Ingrained

What is shaping up as the most significant drought in decades has impacted much of the West.

A lack of adequate rain, sizzling temperatures and a snowpack that all but vanished have led to major cutbacks in surface water deliveries, including to Sacramento Valley rice fields. This year’s rice acreage is about 20 percent lower than normal as a result.

A massive challenge is fast approaching. There’s a growing concern that there will be little water on the landscape after harvest. That water helps break down rice stubble, but most importantly, it is vital to the health and survival of millions of birds that spend their fall and winter in our region. Shallow-flooded rice fields provide more than 60 percent of the fall and winter diet for 7 to 10 million ducks and geese during their annual stay in the Central Valley.

The lack of water for wildlife is a major concern for those who see and appreciate the Pacific Flyway on a regular basis.

“My concern is that there isn’t going to be any water to put out there,” said grower Kurt Richter of Richter AG in Colusa. “What’s so critical to me is all of the surrogate habitat rice fields provide in that time of the year to the Pacific Flyway. You have shorebirds and waterfowl that are migrating from Canada all the way down to South America. We are a stopping point; a truck stop for them so to speak. They need that water out here, to in as a place for shelter and a food source. This is a deep concern to all of us.”

“It is super challenging right now,” said Manuel Oliva, Chief Executive Officer of Point Blue Conservation Science, a key conservation partner with California rice growers. “Millions of birds will be arriving. They’re going to be tired and looking for a place to rest, looking to refuel or settle in for the winter. There’s likely not going to be enough habitat for them. Some are going to try to move, and they’re going to use energy they do not have. That makes them more vulnerable to predation or other hazards. As they are squeezed in to reduced habitat, it can increase opportunities for outbreaks of diseases like cholera or botulism.”

“What we’re seeing is an unfolding disaster right in front of our eyes, from a waterfowl perspective,” remarked Jeff McCreary, Director of Operations for the Western Region of Ducks Unlimited, another longtime conservation partner with rice. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, and we’re going to need to do something more than just pray for rain. Typically, when we talk about disaster it’s from a social standpoint – people are suffering. This is an environmental disaster in which people and wildlife are suffering.”

Currently, our California Rice Commission survey indicates less than 25 percent of the usual acreage will be shallow-flooded. That’s insufficient to support our flyway visitors.

As a result, a coalition of conservation, water and agricultural groups are seeking $10 million from the Legislature and Governor, to fund groundwater pumping for wildlife later this year.

“Hopefully we’ll have some opportunities to utilize surface water in those areas where it’s available,” remarked Northern California Water Association President David Guy. “We know it will be limited. Hopefully, there’ll be some opportunities to pump groundwater in some other areas, to help spread waters out across the region, help the birds spread out across the region to avoid some disease issues that we’ve seen in the past. Hopefully, we can do our part in this valley to help birds. This fall we want to make sure we do everything we can to help the birds.”

Among those concerned about the health of the Pacific Flyway is Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins.

“I think we should all be concerned,” Atkins said. “We’ve seen the devastating wildfires, the smoke, the strain on our energy supply, and now we’re certainly in the middle of another historic drought. We seem to say that more and more frequently. Climate change is here. It’s real, and it’s challenging our ability to produce food and energy. We have to work together to find solutions that are going to protect vital habitats, while at the same time maintaining a healthy agriculture industry. I think rice farmers know as well as anyone that it’s not fish or farms. Protecting ecosystems is just as critical for our own health, our own sense of well-being as it is for wildlife that call California home.”

Episode Transcript

Eileen Javora: Right now we are seeing an intense drought across the Western United States.

Jim Morris: Meteorologist Eileen Javora.

Eileen Javora: More than 90% of the land in the west is in drought conditions and nearly 60% or so is in extreme or exceptional drought.

Jim Morris: Northern California Water Association President, David Guy.

David Guy: Well, it's really an extraordinarily dry year. And is what we're finding is that it almost just keeps getting drier. There's just less water out on the landscape. Than at least we've seen in any of our lifetime.

Jim Morris: An immediate focus in the Sacramento Valley is finishing the growing season and harvesting crops, which provide widespread benefits. Next up, averting a potential environmental disaster by seeking creative ways to get water on a parched landscape.

David Guy: Hopefully we'll have some opportunities to utilize surface water in those kind of areas where it's available. It's going to be limited this year. We know that, and then hopefully there'll be some opportunities to pump groundwater in some other areas to help spread waters out across the region, help the birds kind of spread out across the region to avoid some disease issues that we've seen in the past. And that hopefully we can just do our part in this valley to help birds. That as we all know this valley is very committed to the Pacific Flyway and both the waterfowl as well as the shorebirds. And I think this fall, we want to make sure that we've done whatever we can to help the birds.

Jim Morris: The stakes are high, but many are focused on this critical subject.

Welcome to Ingrained: The California Rice Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Morris, proud to have worked with California farmers and ranchers to help tell their stories for the past 30 years. And this is no doubt. One of the most challenging years during that time, a lack of adequate water is a growing problem, and it is getting drier on the landscape. I'm in, Calusa visiting with grower, Kurt Richter. And Kurt, where are you with the growing season? And how's the rice looking?

Kurt Richter: The rice looks good. We are coming out of the weed control stage of the season and working our way into heading.

Jim Morris: Tell me about heading and what that means?

Kurt Richter: Heading is when the rice is what we'd call heading out. That's where the plant goes into the reproductive stage from the vegetative stage and produces its seed

The driest year in decades has been a jolt to much of California. Challenges extend beyond cities and farms, as wildlife is impacted by a sharp drop in habitat.

One saving grace in the Sacramento Valley is the continued creativity and collaboration between rice growers and conservation groups.

Millions of ducks depend on areas rice fields and adjacent wetlands, and there is a concerted effort to help them make it through the drought.

One helpful program from the California Ricelands Waterbird Foundation in partnership with the California Rice Commission and California Waterfowl involves protecting seasonal upland nesting habitat on rice farms and tracking nesting ducks that use the fields. One of those working to help ducks is biologist Marina Guzman of California Waterfowl; who is passionate about helping wildlife.

Marina and colleagues spend many hours in the field, chronicling ducks and their nests. Small transmitters are even placed on some hens, to track their movements and behaviors. Every observation is key to building a better understanding of how to provide these beautiful birds their best chance of survival.

“We’re learning a lot,” she commented. “This study documents nesting ducks in ag, which hasn’t been done since the 90s, so getting all of the information, all of the pieces and having everyone work together will help the birds in the long run. It’s a lot of work, but it’s all worth it.”

Another key conservation partner is Ducks Unlimited. Regional Biologist Craig Garner is among those working hard to help maintain healthy duck populations. He says Sacramento Valley rice fields are critical to ducks.

“The Sacramento Valley ecosystem is extremely important for waterfowl.” Garner said. “It’s primarily important for wintering waterfowl. The ducks that migrate south to overwinter in more milder climates hang out here in the Sacramento Valley, and then return north when it's warmer up north.”

Garner works with rice growers to improve habitat conditions on the ground, including water use efficiency – especially important when water is scarce.

A future area of concern is ensuring sufficient water in rice fields during the peak Pacific Flyway migration. After harvest shallow water helps decompose rice straw – providing vital habitat. There is a lot of discussion to try to ensure ducks and other rice field visitors will have a place to rest and refuel during their long journey later this year. December is the peak month for ducks in our region.

“The Sacramento Valley is unique for many reasons,” he remarked. “The complimentary benefits from having natural habitat and benefits provided by rice are just amazing. The agricultural community is very important for many reasons, but fall-flooded rice fields provide benefits to numerous species – not just ducks. It’s amazing to see, not only the ducks out here, but the wading birds, the amphibians and frogs - everything that uses these wetland habitats.”

Episode Transcript

Marina Guzman: We're heading out to do some trap tries. We're going for a Mallard and two Cinnamon's.

Jim Morris: It's another busy day for Marina Guzman, Biologist with California Waterfowl at Conaway Ranch, a rice farm in Yolo county. Marina and others are studying duck nests in cover crops on this rice farm and the news is not always good. Today has been a tough day, but this is key research, especially during this drought.

Marina Guzman: We found this nest about seven days ago, she's incubating around two days, so now she should be about nine days. She still has about 20 more days ago, a little less than that, 19 more days ago. She got depredated.

Jim Morris: What got the eggs?

Marina Guzman: I'm assuming the way it's dragged out and how the eggs are, it could be a little mammal that comes and just pokes his nose right through the egg. They're all on the side, right? So usually avian birds, raptor birds will carry the eggs away where a mammal will come and eat it at the nest. So hopefully the hen got away. It looks like she did.

Marina Guzman: This field has about 13, 14 checks. It's 176 acres. So it just goes on forever.

Marina Guzman: Oh no. Oh no.

Jim Morris: Too close for it to be…?

Marina Guzman: Yeah, for it to be there. We know that these fields are getting hit hard by something, and so we want to figure out whether it's a coyote, a fox or ravens, and if it is, how can we help?

Jim Morris: Have you always been an optimist or have you learned to be one when you're out here looking at the nests?

Marina Guzman: I started off really well, like I was like, "Yeah, all the birds are going to make it, all the ducklings are going to make it." And then reality hits and it's like, but you can't give up you know. Sometimes they do make it and you get really excited, yeah, that made it, yeah. But there's no point in giving up

Jim Morris: Welcome to Ingrained, the California Rice Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Morris, proud to have worked with California farmers and ranchers for more than 30 years to help tell their stories. And there are no two ways about it, this is a tough year. It will take ingenuity to get through. But fortunately there is plenty of that in our region. Marina Guzman is a biologist with Cal Waterfowl and Marina, before we get into the work that you're doing in the field to help ducks, let's talk a little bit about your background. You're the first one in your family with a college degree. Can you tell me about that?

Marina Guzman: My family migrated from Mexico out here. I'm one of the first among with some of my cousins to be the first with a degree. I decided to go in the wildlife degree direction and then it's turning out well for me, actually. My whole family came out and there's a bunch of us, like 50 cousins and everything. So it was really exciting to have everyone there, especially my grandma to see her second generation to go and get a degree, you know, the reason why she came out this way, this far and worked so hard.

Jim Morris: So, tell me about what the work is that you do.

Marina Guzman: So we are doing a nesting setting, so we're basically seeing how many nests are using cover crop fields.

Jim Morris: Tell me about working with ducks. What do you like about that? Just spending some time with you, it's clear you have a big passion for them.

Marina Guzman: I love ducks. I'm so in tune with the nesting settings and the way mallards are using this land that I actually know where habitat or like I'll flush a bird, right? I'll flush a bird off a nest and to find the nest, you have to actually be like, okay, if I was a mallard, where would I hide? How much shade would I like, and what would I use? And so once you find those little key pointers, you're able to find these nests a lot quicker.

Jim Morris: While more is learned, there are successes that more than balance the challenges seen this year. The day after my visit with Marina, they found more than 10 active duck nests at Doherty Farms in Dunnigan, and they even placed a transmitter on a mallard. So researchers are soaking up additional knowledge that will pay dividends now and into the future.

Marina Guzman: Getting all the information, all the pieces and having everyone work together will help the birds in the long run. Whether this is like a sad year, a lot of depredation, it would be better in the future.

Jim Morris: How important are rice fields to the whole equation?

Marina Guzman: I was surprised to know how many rice fields and, just having those rice fields, birds really came into to that water. They really come and look for that water. You can have the most gorgeous fields, but if there's no water around and that's what rice fields provide is the water. If there's no water around, there's no birds. So rice allows the birds to come and key in to the land, whether it be on the side, the levees, or even the field adjacent to it, or like you see now across even a road like this, they'll travel up to three miles. We know like they'll travel up to like a mile, mile and a half, up to three miles to get to water. So having those rice fields close to dry upland fields like this, is super important for their survival, not only when they're laying, but once the duckling are hatched.

Marina Guzman: Ducklings, as soon as they hatch, they're little snacks for anything that can put them in their mouth. The faster they're able to go into water, like a rice field, they're able to hide from predators and use that water to feed and to hide. So keeping both the ducklings and the hen safe from predators, especially since rice grows so quickly and so tall, it's able to protect them.

Jim Morris: I've learned a lot in our short amount of time, driving in the ATV, including the cinnamon teals are the fastest of the ducks that you work with. So what are some facts that people may not know about the ducks that you look at?

Marina Guzman: Cinnamon teal, mallard and gadwall would lay an egg one day until their average cut size. So normally mallards we'll do nine eggs. GAD will do 10, 11, maybe. And then cinnamon's would do a little more than that. Then once

The driest year California has experienced since the 1970s will have wide-ranging impacts in the West.

In the Sacramento Valley, a reduced water supply will lead to about a 20 percent reduction in rice plantings.

The loss of about 100,000 acres of rice fields has implications well beyond the farm level. The reduced plantings will impact rural communities that depend on agriculture as their foundation. It’s also a concern for wildlife, which greatly depend on rice fields for their habitat.

Fortunately, rice growers are collaborating with conservation groups to get the most out of what’s available.

“Over the last 150 years, over 90 percent of the wetlands that used to be in the Central Valley have gone,” remarked Julia Barfield, Project Manager with The Nature Conservancy. “They've been lost to development and agriculture, and there's a shortage of habitat that birds migrating along the Pacific flyway need. And that is wetland habitat, specifically shallow wetlands for migratory shorebirds, which is a group of species that have declined precipitously in the last 50 years. And we are working hard to make sure there's enough habitat, especially in years like this that are really dry -- and there's not going to be much habitat on the landscape when they're migrating this fall.”

The Nature Conservancy has spearheaded two key rice conservation programs, BirdReturns and Bid4Birds, which have helped during past droughts.

“What we've found in the last drought,2013 to 2015, which was a critical period, was that the incentive programs, such as BirdReturns, provided 35 percent of the habitat that was out there on the landscape and up to 60 percent in the fall period during certain days,” said Greg Golet, a scientist at The Nature Conservancy who has spent years working to maintain and enhance shorebird habitat in Sacramento Valley rice fields.

This cooperation wouldn’t be possible without rice growers being willing participants. For decades, rice fields have provided a vital link to the massive Pacific Flyway migration of millions of birds.

“I've been doing this for 40 years now, every farmer that I know is an environmentalist at some level,” said rice grower John Brennan, who works at several places in the valley, including Davis Ranches in Colusa. “We're the ones that are out there in the environment. We're the ones that get to enjoy the birds. We're the ones that get to see habitat and all the excitement that it brings to the landscape. But on the other side of it, we need to make sure that rice stays relevant in the state of California. And so, we're not going to be able to maintain this habitat, as habitat. There's not enough money in the state of California to do that. We need to come up with a farming program that does both, that provides food and provides habitat.”

As summer approaches, the value of rice field habitat – especially during drought -- will grow right along with America’s next crop of sushi rice.

The rice fields, complete with their diverse ecosystem, are a welcome sight to Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, who has worked on several fronts to bolster such conservation.

“It makes me feel relieved,” she said. “It makes me feel like there's hope. It makes me feel like there's the beauty that we have all around us in Northern California -- and then to appreciate every single moment of it, and not to take away, but to help enhance what we have and to continue it for our future.”

Episode Transcript

CBS 13 Newscaster 1: The drought impacting much more than how you water your lawn, but the way food is grown in the Sacramento Valley. CBS 13's, Rachel Wulff shows us the changes to a multi-billion-dollar industry that supports 25,000 jobs.

Fritz Durst: Farmers are eternal optimists. You have to be, to risk so much with so many things out of your control.

Rachel Wulff: Fritz Durst, trying to keep his spirits up in a down year.

Jim Morris: The past year plus has been difficult for our world, and now a significant new challenge has hit much of the west. Precious little rain and snow fell during fall and winter, leading to the driest year California has seen in generations.

As a result, there will be less rice grown in the Sacramento Valley this year. That has wide ranging impacts, including to birds that migrate along the Pacific flyway. But as the newly planted rice emerges and more birds arrive, there's at least a momentary lift during this difficult time.

Welcome to Ingrained, the California Rice Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Morris. I've worked with California farmers and ranchers for more than 30 years helping tell their stories. I'm at the historic Davis Ranches in Colusa, and even though drought has taken out about 20 percent of normal rice acreage, it is a beautiful time in our valley and an important one as well. Julia Barfield has been with the Nature Conservancy since 2010. After her undergraduate degree in English Literature and German, her early career was in publishing and editing, and then she made a big shift getting her graduate degree in biology with thesis work, including a field endocrinology and behavioral study on a nocturnal endangered species in a very remote field station in a desert grassland environment.

And Julia, you need to go back to publishing after you write that book because I'll buy two copies of it, it sounds like a wonderful book. So we went from pandemic to drought and that is certainly challenging for protecting the environment, but let's start with something positive being out here in the country. What are your thoughts when you're in and around the rice fields and you see all the wildlife?

Julia Barfield: Oh, it's so refreshing to get out, up here in the rice fields. And there's such a diversity of birds and we're out here today on Davis Ranches, and you can hear bird song in the background, and it's just such a release after being cooped up in the last year.

Jim Morris: The Nature Conservancy has been contributing to this effort for many years, as well as some other conservation partners, and we're very grateful for that. So why is the Nature Conservancy using its time and expertise and resources to help wildlife in rice fields?

Julia Barfield: Well Jim, over the last 150 years, over 90 percent of the wetlands that used to be in the Central Valley are gone. They've been lost to development and agriculture, and there's a shortage of habitat that birds migrating along the Pacific Flyway need. And that is wetland habitat, specifically shallow wetlands for migratory shorebirds, which is a species that has declined precipitously in the last 50 years. And we are working hard to make sure there's enough habitat, especially in years like this that are really dry and there's not going to be much habitat on the landscape when they're migrating this fall.

Jim Morris: The Nature Conservancy has two specific programs they've worked with regarding rice farming and the environment. Tell me about those.

Julia Barfield: Back in 2014 during the last drought, we developed a program called BirdReturns. I just mentioned that there's been a huge loss in habitat in wetlands, in the Central Valley. And during migration season, which is early fall and late spring for migratory shorebirds, there's often few places for them to stop and rest and feed on migrations that can go anywhere from Alaska down to Patagonia. So these birds are long distance fliers and they need to refuel along the way. And so, to make up this habitat shortfall, we developed this program called BirdReturns, where we work with growers to flood their fields for a few weeks at a time during the most critical times of year. And we call these pop-up wetlands. And another way to talk about it is we often refer to them as an Airbnb for birds.

Jim Morris: And now there's a Bid4Birds. So tell me a little bit about that.

Julia Barfield: So, the Nature Conservancy is part of a formal partnership with two other conservation organizations, Point Blue Conservation Science and Audubon, California. And we are working closely with the California Ricelands Waterbird Foundation to create a BirdReturns like program called Bid4Birds. It's the same kind of concept where we ask growers to submit bids to participate in the program, and we select growers who have the best quality habitat for the lowest price.

Jim Morris: Tell me a little bit about working with growers, that's obviously a key element to make sure these programs are successful.

Julia Barfield: Yes, the growers are a key component and since the beginning of doing burn returns, we work closely with the rice community and rice growers have been close partners for us. And the idea is that this is a win-win approach. So, by working with the growers, we are able to help promote their long term farming operations and also create habitat for birds. And we are kind of both an organization, if you will, where we want to have benefits for both people and nature, and rice growers are a very important part of this wor

The coming weeks will be busy in the Sacramento Valley, as highly-skilled pilots plant this year’s rice crop.

Farmers are no stranger to challenges, and this year is no different. Below-par rain and snowfall have led to water cutbacks of at least 25 percent valley wide, which will lead to an as yet undetermined drop in rice plantings.

“There are a lot of fields that won’t be planted on my farm and throughout the state because of a lack of water,” said Sean Doherty, rice grower in Dunningan. “That’s what you do in years like this. You cut back and work with what you have.”

Less rice planted has repercussions beyond farms and mills. Rice is an integral part of the Sacramento Valley, providing more than $5 billion to the economy and 25,000 jobs. Rural communities that depend on farming will be impacted, as well as the environment – fewer rice fields planted means less habitat for hundreds of wildlife species.

“Every year, we’re concerned about species that are already listed as threatened, endangered or species of concern,” said Meghan Hertel, Director of Land and Water Conservation at Audubon California. “Unfortunately, in a drought, it’s not just the species of concern that we’re worried about – the ones with the low populations – we’re also worried about common birds.” A recent study from Cornell University study estimates a plunge of the overall bird population by three billion over the last 50 years.

She said rice fields are vital for wildlife, especially in a dry year like this one.

“Every year, rice fields are important for habitat,” she said. “That’s because, in the Sacramento Valley, we’ve lost 90 to 95 percent of our natural habitat, so much of the ground that birds and other wildlife are using is actually in active rice production. We call it surrogate habitat for birds and wildlife, and in some cases it’s providing two-thirds of the diet of wintering waterfowl.”

She said this dry year will mean birds will have to congregate on the fewer acres where water is on the landscape, which means less available food for wildlife.

Hertel said there is excellent collaboration in the Sacramento Valley, to support farms and the environment. “Partnerships, communication and collaboration are key. Working together, we can make the best of what we do have.”

Collaboration is also a key to helping the state’s struggling salmon population.

Jacob Katz, Lead Scientist at Cal Trout has been working with rice farmers and water districts for years now, and said tremendous progress has been made to help salmon. He said rice fields can be used to mimic the incredibly productive wetland habitats that were in the Sacramento Valley before it was developed.

“It means slowing water down across the floodplain,” he remarked. “It means spreading it out, creating the puddles that typified the floodplain wetlands before development of the valley, that’s similar to the surrogate wetlands that rice fields are managed as. What we’ve found is those fields fill up with fish food, with bugs. It only takes three weeks or so to go from a dry field to a shallow, wetland-like environment, and three weeks later it’s teeming with bugs, with fish food. We’ve been working with farmers, water suppliers and reclamation districts to grow the food on these fields, but then to actively drain it back to the river where fish can access it in dry years like this. That’s a really important piece.”

“There’s extraordinary room for optimism,” he added. “We’ve shown that the Sacramento Valley can be resilient, can produce benefits for both people and for the environment. Look at the bird response over the last 30 years, as rice growers and water suppliers came together to offer our feathered friends some semblance of the habitat that they evolved in, that they were adapted to. And those birds recognized those flooded rice fields as wetlands…. We can do the same thing for salmon. We have every evidence to suggest that that’s true. That if we hit every link in the salmon’s life history, if we connect their juvenile and adult life phases, we can have a phenomenal response from our fish populations.”

Water management is always a balancing act, but the job is especially challenging this year.

Thad Bettner is General Manager of the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District, the largest water district in the Sacramento Valley, spanning 175,000 acres, including rural communities, many rice farms and three federal wildlife refuges. He is navigating through several subjects, including potential voluntary agreements and water transfers.

He said longer term additional water storage would pay major dividends in future dry years.

“Water storage would be huge,” he said. “We are looking at Sites Reservoir… we believe the time is now for that. One of the great things about Sites Reservoir is it’s downstream from Shasta Reservoir, so it provides this midstream benefit of being able to regulate the system and really manage for multiple benefits—water supply, meeting the needs of the environment and carryover storage. Sites would help meet all of those goals.”

Jim Morris: May in the Sacramento Valley involves an interesting sight - high speed, low flying airplanes planting America's next crop of sushi rice. In fact, I have an airplane heading my way right now! And there is excitement with a new season, but this year is not without its challenges. Welcome to Ingrained the California Rice Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Morris. Proud to have worked with California farmers and ranchers for more than 30 years to help tell their stories. I'm in Sutter County, watching precision GPS guided planting, and it is an amazing site. Even with the benefits rice has to our cuisine, economy and environment, we are not immune from impacts of a dry year.

Jim Morris: There will be many things to keep an eye on during this dry year. One of them is the environment. And here in the Sacramento Valley, we're on the Pacific Flyway, so virtually every trip through this area, there are wonderful sites. I was at a farm this morning and they had a bald eagle sighting. So, that's great. However, this dry year won't be easy, not just for the cities and farms, but there are certainly pressure on our diverse ecosystem. Meghan Hertel is director of land and water conservation at Audubon California. And Meghan, as we have this dry year unfold, what are some of your concerns for wildlife?

Meghan Hertel: Water is essential, not just for human life, but also for wildlife. And here in California, we have a really interesting water cycle. So the rain falls in fall and winter, and it creates water in the ground, it feeds the habitat and it feeds the wetlands and the rice fields that birds are using. And then most of our waterfall is in the form of snowpack. And that snowpack is released throughout the year and used for our farms and cities, and also to create river flows and to serve the habitats throughout the year. And this year we didn't get rain and we don't have much snowpack. And that means impacts to our habitat and to our wildlife.

Jim Morris: Are there particular species you'll keep a watch on as the year unfolds that you're especially concerned about?

Meghan Hertel: Every year we're concerned about species that are already listed as threatened or endangered or species of concern. So great examples of this are the salmon, least bell's vireo, from the bird example, or yellow billed cuckoo. Also, the giant garter snake, which we find frequently throughout the Sacramento Valley associated with rice fields and wetlands. But unfortunately in a drought, it's not just the species of concerns we're worried about, the ones with the low populations. We're also worried about common birds. So, Cornell University, last year released a study that showed in the last 50 years we've lost three billion birds, and it's not just the rare ones, it's actually the common birds. So in a year like this, where there'll be less habitat on the ground and less food for birds, we worry about those common birds as well.

Jim Morris: How important are rice fields in the equation, particularly when you're looking at a year when there's not going to be a lot of water naturally on the landscape?

Meghan Hertel: Well, every year rice fields are important for habitat and that's because in the Sacramento Valley we've lost 90 to 95 percent of our natural habitat. So, much of the ground that birds and other wildlife are using is actually in active rice production. We call it surrogate habitat for birds and wildlife. And in some cases, it's providing two-thirds of the diet of wintering waterfowl. So that's a big amount. Unfortunately in a year like this, we are seeing cutbacks, not just in race, but also in our wetlands. The water system that serves our rice serves our remaining wetlands as well. And so as we see the reduction of habitat, that means birds are going to have to concentrate in fewer areas and they're going to have less food.

Jim Morris: One of the ways I hope that is helpful, are these great partnerships between organizations like yourself, rice growers, and other interested parties in the Sacramento Valley. Comment a little bit, please on those partnerships and how valuable they are, particularly in a year like this.

Meghan Hertel: Absolutely. Partnerships, communication and collaboration are key. When there are not enough resources, particularly water, that's so important to all of us, to go around, we need to sit down and talk about how we use the limited amount of water that we've got. And that means using science to understand the trade-offs and then maximizing what water we have to reach multiple benefits.

Taro Arai has an electric personality. As Chief Dreaming Officer for Mikuni, with nine popular restaurants and sushi bars in Northern California, his enthusiasm and generosity are well known throughout the region.

But it wasn’t an easy road to success. After arriving from Japan, the Arai family opened their first Mikuni restaurant in 1987. Reverend and Mrs. Arai prepared food in the kitchen, while Taro and siblings Noamichi and Keiko worked as greeter, busser and server. After a lot of hard work and perseverance, Mikuni continued to grow and prosper.

Their success has left an indelible imprint on Northern California.

Before the pandemic slowdown, Mikuni served more than 1 and a half million customers a year, utilizing about 20 tons of California rice every month.

Taro said he is continually humbled by their success and vows to maintain their approach of giving back to the community.

Mikuni has supported more than 80 charities. Their rescue rolls have raised tens of thousands of dollars for many who have suffered through disasters. Their golf tournament has raised millions of dollars for charity.

Why do so much?

“Without God and our community, we’re not here right now,” Taro remarked. “We need to give back. To be here, share the joy and help charity, I’m living a dream right now. The least I can do is to go out every day, spread the joy and help others as much as we can.”

Episode Transcript

Jim Morris: Welcome to a special bonus episode of Ingrained. I'm Jim Morris with the California Rice Commission, visiting with one of my favorite people on the planet, Taro Arai, Chief Dreaming Officer at Mikuni, a fantastic group of restaurants and sushi bars in Northern California. Taro is an author, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and one of the kindest people I've ever met. And I've often suspected you don't sleep, Taro, and now you're planning your daughter, Chiyoh's, wedding. So how do you balance all that?

Taro Arai: Ooh, I'm so excited. I've been waiting. I had a tuxedo ready two years ago, and also a speech for the wedding. I have been ready, so I'm excited about it. My wife keeps telling me, "It's not your wedding," so that's the thing I have to remind myself every day.

Jim Morris: That's awesome. Tractors are working in the fields, airplanes are flying over seed, there's a new season underway in rice country in the Sacramento Valley. You have seen this process firsthand, so what are your thoughts as we're starting a new season for rice in California?

Taro Arai: I love it, and also it’s a new season for my family too. Right? So getting marrieds great, but for me having a grandchildren, next generation of workers, that's exciting too. I love always something new.

Jim Morris: You have more than 50 different sushi rolls, so how important is it to have local, affordable, high-quality rice to work with?

Taro Arai: I mean that's everything. Sushi without sushi rice, that's not sushi! Of course, I grew up in a culture that rice is the most important thing in the food culture. Then I can't imagine without having rice, and also having a rice in our backyard, how blessed are we? We're spreading all over the love of rice to United States too. Right?

Jim Morris: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

Taro Arai: I mean I'm so proud of California rice, and I'm so fortunate to be here.

Jim Morris: You have seen the rice fields in Japan and probably have a lot of experiences when you grew up, so tell me a little bit about being a child in Japan and some of your experiences in rice.

Taro Arai: We used to play baseball on the rice field. Oh, I get yelled at because we make it dirt so hard while baseball season. And here when I went there, you see the big truck, the big airplane. I mean it's totally different way of raising rice here.

Jim Morris: And we owe so much to the Japanese culture, not only as one of our big customer bases, but also the Japanese varieties, Koshihikari, Akitakomachi, on, and on, so we are incredibly grateful for that relationship. Let's get to the here and now. We're sitting at your restaurant in Roseville and there's people here eating. It is so refreshing to see. But tell me a little bit about how the pandemic has been. It has just been really tough for restaurants.

Taro Arai: Toughest thing is we had an unknown future, so we couldn't plan anything. That was the hardest things for us. We don't know if we can open the restaurant, close the restaurants, and then all the employee are going through COVID protocol. I don't know. Every day we have a new challenges. It was a really long time suffering or overcoming this COVID thing. But meanwhile, my job was to encourage my managers. We don't want to just survive, but let's thrive in this, let's keep our hope, so that was my message to our managers all through this COVID season. And then we got a lot of benefit too through this. We learned so much about each individual managers, and also even sushi class too. I used to do 35 people max. Now I do a virtual, so we learn how to do the virtual sushi class. We did for 300 people the other day.

Jim Morris: Oh wow.

Taro Arai: So a lot of things. Through this we learn positive things, too.

Jim Morris: We are getting closer to maybe a full reopening, so how excited are you to get more people back in the restaurants?

Taro Arai: I'm excited, but I just want to focus on thanking our community since we're closed a long time, we had amazing support in to-go’s, curbside, I mean delivery. We never seen anything like it in the past. Like two, three hours of waiting they waited for us to deliver food. I mean I can't thank enough to our community. I can't wait to give back as much as we can in the future too.

Jim Morris: And you have given back considerably, tens of thousands of dollars to charities with your Rescue Rolls, and also I believe more than 80 charities Mikuni has supported. Why do you do it to that degree, especially in a time when it's hard to run restaurants?

Taro Arai: Without God, without our community, we're not here right now, so at least we can do is give back. For example, last August we had a golf tournament that was 25th annual. Middle of the pandemic, heat waves, smoke from the fire, they told us, "Please, you should just cancel it." But I said, "People still need money, help, so we have to have it. If we can get together, we do 4x4, just nine-hole tournament." So we pushed forward, and then we raised $300,000. That was a record breaking with a nine-hole tournament because people are so supportive here, and we ended up raising $2.5 million just from the golf tournament for charity. So anything we do, again, we can't do ourselves. We just make sushi. The community has to come together and support. That's why we could do amazing things.

Jim Morris: You have been rolling sushi for more than 35 years. Mikuni has more than one-and-a-half-million customers every year. That's pre-pandemic, and I'm sure you'll be back to that. So what keeps you motivated and positive? Our world needs more positivity right now.

Taro Arai: Every morning I wake up, first thing I thank God for, my life and then also people around me. I don't know. I kept thinking so many things that I can't wait to go out there and spread the joy that I have in me. So every morning I'm so passionate about it, just meeting people. I do a lot of private parties nowadays. I just can't wait to go out there and then share Mikuni's story because we don't deserve to be here. Coming from Japan with nothing, no friends, no language, to be able to be here and share the joy and help the charity, I'm living in the dreams right now. So at least I can do is go out there every day to spread the joy, help others as much as we can.

Jim Morris: Don't ever change, Taro. Thanks so much, Taro, for your time, and thank you for listening to this bonus episode of Ingrained. You can find out more at podcast.calrice.org.

Tractors are working ground in the Sacramento Valley, as the 2021 rice season is underway.

Whether it’s farmers, those in cities or for the environment, this year will pose challenges due to less than ideal rain and snowfall during the fall and winter.

At Montna Farms near Yuba City, Vice President of Operations Jon Munger said they expect to plant about one-third less rice this year, based on water cutbacks. As water is always a precious resource in this state, rice growers work hard to be as efficient as they can. Fields are precisely leveled and will be flooded with just five-inches of water during the growing season. Rice is grown in heavy clay soils, which act like a bathtub to hold water in place. High-tech planting and harvest equipment also help California rice farms and mills operate at peak efficiency.

Expectations of less rice acreage will impact other parts of the valley – rural communities, allied businesses and the environment – birds and fish.

“The Central Valley is arguably one of the most important waterfowl areas on the planet,” remarked Jeff McCreary, Director of Operations for Ducks Unlimited’s Western Region. “It’s because of all of these birds coming down the Pacific Flyway… and when we think about the drought, it’s going to affect that wintering habitat. Is there rice on the landscape? Is there water for wetlands? How do we make sure that those populations are in as good enough condition that when they go back to the breeding ground, they can have a successful year.”

McCreary said rice fields are critically important for wintering waterfowl, supporting 60 percent of the food energetics these birds need. He said of all of the duck species, the Mallard is perhaps the most impacted by dry weather in California.

Another environmental concern during dry weather is the wild salmon population, which faces significant challenges. However, farmers, water districts, conservationists and others are working hard to find solutions.

“The salmon rice work is among the most exciting work I’ve ever been a part of, “said Andrew Rypel, an associate professor and the Peter B. Moyle and California Trout Chair in Coldwater Fish Ecology at UC Davis in the Department of Wildlife, Fish & Conservation Biology. Rypel is one of the key participants in pilot salmon research, including raising juvenile salmon in winter rice fields, then releasing the fish into the ocean. So far, results with the project have been very positive.

Another key project to help salmon is putting a shallow amount of water on rice fields in the Sacramento Valley after harvest, which creates “fish food”- zooplankton – which is then released into the river to help feed wild salmon runs.

Water managers always have a balancing act to meet the needs of their customers, and dry years provide even more careful consideration. Lewis Bair, General Manager of Reclamation District 108 in the Sacramento Valley, is one of those navigating through this dry year, which includes creative approaches with water, including the likelihood of transfers.

“In a dry year, our folks would still love to farm, just like they always love to farm,” he said. “But in these types of years, we end up kind of sharing the pain by doing water transfers. Sometimes, it’s better to move water around for the whole system. You end up being able to achieve other benefits. It really is a short-term solution. We need to have a more reliable water supply for California, and I’m hoping that the long-term vision and long-term investments will help reduce the need for those sorts of transfers.”

Bair said building Sites Reservoir would be a major help to the state’s water future, providing new storage and flexibility to re-operate the system for water use efficiency.

“I think it’s the most promising thing we can do from an infrastructure perspective,” he added. Munger, McCreary, Rypel and Bair all have different responsibilities, but they share a common goal- to help our region withstand dry years, including a healthy ecosystem and sufficient water for cities and farms. They all agree that the level of cooperation is great in the Sacramento Valley, as evidenced by the scores of voluntary, collaborative projects that have been done to help maintain the Pacific Flyway and enhance the wild salmon runs.

Episode Transcript

Jim Morris: Tractors are in the field and work is underway to prepare ground throughout the Sacramento Valley for rice planting. An old challenge has returned, one we faced in the past, that will impact virtually all Californians. The question before us, how to navigate through a dry year with subpar rain and snowfall?

Jim Morris: Welcome to Ingrained, the California Rice Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Morris, proud to have worked with California farmers and ranchers for more than 30 years to help tell their stories. Over that time, there have been years of abundant water and dry years, which provide challenges, and this is one of those years. I'm in the Yuba City area, one of many areas of our valley where fields are being prepped for rice planting. Jon Munger is with Montna Farms. John, what's happening out here today?

Jon Munger: Today we're starting our field prep with chiseling. It is opening the ground up. It's the first piece of equipment that we use since the rice fields have been flooded for the wintertime.

Jim Morris: Jon, looking at it from a longer-term perspective, what are your thoughts as you are going to enter your very busiest time of the year?

Jon Munger: Over the years, we've had many dry years. We've dealt with a COVID pandemic and, like we did last year, we quickly implemented the policies to keep all of our workers safe in the field and our workers that we have here, they're spread out quite well. They're driving their own tractors and we implemented policies last year that worked very well to keep everybody safe and we're planning to do the same this year. So, it's no different now rolling into the drought that we're currently facing. We've had dry years in the past. We always will get through them. It does affect our local rural communities. A lot of folks depend on the farming activities that we have out here. For our farm, we're looking at potentially growing a third less of our acres this year and that's definitely an impact.

Jim Morris: One thing people may not know about rice is of course we have this season coming up, the harvest will be in the fall, but rice is stored and milled according to order essentially year round. So Jon, tell me a little bit about how rice is milled and marketed right now and what it means for the consumer.

Jon Munger: Each and every year during harvest rice is delivered to many different dryers throughout the valley. It is then dried and stored until millers and marketers make orders, and then rice is shipped onto mills and milled and shipped out there to whatever buyer or whatever location it's going to. Last harvest crop 2020 is being stored and will be used all the way through this year. Then come this fall, the 2021 crop will go back into storage and will be used in during the year of 2022.

Jim Morris: That really helps in a year like this because there is rice, it's already in storage, it's already going to be shipped to consumers at home and abroad. So that helps us during dry years like this.

Jim Morris: It's important when looking at a dry year to talk with someone who manages water on a daily basis. Lewis Bair is general manager of Reclamation District 108 on the West side of the Sacramento River, about 30 miles north of Sacramento, and they represent about 75 square miles of agricultural land and rural communities. Lewis, how does your job change during a dry year?

Lewis Bair: Most of it stays the same. I mean, watershed management is a long-term vision, a long-term exercise in how you manage water. But, during a dry year, a lot of people are interested in that and the impacts are more severe because we don't have enough water to go around. So, I do a lot of education during these years to explain the reasons why we're making the trade-offs that we're making with water management. There are things that we do to help spread the water around a little bit more during these dry years.

Jim Morris: The decisions made in a dry year aren't always easy. You obviously want to make sure that the needs of your district are as whole as they can be, but will you also try to reach out and help some of your neighbors, if that's possible?

Lewis Bair: In a dry year, our folks would still love to farm just like they always love to farm, but, in these types of years, we ended up kind of sharing the pain by doing water transfers. Sometimes it's better to move water around with those transfers for the whole system. You end up being able to achieve other benefits. It really is, though, a short term solution, right? We need to have a more reliable water supply for California and I'm hoping that the long-term vision and long-term investments will help reduce the need for those sorts of transfers.

Jim Morris: How helpful would Sites Reservoir be if it can be constructed and available down the road?

Lewis Bair: Well, Sites Re

Sushi is often a high culinary art form and its popularity continues to grow. Since the countries first sushi roll was served in Little Tokyo Los Angeles in the 1960s, is has grown into a multi-billion dollar a year industry. Interest in the cuisine is fueled by creative chefs, who push boundaries and take painstaking steps to ensure the best customer experience.

One example is Billy Ngo, founder, chef and partner of Kru Restaurant in Sacramento, whose innovation and emphasis on quality has garnered loyal customers and rave reviews. As Leilani Marie Labong from SacTown Magazine put it, Billy “has fine-tuned an unofficial M.O. to bring as-yet-uncharted experiences to his hometown.”

Billy’s ascendance as one of the region’s top chefs is remarkable, considering his journey.

“We were very lucky to have the life that I had and the opportunities I had growing up here with my parents coming over here,” he remarked. “My parents are Chinese, but they're from Vietnam. Born in Vietnam. They had to flee because of the Vietnam War. And my mom was pregnant with me when they got on the boat, escaped, landed in a refugee camp in Hong Kong, and that's where I was born.”

Billy arrived in Sacramento as a baby, and he admits his early work career was more focused on earning money for stereo equipment than being a top chef. As a teen, he spent many laborious weekends preparing shrimp for later use. Other jobs included busing tables and washing dishes.

However, over time, Billy’s interest in sushi grew. This spark was fueled by his work with high achieving chefs, including Taka Watanabe, Taro Arai and Randall Selland.

Through this experience, he saw changes in how sushi was being presented. From a rigid, predictable menu came food with a flair, and a chance for every chef to roll something amazing and unique.

He founded Kru Restaurant in 2005, putting optimism over a firm foundation of success. As he put it, “it was all done with band-aids and pennies.” Fortunately, Kru has grown, as more people became enchanted with Billy’s groundbreaking cuisine.

Billy cited using great ingredients as a key, and that includes the foundation of sushi – rice. In fact, California rice is used in virtually every roll of sushi made in America. Billy gets his rice from grower Michael Bosworth in Yuba County, and said he’s impressed with the sophistication of farming; the scale and hi-tech nature that one must see to fully appreciate.

He has carried forth this approach of sourcing local ingredients, and forging relationships with the farmers and ranchers that grew them.

“We're so lucky to be in this region in Sacramento with so many things being grown here locally,” he said. “Knowing where it's coming from and having the relationship with the grower or the rancher or the farmer. Any questions you have, it's easy.”

Billy said his current priorities are to keep Kru and his other businesses, including the employees, going as reasonably as possible during the COVID-19 restrictions, although he can’t wait for a better day.

“This is so different,” he commented. “I’m very thankful that we're still able to offer food to-go. But part of the magic and why I fell in love with this industry, is seeing the faces, hearing the sound, hearing the laughs of the dining room and the clang of pans in the kitchen, you miss all that. And I can't wait for that and I think hopefully soon we'll have that energy again, inside the building.”

Episode Transcript

Jim Morris: The first sushi served in America was in the 1960s in little Tokyo, Los Angeles. From its humble beginnings here, it is now a powerhouse generating billions of dollars a year. The Sacramento Valley provides virtually all of America's sushi rice, and this region has some outstanding sushi. Ian Scharg and his family are regular customers at Kru Restaurant.

Ian Scharg: We like the freshness and quality of their food. Everything is very interesting that they make. Sushi is, to us, a form of artwork, fresh fish, and we feel like it's a healthy choice for lunch or dinner that we like to enjoy as a family.

Jim Morris: Time to take a closer look at sushi and a fascinating chef, Billy Ngo. Welcome to Ingrained, The California Rice Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Morris. Proud to have worked with California farmers and ranchers for more than 30 years to help tell their stories. And along the way, I've had the good fortune to visit with culinary icons like Julia Child and Thomas Keller.

Jim Morris: I first met Billy Ngo 14 years ago, and continue to be amazed at his work ethic and pushing culinary boundaries. Billy, do you ever get a chance to sleep?

Billy Ngo: I try to as much as I can. I mean, definitely not 24 anymore when I first opened the restaurant.

Jim Morris: Yeah. You have come a long way since then. So, I want to ask you about the very beginning. And I know you've immigrated to America at a very young age. You were from China, then in a Hong Kong refugee camp, and then you came over now to be a star of Japanese cuisine in Northern California. So, from what you've heard from your family, can you tell me a little bit about their existence prior to getting to America?

Billy Ngo: Yes. Absolutely. I don't remember much because when I came over I was a baby, so I don't remember much. But the stories I hear from my sisters and my parents was, it was a struggle. We were very lucky to have the life that I had and the opportunities I had growing up here with my parents coming over here. So, my parents are Chinese, but they're from Vietnam. Born in Vietnam. They had to flee because of the Vietnam War. And my mom was pregnant with me when they got on the boat, escaped, landed in a refugee camp in Hong Kong, and that's where I was born.

Billy Ngo: And then from there, we were able to come to the United States, to America. And just hearing their stories though, just really, really, really grateful and thankful to be here and to be able to have the opportunity to do what I wanted to do. I know it was funny, going along with that whole thing, with the story, you're like, "Oh, you're Chinese-Vietnamese doing Japanese food." But I mean, I joke around with this all the time. Well, the first job I ever had was at a pasta shop, Kru might be a pasta shop.

Billy Ngo: But actually, first job I had was at Fuji's as a bus boy, and then dishwasher, and then sushi prep. And actually it was just a job at first, but then I actually fell in love with the cuisine.

Jim Morris: So, we're both from South Sacramento area. I went to Kennedy High School, but I graduated in 1981, when I think you were actually born in 1981. So, tell me about this area. I have a lot of memories about South Sacramento. It's kind of a gritty, hardworking area. And did that shape you in any way, the fact that where you lived?

Billy Ngo: Oh, definitely. I grew up in South Sac. It wasn't easy, but a lot of experience growing up in that kind of neighborhood just makes... I don't know. It makes you a little tougher, a little stronger. It kind of made who I am, I feel like.

Jim Morris: Some of those early jobs, you've mentioned some of them, but Fuji, which was a great restaurant, and then Taka's and Mikuni. Tell me some of those early jobs you had and some of the different things you did in the restaurants.

Billy Ngo: First off, at Fuji's was actually just being a bus boy. Got a job there as a bus boy/dishwasher. Fuji's amazing. Wish they were still open. The food was so good there.

Jim Morris: It was awesome.

Billy Ngo: So good. They were around for a long, long time. But just, you get to see how the food scene changed in Sacramento over the last 20 years. Fuji's was huge. They had a elevator, full bar, they had downstairs, they had upstairs that fit giant parties. But they had this tiny sushi bar that sat seven seats, sushi bar. And it just shows even though Japanese cuisine was really, really popular, sushi wasn't really popular back then. I think this idea of eating raw fish or whatever it is. And then to see it expand, explode the way it is now, it's everywhere.

Billy Ngo: And then I think a big part of that was with Taro at Mikuni's helping blow it up and then making it fun and exciting. And it was really, really cool to have a opportunity to work with Taro's at Mikuni's to see what they were doing there. It was very, very outside the box at the time, what they're doing. And that's what's good about the whole culinary scene. Things change, evolve, and then it's not competition. There's never bad competition, it's good competition because it pushes everything, everyone to be better.

Jim Morris: Can you remember the first fish you ever cut, and some of the things you learned from that?

Billy Ngo: First fish would have to be... I would say salmon. That's the easiest fish, salmon. And then shrimp. People see all the other sushi Ebi. You see at sushi restaurants, the boiled shrimp, it looks so simple, but it's so much work. At Fuji's, the first position I got in the sushi bar was just sushi prep. And I remember I had to go in there at 8:00 AM every Saturday, Sunday to prep all the shrimp for the week for the two sushi chefs that was working there.

Billy Ngo: And the shrimp doesn't come straight like that. They come with their shell on, head, everything you have to... And this was cases of it. You have to sit there and skewer each shrimp so when you boil it, they stay straigh

Chances are you may never have visited Richvale or even heard of it. This small town south of Chico and west of Oroville in Butte County boasts a population of 244. This is quintessential rice country, with the community surrounded by rice fields and allied businesses, where many of their streets are named after rice varieties.

It’s also where the Rystrom family has farmed for generations.

Before Peter took up farming full time, he graduated from UC Davis with an International Relations and Spanish double major, then traveled to Guatemala and worked to help indigenous Mayan women start businesses that brought basic items like graduated reading lenses and water filtration systems to their rural small villages.

With time on his hands thousands of miles away, Peter spent long hours cultivating his love for classic literature, including Steinbeck, Dostoyevsky and Gogol. The international travel and a deep dive into the classics fundamentally affected his outlook on life; strengthening the value of forgiveness - to let go of resentment and move forward in life.

“Every human being has something that they are capable of that can help others,” Peter said. “Everybody has a unique skill that they can use to love and serve other people.”

Peter’s wife Carissa moved from Washington, D.C. to learn about agriculture from the farm level. After a few “tractor dates,” they began a strong marriage based on love, hard work, encouragement and relationship building.

Peter said he has had two excellent role models in his father, Steve, and grandfather Don, the later who has been an active participant in their rice harvest for more than 70 years.

What has Peter learned from his 96-year old grandfather?

“You can’t control everything that happens, and to be content in every season, no matter what’s going on,” he commented. “Whether we see great yields or poor yields. Terrible weather or great weather. My grandfather is so calm. He just has a palm open approach to life and I have loved that so much from him.”

Don continues to participate in the rice harvest and said he’s living a highly-fulfilled life.

“I enjoy working with all of our family,” Don said. “We’re all doing something that’s worthwhile. It’s a joy!”

Episode Transcript

Jim Morris: Life moves at an ever faster pace. And sometimes we don't take the time to take a deeper view. For example, how does classic Russian literature intersect with compassionate service in Guatemala, longstanding Swedish traditions in a tight-knit family in the Sacramento Valley? You're about to find it.

Jim Morris: Welcome to Ingrained, the California Rice Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Morris, proud to have worked with California farmers and ranchers for more than 30 years to help tell their stories, including the last 14 with California rice farms and mills. I'm in one of my favorite parts of the Valley, Richvale, quintessential rice country in the Sacramento Valley, here in Butte County. And I'm meeting with Peter Rystrom, part of a family rice farm. Peter, thanks so much for your time. Tell me a little bit about winter in this area, some of the things that you see and do.

Peter Rystrom: One of my favorite things in the winter out here is actually what made you late to this interview, the bald eagles, flying around the fields, perched out there beautifully on trees or on levees. I love the wildlife and the winter. Whether it's 10,000 geese flying through the air, or whether it's just being out there watching a couple of ducks swim by you. It's beautiful.

Jim Morris: You're right. I saw three bald eagles this morning. So, I was delayed and winter is gorgeous with all the birds. And have you participated in some of the conservation programs out there? Can we talk a little bit about that?

Peter Rystrom: We have, I've actually really enjoyed over the last few years, trying to get a handle on what different programs are out there, who is valuing waterfowl habitat. And we've actually gotten to participate with the California Ricelands Waterbird Foundation and their Bid4Birds program last year. And that was really fun to get some fields flooded after we would normally drain to try to provide that critical habitat, once most farmers have already drained their fields and preparation for the spring.

Jim Morris: It is a quieter time, although we will have tractors in the field in early spring. So when we're in winter here, what are some of the things that happen? I believe I saw seed rice has gone out. So, some of the things that are happening this season.

Peter Rystrom: After harvest, before planting, there actually a lot of things to do. Some people joke and say, "What a rice farmer is doing in the winter?" But they just don't see it. One thing that we farmers all do in the winter, myself included, is to sit down and see if you were profitable. And if so, how profitable? What the differences are between different fields? What the differences are between different varieties? Just trying to break things down, both in cost and profit in ways that can help us actually better run our operation. There's lots of machines to work on, the harvesters that we use out in these fields, that you may have heard about in other podcasts, those are incredibly complicated and the rice is truly like sandpaper inside of them. It wears them down.

Peter Rystrom: So there's so many replacement parts needed inside those combines. All of our fields for the most part are flooded all winter long. And so, there's maintenance of infrastructure for irrigation, making sure the levels are right, coordinating that with rainfall, that can actually take a lot of work out on some muddy roads. We ship seed rice out of our bins. We're part of a seed growers group. So, we dry that ourselves and then we send it over to be cleaned mid-winter so that it's already at the co-op in spring to be distributed.

Jim Morris: Interesting on the seed rice, because, if you like that consistently high-quality California rice, you really do need strong seed to begin with. And how seriously is that taken and how important is it for the whole process from the farm here to the end consumer at the sushi bar or wherever you enjoy California rice around the world?

Peter Rystrom: It's incredibly important. We hang our hats on quality and we feel like we have a premium product here in California rice. So to have pure seed is incredibly important. It's actually a requirement now, because of something called weedy rice that is an invasive species that has gotten into California now and can threaten how we farm our rice. So, it's incredibly important to start with clean seed that doesn't have any foreign things in it.

Jim Morris: What have you learned from your dad, Steve, about the necessary evil, if that's the right term, of the paperwork?

Peter Rystrom: It's character building, Jim. That may be what I spend the most time on. I know why they're important. I also know how hard it is to do them. But I really see that as a way to grow as a farmer, as a human being, as a worker.

Jim Morris: Prior to being full-time on the farm, you had an interesting educational track. Tell me a little bit about that.

Peter Rystrom: Jim, I actually did international relations and Spanish at UC Davis. That was not something, while I was doing it, that I thought would be useful on the farm, but it's what I loved. It's what I wanted to pursue. I really enjoy it. I got the chance to go to Spain, to study for a semester, practice my Spanish. I

It’s a miraculous journey done every year. An estimated 1.2 million snow geese are part of the annual Pacific Flyway migration, traveling thousands of miles as they head south for the fall and winter.

Fortunately, the Sacramento Valley provides just what is needed for these boisterous birds to rest and refuel. Rice fields provide more than 60 percent of the fall and winter diet for these hearty travelers, as well as the flocks of migrating ducks.

“The Sacramento Valley, I don’t think you can overstate how important it is, especially for wintering waterfowl,” remarked Mike Casazza, Research Wildlife Biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Ecological Research Center. “We’re in a Mediterranean climate here, so they’re not facing climatic extremes. These birds, they’re primarily coming from the northern latitudes. They come down here, to spend the winter. The environment here is just ideal. They can relax in a rice field. There’s food here for them.”

Snow Geese share local rice fields and adjacent wetlands with many other bird species, and it can be a balancing act to make sure the finite habitat can best support this diverse ecosystem.

Andrea Mott, Biological Science Technician with the U.S. Geological Survey, is among those studying geese populations, including snow geese, to see how their growing population impacts other waterfowl species in our area.

To do that, she and colleagues have placed GPS/GSM collars on about geese, which allows them to continual monitor their migration via their computers. Currently, about 100 geese are being studied. This allows researchers to better understand where they are moving around the valley and the fields they are using. They have transmitters on ducks as well, so areas of overlap can be studied and analyzed.

“Technology has come really far in the last several years,” Mott said. “It used to be that we put a transmitter on and we had to be within a mile or so of the bird to hear a beeping to understand where it is. With these, once we put them on the goose, they have solar panels so they recharge and keep the battery up. It literally just transmits its locations through cell phone towers and then sends it to my computer. Then, I can look on my computer from my desk and see where all of my geese are.”

The monitoring system provides a location of each goose every 15 minutes. The data is saved and offloads every 24-hours, showing where all of the geese have been.

This information helps researchers better track the goose migrations and much more – including how high they are flying and “accelerometer data” – showing the movement of the goose; whether it’s flying, sleeping, eating or walking.

Mott said the Geological Survey work is made possible through a collaborative effort, including the California Department of Water Resources, Ducks Unlimited, California Waterfowl, and UC Davis, along with many others.

The goose tracking information will be reviewed and critically analyzed before any future steps are made to make sure the Sacramento Valley best serves the entire array of migrating wildlife each fall and winter.

Episode Transcript

Mike Casazza: The Sacramento Valley, I don't think you can overstate how important it is, especially for wintering waterfowl.

Jim Morris: Mike Casazza, Research Wildlife Biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey on the importance of rice fields for wildlife, including more than a million snow geese, an iconic and boisterous bird in our region.

Mike Casazza: We're in a Mediterranean climate here, so they're not facing climatic extremes. These birds they come primarily from the Northern latitudes and come down here to spend the winter. And the environment here is just ideal because they can relax in a rice field, there's food there for them.

Jim Morris: Maintaining that habitat is important, and you're about to find out how researchers work to keep balance in this diverse ecosystem. Welcome to Ingrained, The California Rice Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Morris. Proud to have worked with California farmers and ranchers for 30 years helping tell their stories. Winter in Sacramento Valley rice country is a great time. The harvest is done and these rice fields have a tremendous value as wildlife habitat for millions of birds that are making their annual Pacific flyway migration. I'm visiting with Andrea Mott, Biological Science Technician with the U.S. Geological Survey. Andrea, you are working to try to help maintain this healthy population. What are some of the areas that you're working in?

Andrea Mott: I'm just looking at snow goose populations and just seeing how the healthy, or maybe a little too healthy population, may affect other waterfowl species that also winter in the Valley.

Jim Morris: It does appear that we have a very healthy snow goose population. Some of that is good, some might be challenging, but generally speaking how has that population been in recent years?

Andrea Mott:

It's kind of increasing exponentially, so every year we're seeing more and more snow geese calling the Sacramento Valley their wintering grounds.

Jim Morris: Why is it important to track their population? I believe it has something to do with the other wildlife that depend on the rice fields and making sure there's a good balance.

Andrea Mott: There's a ton of overlap in habitat between snow geese, other species of geese, and then ducks and swans as well. So they all depend on the rice and the rice fields that the Valley has. There's a ton of overlap, so we're just monitoring to see if too many geese may end up being detrimental for waterfowl populations, ducks specifically.

Jim Morris: How do you do that? How are you able to track geese?

Andrea Mott: We put out GPS/GSM collars on these geese and we can monitor them from our computers. So, I can essentially see where they're moving around the Valley, what fields they're using, and then we also have a bunch of ducks transmittered, so we can see where major areas of overlap are and go from there.

Jim Morris: How do you get the transmitters on the geese?

Andrea Mott: We have to trap them. We use rocket nets where we set them up in an area where a bunch of geese are hanging out and we essentially just shoot these nets over a flock of geese, and it just traps them. We go pick them up really quick, and put them in crates, band them, and throw a collar on them.

Jim Morris: How many geese are you tracking at any given time?

Andrea Mott: We have about a hundred active right now. They're not all in California. Some of them went to the Central Flyway, which is kind of the mid-continent, like the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, and that area. It's a collar that goes on the neck of the goose. So yeah, technology has come really far in the last several years. It used to be that we put a transmitter on and we'd have to be within a mile or so of this bird to hear a beeping, to understand where it is. Where these, we can put them on the goose. They have solar panels, so they recharge and keep the battery up. It literally just transmits its locations through cell phone towers and then sends it to my computer, and I can just look on my computer from my desk and see where all my geese are.

Jim Morris: How often can you track the birds, and why is it valuable to know where they are?

Andrea Mott: We have the collars set to take a point, or like a GPS a spot, every 15 minutes. Then it saves up that data and then offloads it every 24 hours. So, I get a day's worth of data every 24 hours on where all of the geese have been. It's just really important to see what they're doing, where they're going. Like, we've been able to look at crazy migrations that they've been doing like flyway switching. You know, sometimes they'll stay in California one winter and decide they want to go to Nebraska another winter. We can see all of this stuff from these collars.

Jim Morris: I'm picking California for my winter as opposed to Nebraska, but that's just me. If you have your laptop open, and what is on the screen that we're looking at?

Andrea Mott: This is the website that all of the GPS points get uploaded to. So, here we're looking at a snow goose that was collared up on the North Slope of Alaska. It is a male, and he's back here in the Valley. We can see here, this yellow line is just kind of where he's been in the last couple days. So yeah, he's in a rice field around here, currently.

Jim Morris: Tell me a little bit about some of the travels he's made, if you don't mind.

Andrea Mott: Yeah. He's just kind of bopping around the Valley. You know, I'd have to look at it a little closer, but most geese spend time in the rice eating and then spend time on refuge areas to sleep, and loaf, and that kind of thing.

Jim Morris: So some of that is predictable. Like you say, they come here, they need to rest and refuel, but it is interesting that within that group I imagine there can be some variables. So, one of the reasons why it's important to track it through the computer. Correct?

Andrea Mott: Sometimes a goose will just get a wild hare and just go fly off into some weird spot, and that's a cool thing to see. And we get geese that end up in places that we didn't expect them to be. Like I have one of o

Insufficient investment in water storage has brought about an almost yearly struggle in California, and another dry start to the rainy season is cause for concern.

A big part of the solution to inadequate water storage may come a project that has been debated for more than half a century – Sites Reservoir, which would be built in rural Colusa and Glenn Counties.

Sites Reservoir is the largest surface storage facility proposed to be added to California's water supply system since New Melones Reservoir in 1979.

“Sites Reservoir, in my opinion, is sort of the poster child of modern surface water storage in California,” remarked Tim Quinn, who has 40 years of experience in water issues, including at the largest water district in the state, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. “In years gone by, we used to build dams on live rivers with great ecological damage. We’re not doing that any more. Sites is a wonderful example of an off-site storage facility that has virtually no footprint impacts, and is being woven into a comprehensive package in the Sacramento Valley to do multiple purposes... It’s a classic example of modern water management in 21st century California.”

The three major water consumers in California – the environment, cities and farms – all stand to benefit if Sites is completed.

“The Sites Reservoir Project is very unique,” said Fritz Durst, a diversified farmer in Yolo County who serves as chair of the Sites Joint Powers Authority. “Because of Proposition 1 funding, Sites Reservoir would have its own unique block of water that’s solely for the environment… it won’t have a junior priority… it could be used for fish, for birds or for water quality, Delta outflow, for the many small critters that live in the Delta.”

Durst said if Sites were built, it would not lead to major growth in acreage of Sacramento Valley crops, including rice, but it would create a more certain water supply, which would be invaluable to farmers, ranchers and support industries.

He added urban residents would benefit from Sites Reservoir, through a more stable water supply. Having additional water in storage would gather water in wet years and make it available during dry periods.

Mary Wells owns and runs a ranch in Sites. Her experience is unique – decades of ranching in a remote part of the Sacramento Valley as well as a leader in water and agriculture in the valley. She calls the prospect of building water storage in the Sites Valley bittersweet, but something that should happen for the betterment of our state.

“In terms of the physical viability of a reservoir here, it’s just amazing,” she said. “You have two major canyons that come in…. but when you consider an area of about 14,000-acres, about 14-15 miles from one tip to another, that’s amazing. It’s just a natural bowl.”

Jerry Brown, Executive Director of the Sites Project Authority, is among those determined to get this storage facility built. He said he sees growing momentum to get the project completed.

“One of the key aspects of the Sites Reservoir Project for California is that it is creating flexibility for our system, which is badly needed,” he said. “You hear a lot about climate change and the fact that we’re getting a lot more extreme variability in our precipitation. We need storage facilities in order to regulate the water flow to some degree, to allow us to optimize its use.”

Sites would be an off-stream storage facility. It has recently been ‘right-sized,’ with some areas scaled back to help ensure the project can be built in a reasonable time frame. Key aspects of the new plan include a slight reduction in the storage capacity, the elimination of a new conveyance pipeline that would have brought in and taken out water from the Sacramento River and pump back storage for energy generation. The changes reduced the project cost about $2 billion, to $3 billion.

Brown said if all goes well, construction on Sites could begin by about 2024, with the facility completed and operating by 2030.

Episode Transcript

Jim Morris: California has natural beauty and tremendous commerce. We're the most populous state and the most productive farm state. We also aren't without significant issues. Besides COVID-19, we've had multiple years of devastating wildfires. Something that doesn't grab as many headlines has also proven to be a big challenge, a lack of adequate water storage. Without water in reserve, dry winters can cause widespread pain. I'm in Sites in rural Colusa County, which may be a critical link for a better future for our environment, cities and farms.

Welcome to Ingrained, the California Rice Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Morris, proud to have worked for 30 years with farmers and ranchers in the state to help tell their stories. And today's subject is critical to all Californians, ensuring sufficient water for future generations.

One brief footnote, these interviews were done prior to the state's latest COVID-19 stay at home order.

I'm with Mary Wells, fifth generation rancher in Sites. And Mary, tell me a little bit about your family history and also the history of this area.

Mary Wells: My roots in this area go way, way back. I am actually fifth generation Californian. My great, great grandfather was W H Williams, the founder of the little town of Williams. As a youngster, I used to come up here with my grandfather. We had cattle ranches in Merced. Spent a lot of time up here, my brother and I. After college, I inherited, when my grandfather passed away, inherited some properties and have since expanded. Went into farming and ranching on these rangelands. Very interesting place, lots of history, mid-1800s. John Sites came into this area, brought some sheep in and liked the area so much he came back a few years later. He was a man of great foresight. He had a brother, I think he had two brothers that came here. Had adjoining ranches, operated the same, grain, sheep, so on. The family retained the ranch that I have. John Lee Sites took it over and I purchased this from the Sites' family in 1974.

So they had this for a long, long time. And the bottom line is that, at one point, Sites was a very significant little community in the foothills. Not was there dry land wheat farming on all of the flats and in the lower hills, there was a very prosperous sheep production in the hills. And, on the way into Sites, there is a very famous quarry and there was a narrow gauge railroad. The Colusa Lake Railroad that came from Colusa and the river of Sacramento and brought the slabs of sandstone that were cut in the quarry. And they would come up into Sites. There was a turntable, and they would go back to the Sacramento River and be loaded on barges and taken to San Francisco. And, if you've visited San Francisco, the Ferry Building the Emporium, a lot of the facades in San Francisco are from the Sites quarry.

The train was also used on holidays to bring people up into Sites. They had an annual Easter picnic. You can imagine it, the women in their fancy dresses and parasol...I would not have done well in that generation, but they would come up for the day and they had games and picnics and food. And so it was a very thriving, thriving community. Hard to imagine today.

As time moved on and highest and best use for land always prevails. The grain disappeared in the fifties and sixties, 1950 in 1960. The sheep went to somewhere along about the same line. There are no sheep here now, all cattle. In fact, almost all of the valley, which is about 14,000 acres. And then of course you have, the hills are utilized as well. So, you've got more acreage there, but most of that now is winter rangeland for the cattle.

Jim Morris: Is it safe to say there are more cattle on this ranch than people that live in Sites?

Mary Wells: Oh, very much so. Yes. From November through May, the cattle definitely have the upper hand on population. Currently there's probably 15 families that live here. When I first came here, there were 22, 23 are carrying on. The interesting thing though is, while we have cattle and this is a very integral part of our total operation, I would say almost everyone who farms or now ranches here also has significant investment and concerns in the Valley. On the other side in irrigated lands.

Jim Morris: I know it's not an easy issue here because you have such an emotional investment in this area. We also desperately need water storage. So how do you reconcile those two? And tell me a little bit about this area as a potential water storage area?

Mary Wells: Oh, that's a great question. When I first came here and of course you're checking out our ranch and all of the things, I was told that the Bureau of Reclamation clear back in the fifties was looking at this for a reservoir. And I said, "Oh, interesting." Did some research on it and found out that actually Sites was easily designated as a potential off stream storage as far back as the fifties and the Central Valley Project or CVP was very interested in it. They had done a lot of studies.

In fact, I had some observation wells, studies going on in 1974. But it was shortly thereafter, about '77, that all went away, political change. The studies and maps were all rolled up and put away by the Bureau of Reclamation, never to be seen again. In terms of the physical viability of a reservoir here, it's just an amazing...you have two major canyons, if you will, that come in. I know the proposed project calls for the two major dams and nine small saddle dams. But when you consider an area of 14,000 acres, about 14 to 15 miles from one tip to another, that's amazing. It's just a natural bowl.

Jim Morris: We do have a significant issues in California in terms of water storage. You also have 40 plus years of experience at