Post is special to Mulch by Kari Hamerschlag, Senior Agriculture and Climate Change Analyst from EWG's California office.

California is once again at the forefront of national climate change policy. California's Department of Natural Resources recently issued the nation's first state-wide strategy of its kind that evaluates climate change impacts in the state and makes key recommendations for actions to reduce these impacts across seven different sectors, including agriculture.

Many of these impacts--including severe drought, increased wildfires and floods, and unbearable heat waves are already being felt across the state. The Draft Adaptation Strategy points out what most critics of federal and state climate change legislation constantly fail to acknowledge: That taking no action to address climate change now could cost key sectors in the state "tens of billions of dollars per year in direct costs."

When it comes to agriculture, we can not afford these costs. Besides lost production and reduced yields, there are many other potential impacts, including threats to food security and wildlife, increases in pests, diseases and invasive species, increased soil erosion, and reduced soil and water quality, to name a few. Unfortunately, the draft strategy fails to include agriculture among its top twelve priority actions.

At a public hearing last week in Sacramento, EWG offered its suggestions for strengthening and better prioritizing adaptation measures in the agriculture sector.

First and foremost, the strategy needs to give a much greater emphasis to the promotion of cost-effective, adaptive land/soil management practices like cover cropping, conservation tillage and organic agriculture that also have the benefit of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, conserving water and protecting and enhancing soil quality.

We also think there should be much greater emphasis on promoting advanced integrated pest management, nutrient efficiency and organic agriculture so that farmers don't cope with the rapid expansion of weeds and pests that will come with higher temperatures by increasing the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

Finally the state needs to dramatically elevate the attention that it gives to agriculture and climate change. The state's agriculture agency currently has no staff dedicated to climate change and agriculture was all but left out of the state's implementation strategy for its landmark Climate Change Bill AB 32. EWG proposes the reallocation of resources within the state's agriculture agency to dedicate one full time staff to climate change. Given the strong links between agriculture adaptation and greenhouse gas emission reduction practices, EWG also recommends the establishment of an inter-agency working group on agriculture and climate change to ensure swifter and better coordinated action on both these fronts. It could also provide a much needed forum for the intensive stakeholder engagement and outreach that will be needed to motivate real change.

You can see our initial climate change and agriculture adaptation comments here.