Merrigan Visits California
Newly appointed U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Deputy Undersecretary Kathleen Merrigan visited California in June and met with the Ag Council Board of Directors. The luncheon meeting provided an opportunity for members to engage the deputy secretary on issues critical to California agriculture, such as the Market Access Program, food safety and specialty crop support.
Dr. Merrigan left her position as an assistant professor and Director of the Agriculture, Food and Environment M.S. and Ph.D. Program at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, Boston to accept her new post.
She has extensive experience in agricultural policy and served as administrator of USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service under President Clinton. Prior to that, Merrigan was a senior analyst at the Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture and an expert consultant at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome.
From 1987 to 1992 she was a staff member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry where she helped develop the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990, which mandated national organic standards and a program of federal accreditation.
Water Conservation Measures Target Processors
The Ag Council is heavily engaged on two bills that were introduced in response to the Governor’s 2008 executive order calling for a 20 percent reduction in urban per capita water use by 2020. SB 261 sponsored by Senators Dutton (R-Rancho Cucamonga) and Ducheny (D-San Diego), would require water suppliers to develop and implement a water use efficiency and efficient water resources management plan to achieve specific reductions by 2020. The bill would require the creation of a task force to develop best management practices for the commercial, industrial and institutional sector, which could affect food processors. SB 261 passed through the Senate earlier this year and now moves to the Assembly Appropriations Committee before going to the full Assembly for a vote.
Assembly Bill 49 introduced by Assembly Members Feuer (D-Los Angeles) and Huffman (D-San Rafael) was approved in early June and has been referred to policy committees within the Senate. According to the Legislative Counsel’s Digest, the bill would substantially revise existing law relating to agricultural water management planning to require agricultural water suppliers to prepare and adopt water management plans on or before December 31, 2012. The Ag Council is opposing AB 49 and has been successful in obtaining language in SB 261 that would minimize the impacts on food processors. Ag Council supports SB 261 as part of a comprehensive water storage package.
|
