Task 6: Outreach and
Extension
Outreach and the extension of information are the basis for California almond
growers to gain confidence in reduced risk practices.
Conducting PMA Advisory Team meetings, field meetings, and providing
information via newsletters, status reports, and articles play an important role
in the Almond PMA outreach activities.
Attendance at field day meetings reflects the optimism and success of the PMA
program. Each region organizes at
least two meetings per year. One
meeting is conducted in the spring and the other is a dormant/winter meeting.
The winter meetings coincide with the seasons where insecticidal sprays
are being applied and therefore are relevant for discussing the interaction of
reduced risk pest management and the reduction of pesticide runoff into the
state’s waterways.
Each PMA site holds a field meeting during the late spring/early summer with
pest management demonstrations and hands-on displays. These meetings are valuable because attendees can see the
successes of the reduced risk treatments and talk to the PMA grower/cooperator
about his experiences in the project. Reduced
risk alternatives to traditional in-season insecticides are thoroughly
explained. Emphasis is placed on
proper insect identification and using weather and monitoring data to properly
time sprays. The Kern site held a meeting on May 1, 2001, the Stanislaus site on
May 10, and the Butte site’s meeting was June 7.
Two dormant season field meetings were held for the Sacramento Valley almond
growing area. Two-hour meetings
were conducted at Live Oak and at Hamilton City on Nov. 14th and on
Nov. 17th, 2000, respectively, each attracting about 50 growers.
On November 22, Kern County had a dormant spray meeting in Bakersfield,
which was attended by 42 growers and 23 PCA’s.
Stanislaus held a dormant meeting on December 14 with about 80 attendees. These meetings also emphasized monitoring of pest populations
and included demonstrations affecting dormant spray decisions.
In all meetings, the organization, successes and lessons learned from the
statewide Almond PMA was described. Participants
were interested in the regional differences among the three statewide PMA sites.
Newsletters are an important component for relaying updates and informing
growers, some who may not be active in the PMA, on issues regarding almonds in
California. Many of these
newsletters are regional, thereby relaying pertinent information to local
growers. Some newsletters are sent
via mail, others are status reports or quarterly reports reported by the Almond
PMA to the Department of Pesticide Regulation that can be accessed via the World
Wide Web. News articles and news
coverage relating to the Almond Pest Management Alliance benefit the program by
reaching a large audience in popular agricultural periodicals.
Many growers and those involved with the almond industry subscribe to or have
access to agricultural periodicals. The
Almond PMA makes good use of this medium for educating and updating many of
those growers who do not actively participate in the Almond PMA.
Through this extensive outreach effort, we hope to gain interest in the
program, thereby increasing the numbers of growers voluntarily adopting reduced
risk techniques in some capacity.
An article in Ag Alert, January 2001, the California
Farm Bureau’s newsletter, and an article in February’s California Farmer,
highlighted the two dormant season field meetings that were held in the
Sacramento Valley in the year 2000. The
successes of the Almond PMA in helping to educate the need to reduce winter
pesticide runoff was mentioned as well as detailed instructions on how to
decrease fertilizer costs. Also in
February, the Modesto Bee printed an article about the Almond PMA helping
to reduce pesticide use without impacting farmers economically.
In Rohm and Haas’s spring newsletter PCA Pipeline, information
about the upcoming approval of their product, Confirm, for use on almonds, was
associated with the move away from organophosphates touted by the Almond PMA.
The Almond Board of California’s spring newsletter included a page
detailing the structure and funding of the PMA and noted some successes of the
program’s innovative approaches to reducing conventional broad-spectrum
pesticides used in almonds. The
Department of Pesticide Regulation released a report on October 23, 2001
detailing a second consecutive year of reduction in pesticide use statewide.
The report highlight almonds as having reduced pesticide use more than
any other crop, with a decrease of more than 3 million pounds from 1999 to 2000.
Pesticide use reduction was also the topic of an article in the Modesto
Bee on October 25. This article
also points out that California almond growers are especially aggressive in
their efforts to reduce the use of potentially harmful chemicals.
It also detailed local pesticide reduction in Stanislaus County, as well
as describing reduced risk methods of crop protection and the use of monitoring
and timing information to make spray decisions.
DISCUSSION
The third year of the Almond Pest Management Alliance has clearly shown that
the Almond PMA continues to be an effective demonstration and education resource
for almond growers and Pest Control Advisors interested in learning about
reduced risk systems for crop protection. The impending loss of traditional crop protection tools due
to FQPA implementation, the possible risks to water quality from some dormant
sprays, and a growing interest in farming with more sustainable practices all
indicate that the PMA project is important to farming California almonds.
The Almond PMA in its first year demonstrated the power of pooling resources
to educate growers about reduced risk approaches. By working together, the various partners were able to reach
more growers and Pest Control Advisors than any one individual organization
could have reached on its own. UC
farm advisors were able to have their limited resources expanded by the talents
offered by PMA partners, whether it be in mailing out field day flyers, staffing
sign-in booths, arranging for field day lunches or paying the salaries of field
scouts performing the critical monitoring work.
The Almond PMA website provides a convenient and easily accessible location
for all information related to the project. Web site usage statistics show that
the site is accessed hundreds of time each month. The website provides
information 24 hours a day, seven days a week to anyone with access to the
Internet.
The Almond PMA in its second year built upon the alliance formed from the
various partners involved. The
management team continues to discuss and be proactive in the goal for reducing
pesticide use in almonds. Each of
the original regional demonstration orchards remained in the program
demonstrating that growers are committed to reducing pesticide use. Each of the regional orchards kept the same overall program
including some additions, which made the program better.
For statistical purposes, the trapping performed in each region remained
similar.
In the third year of the PMA, the regional demonstrations were continued,
creating an extensive database of information about reduced risk scenarios that
will be very valuable to almond growers. With
three years of research, the PMA sites are an excellent demonstration that
reduced risk programs in these particular geographic locations using lower
inputs of organophosphate pesticides in many cases may result in levels of
insect and pest damage that compare favorably with the conventional methods of
growing almonds when sometimes use two or more pesticide sprays are used.
By speaking with one voice on the critical issue of pesticide use, the
Almond PMA has done much during the past three years to raise awareness of
reduced risk farming practices among growers.
The Almond Board continues to support the Almond PMA program as one of its
key high-profile activities that allows the industry to prepare growers toward a
future of farming as some of the best land stewards in the State of California.
The Almond Board continues to increase its own financial support of the
Almond PMA project as the project costs increase and DPR’s contribution
remains stable or decreases.
The collective voice of the Almond PMA and its partners has been valuable in
helping educate governmental regulatory agencies regarding the many complex
issues involved in almond production. The
PMA has proven to be a valuable platform from which the industry can educate
such agencies as the Environmental Protection Agency, the State Water Resources
Control Board, the regional Water Quality Control Boards, the USDA, the
California Department of Food and Agriculture, and the California Department of
Pesticide Regulation pertaining to almond production practices and the
importance of controlling pests and diseases.