always are, aren't there? Yeah. <laugh> Speaker 4 00:37:11 There always challenges. Yeah. So, um, let's say the state deems that this is a, a crisis situation and they want to prevent the loss of their industry. And so they're gonna mandate all farmers to spray such and such pesticide, whether you're organic or not, you have to spray this if you are a citrus grower. Well, their exceptions for organic farmers, if they are mandated by the state to spray their crop, they can't sell. Let's say the state mandated me to spray my crop this year. I couldn't sell this year's crop as organic, but I don't lose my certification on the crop as a whole. And that could be, um, that could be true, whether it was a state or a federal mandate. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> is that there's some protections in the st in the organic standards or events that are far beyond the farmer's control uhhuh. Speaker 4 00:38:12 Well, and as I looked at the situation, I said, Well, this isn't really different. I mean, yes, it's different. I'm not dealing with an insect pest, but a wildfire is an emergency situation. Cal Fire is a state agency, and they are applying a otherwise prohibited material to my property in that, that emergency situation. And I, as the, the farmer landowner, I have no control over that whatsoever. And in fact, Cal Fire told me, they said, Hey, you know, our guy in the plane, our crew, we don't know that your land is organic. And to be honest, you said it wouldn't have changed what we did anyway. And to be honest, like it's a tough position for me because I wouldn't want them to do anything different than what they did. Yeah. I mean, I don't want the fire to burn through the neighborhood. I don't, I don't want anybody's house to burn down mm-hmm. Speaker 4 00:39:10 <affirmative> like they did their job. And, and I respect, and I appreciate how professionally they did their job, but I'm still affected by it. Right. And it seemed to me, maybe not in the letter of the law, but in the spirit of the law, the same thing happened to me as what that n O P standard is describing an emergency situation with a prohibited material applied under mandate of a state agency. And, and to me, those are, those are parallels. Um, and so I asked CCO f I said, Well, why doesn't this, why doesn't this standard apply? Does this standard apply? And, you know, everybody kind of like, you know, it's a really good question. Um, but unfortunately the N O P standards don't specifically mention fires and don't specifically mention fire retardants. So it becomes a little bit of a gray area. And, you know, C C O F, um, they were tremendous through the whole thing. Speaker 4 00:40:16 They were very supportive, um, the whole way through. I, I have no complaints about C C O F at all. And as they explain their situation to me is that, so C C O F is, is accredited by the federal government to be a certifier mm-hmm. <affirmative> and C C O F goes through its own audits every year. So every decision that C O F or any other certifier makes has to bear the scrutiny of the inspections that they receive in order to maintain their accreditation as a certifier mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so C C O F is, is sort of stock where they have to, they have to apply what, what's called a penalty matrix. So the National Organic Program has a penalty matrix describing how certifiers are supposed to respond to certain situations. And they, without a specific clear, um, without specific or clear verbiage from the National Organic Program on how wildfires and prohibited materials like fire retardant are supposed to be treated, c o f has to comply with that penalty matrix. Speaker 4 00:41:29 And so they, um, ultimately came back that, um, roughly an acre of my land that, that we were gonna crop roughly an acre of that land is gonna be removed from certification for three years. Wow. Uh, areas that were affected by drift. Uh, I have to remove all those crops. And then any new crop moving forward will then be certified organic again. And then a lot of the area that was affected by the, uh, retardant was, you know, like I said, equipment and, uh, other parts of the property where I'm not growing things currently. So that's where they came back and, and made their decision. And then they told me that, um, they were gonna pursue further conversations with the National Organic Program. I've also had some conversations with the state organic program. So California Department of Food nag has their own organic program. I've had some conversations with a few of them. And there's kind of consensus that this issue of wildfires and fire retardants, um, needs to be addressed more clearly by the National Organic Program. So there's, so there's clear guidance on what certifiers and what farmers, uh, can do in response to this. Speaker 2 00:42:50 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, well, Amber, how widespread a problem does it, is this, um, I mean, given, given the wildfires that we've seen over the last, you know, five or 10 years, presumably, uh, David is not the first farmer, you know, do, have experience this, Uh, do you have any data? Have you heard from anyone else about it? Speaker 3 00:43:13 Yeah, that's a good question. Um, we have heard from other farmers, and we've only been in working in this space Right. For, um, informally for a few years, but, you know, officially in this program Yeah. For about eight months. Yeah. So, um, uh, on my particular list, I've spoken with three individual farmers in California just this season that have been affected. Hmm. Um, so presumably that's probably the tip of the iceberg, right? Like either in terms of folks that are, um, sharing that information with others. Right. And so it's getting to our ears, um, or, uh, have been impacted directly. So, um, I'm not even sure that some folks understand that, that it's a prohibitive substance. Right. They may not even know, um, and, or like David mentioned, right. Like if it's drift or, you know, whatever it is, the burden is on the, um, you know, the farmer Right. Speaker 3 00:44:05 To be able to observe those things. Yeah. So even in terms of chemical drift, you might not see it. So then how do you know it happen? Yeah. Right. Like, unless you see a response in your crops or something. So, and then this issue is also interesting when you talk about livestock, right? Like you can't just remove livestock from the ground, right? But then, you know, they're eating like the pasture that might have been affected, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> or something like that mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it is kind of a, uh, a wide issue and it's been, uh, good to work with c CF on this conversation because calf does have a, um, food safety, you know, program area that we work in. And so wildfire and food safety are working together with C C O F and the farmers that have been affected to run this issue up the chain, Right. To have N O P maybe issue a bulletin on this subject and help provide that guidance that David mentioned. Speaker 4 00:44:56 Ronnie, if I can jump in on that. Oh, yeah. I know the C O F alluded to the fact that, that I was not the first on this on their end either. So I, I don't know how many other farmers are dealing with it or how many times it's happened, but I, I know other farmers that are C C O F clients have had to deal with this too, Speaker 2 00:45:14 But, but CCO F hasn't issued any kind of general bulletin or anything about that like that. Um, are, are you doing anything like that at c at at cal, you know, with the, the farm to work with Speaker 3 00:45:28 Since we're not Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. We're not a regulatory body either. Yeah. But what we do is advocate for small farmers, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So that's why it was really great that David brought this to our attention mm-hmm. <affirmative> because it gave us an opportunity to ask like, Oh, is there any guidance? And in Washington, right, we looked at other states, they do have guidance and it's very strict. Like, it's like any kind of contamination, you lose your certification for three years mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I think we are happy that there are exemptions, like when these scenarios occur because, um, presumably as we mentioned, right, like a fertilizer can cycle through a system, especially if you are using a mitigation practice, like maybe using, you know, mushrooms right? To inoculate like soil that's been, you know, uh, contaminated and get that through the system even faster, right? Then maybe you can just have a six month suspension instead of a three year suspension or something like that. So we're trying to have that conversation not just to like give farmers cart launch, you know, ability to like, you know, do whatever they want, right? It's more like keep the standard, um, robust, but also have those important exemptions in scenarios like this. Speaker 2 00:46:37 Okay. You, you mentioned that the, the regulations are very strict up in Washington state, right? Is that the result of leg? Do you know whether that's the result of legislation or the result of rule making by, you know, the, the State Department of Agriculture? I'm just curious, right? Because, um, if it has to be legislated, that's a much more difficult process, right? Than if it's a, it's a administrative rule issued by a department, do you know? Speaker 3 00:47:08 Yeah. I believe that's from the state of Washington, and they do have, um, maybe more centralized system, um, there in terms of like, uh, not as many like certifiers, right? They kind of have like a more, um, stream streamlined, um, system there. But, um, yeah, I can't really speak to that per se, but I think that the reason that probably exists as it does is because it's easier, right? It makes it very clear and very simple for certified agencies, but it's problematic because it doesn't address these special needs. Speaker 2 00:47:40 Yeah, Sure. Sure. David, you wanted to say something? Speaker 4 00:47:44 Yeah, I, I actually had called around, um, I spoke to several different certifiers after it happened to us to see if, if there was any precedent for how other certifiers were handling the situation. And Washington state's, one of the ones that I talked to, um, and as Amber said, yeah, they just have a blanket three year, uh, suspension on stuff like this. But it goes back to the standards in the N O p, under the n p standards. If a prohibited material is applied to your farm, then it's a three year suspension of your certification on any land that was affected. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I think as Amber's saying, Washington State is just taken the approach that this is the simplest way to deal with it. Fire retardant is not exempted under the current n p standards, and so it's a prohibited material, and so they're just going with an automatic three year suspension. Speaker 4 00:48:40 Um, but it really goes back to the issue of it being an N O P A National Organic Program standard, and that the N O P needs to issue some sort of clarification that these certifiers can follow then, cuz Washington State Department of Ag is their own certifier, but they still fall underneath the NP standards. They're not right. They're not independent of the NP standards. They still fall underneath it. So without some sort of bulletin or clarification from the n O p, these certifiers, as I understand it, are kind of stuck with just viewing fire retardant as a prohibited material kind of in the story. Speaker 2 00:49:23 I, I mean, I suppose that the solution is to develop an organic fire retardant, right? I can't see why, you know, you couldn't, If it's ammonium phosphate, you know, I mean, I'm not a chemist, but I don't see why you couldn't find organic sources, you know, of the ammonia, the ammonia molecule. Um, but Speaker 3 00:49:43 Yeah, there, there are some so called like green versions out on the market, but they tend to be cost prohibitive. I think if you're, how far using like the volume you use and it, during a typical fire season, it's, you know, huge. Right? Like, so, and we have all our other constraints and issues, you know, with petroleum based products, so, Yeah. Speaker 2 00:50:02 Sure. Well, you know, um, well we're, we're, we're almost out of time. And so I'm wondering is, are there any other things that you might wanna raise with respect to this, you know, this issue of, of threats to organic farming? Um, and particularly maybe from the perspective of calf, Speaker 3 00:50:20 We are really just keeping our ears open because we rely on farmer perspectives to help us guide the work that we're doing. And so that's why it's so important that we were able to like, have this conversation with David, you know, uh, as the touch point of like, oh, just applying to the emergency fund, but realizing that there was actually a much greater need and then utilizing our contacts right. Within C O F and those relationships to help move this conversation at that like, federal level to get some traction and some guidance. Because even if they decided to do something like Washington State, right? And have a, a hard line, well at least then we can provide that information to farmers so they know what the process is mm-hmm. <affirmative> and what to expect. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Cause when it's not clear, it's very confusing. It's very ti you know, time consuming. It's frustrating. There's a lot of, um, mixed, you know, uh, communication in that process. So our, uh, biggest goal is to provide quality TA and quality resources for farmers. And so right now, you know, the, we're still developing this, um, you know, approach to see what we can do in this space, but, um, we're very supportive of, you know, the perspective that David's taken, that this is very similar to that other exemption, um, situation. And so we are advocating for that on, on his behalf and also other small farmers of course. Speaker 2 00:51:40 What, just, just as a last, um, a last point, what, what other services is your program offering to farmers? Speaker 3 00:51:49 So within the Wildfire program, um, I would say, again, just to reiterate, we work in those three buckets of preparedness, response, um, and recovery. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and preparedness tends to be the biggest bucket cuz there's so much work to do, right? So much deferred maintenance. So that can look like fuel reduction or, uh, you know, any kind of, um, tool like prescribed burning or livestock grazing to help reduce fuels. Um, but it can also look like, um, you know, utilizing other methods, um, just standard ecological farming methods that people don't realize. Even just adding compost actually helps your soils be more prepared to attenuate heat stress or other issues from wildfire. Um, and so there's, um, different resources that we create and put on our website. We have a nice landing page there, but we also do peer-to-peer learning events, field days, town halls, like this one. Um, so folks can come out and, and hear from other farmers about the practices that they're doing, get a hands on, you know, component and then take that back with them. Speaker 2 00:52:49 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, and then the other, and then, you know, with response or what is it? Speaker 3 00:52:57 Yeah, Speaker 2 00:52:58 Response. The last one. Yeah, yeah, Speaker 3 00:52:59 Yeah. Response really entails like, what are folks doing in, during an event, right? Like, and as David mentioned, if you leave your property right, it's gonna be difficult to get back in. Yeah. So some counties have started to develop things like ag or livestock past programs for agricultural operators that are at commercial level, which allows them to do a training each year, Right. And understand like, what are the safety concerns, et cetera, How can, can I get back in to like water my livestock or my crops or whatever it might be. Um, and so those are some tools that we're trying to work with the folks who are developing that, which is typically like county sheriff's department, you know, Cal Fire and, or like a uc, cooperative extension mm-hmm. <affirmative> Livestock Advisor or small Farm Advisor. Um, and not all counties have those programs, but you know, just getting folks the information they need to understand what their options are in their area. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> as well as, you know, what are the resources for farm worker safety, What are the, you know, Right. What are the, you know, evacuation concerns that farmers have because those are different from a typical residential, you know mm-hmm. <affirmative> situation. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, so we try to take that existing information and just make it very, very farmer facing mm-hmm. Speaker 2 00:54:10 <affirmative> and then for recovery, Speaker 3 00:54:13 So, um, David's, uh, actually an awardee of our emergency fund, which is really exciting. So that's all monies from the American Red Cross. We just did mini awards for 40 farmers this year, $5,000, which is a drop in the bucket. Right. But at least it helps, um, maybe like get through those hard periods and like, you know, help recover, um, any equipment that's lost or employee, you know, time illness, I mean, you know, smoke damage. There's all kinds of reasons that people need that kind of just mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, financial support. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but then also it's just this technical support sometimes, you know, they may not qualify for whatever we're, we're offering, but we can connect them with other existing farm service agency, U S D A, C D F A, you know, services and programs that can help support them through those issues. Speaker 2 00:55:01 Well, David and Amber, I wanna thank you for being my guests on sustainability now and, you know, talking with me about this very important topic. Speaker 4 00:55:11 Thank you for having me on. Speaker 3 00:55:13 Such a pleasure. Thank you. Both Speaker 1 00:55:26 Final tempera zones and tropic climbs not through currents and thriving seas. Winds blowing some breathing trees and strong zone and safe sun planets. Hard to Speaker 0 00:55:50 Good.