On September 28, 1994 Governor Pete Wilson signed Assembly Bill 3383 (Bornstein, Brown, and Snyder). The bill requested that the Regents of the University of California establish a pilot demonstration program to provide extension services, training, and financial incentives for farmers who voluntarily participate in pilot projects to reduce their use of agricultural chemicals. The resulting program is known as Biologically Integrated Farming Systems (BIFS). Original funds were provided from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation’s Food Safety Account and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA), and supported the first two pilot projects. This is the second biennial report to the legislature; the first report covered activities from January 1995 through December 1996, which included program establishment and the first year of funding of the first two projects. This report describes the implementation of the BIFS program between January 1997 and December 1998.
The University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (UC SAREP) administers the program. A 13-member program advisory review board continues to assist the Director of UC SAREP in developing an annual Request for Proposals (RFP) and reviews and makes recommendations for funding in accordance with AB 3383. During the first two years of the program, two projects were selected for 3 years of support, one involving wine grapes in the Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission ("Lodi-Woodbridge BIFS") and one involving cotton and row crops in the West Side of the San Joaquin Valley ("West Side BIFS"). These projects are now completing their third year and this report will cover the final two years of these two projects. In addition, two additional Requests for Proposals were released among the agricultural and research communities to identify new demonstration projects. As of January 1999, five new large-scale on-farm demonstration projects have just been started with rice in Butte County, walnuts in San Joaquin County, prunes throughout the Central Valley, citrus in Fresno County, and strawberries on the Central Coast.
The Lodi Woodbridge BIFS project started with 30 BIFS grower cooperators and 37 vineyards. By the third year of the project there are 43 BIFS growers working with 60 demonstration BIFS vineyards that total 2370 acres. These growers together manage about 50 percent (25,000 acres) of the acreage of vineyards in the Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission (LWWC). Cover crops and monitoring of pests and beneficial species, two practices noted in AB 3383 as characteristics of the desired farming systems, are used in over 70 and 100 percent of the Lodi-Woodbridge BIFS vineyards, respectively. This intensive in-season monitoring and a computer database for managing this information are particular strengths of the project. By the third year of the project the proportion of BIFS vineyards sprayed for mites or leafhoppers had declined from 54 percent in 1996 to 28 percent in 1998. The percentage of acreage treated with pre-emergence herbicides declined from 70 percent to 59 percent, and the percentage of BIFS vineyards using only contact herbicides to control under-the-vine weeds increased from 19 percent in 1996 to 39 percent in 1998. Seventy-three percent of the BIFS acreage has been converted to drip irrigation, up from 57 percent in the first year of the project. This technology change can reduce the use of nitrogen by 50 percent. In 1998, a comprehensive grower survey was sent to over 600 LWWC growers, managers and PCAs. Forty-seven percent of the survey respondents have spoken to a BIFS grower and 51 percent had talked with the Lodi-Woodbridge BIFS staff. Ninety-four percent of the growers have read the newsletter and 65 percent had attended a BIFS neighborhood grower meeting. Sixty-six percent of the respondents reported monitoring their vineyards more frequently since 1992. The results of the survey suggest that the Lodi-Woodbridge BIFS project has had a significant impact on the entire district’s implementation of biologically integrated farming practices.
By the end of the third year of the West Side BIFS project, fourteen farm managers are participating and have dedicated one or more field sites of 80 acres or more to side-by-side comparison plots of BIFS versus conventional farming practices—a total of 1,653 acres in 16 field sites. The BIFS cooperators manage a total acreage of approximately 90,000 acres in the San Joaquin Valley. The most notable success in this project is in the area of soil building. On the alternative BIFS plots, 75 percent of growers incorporated the use of cover crops or manure and compost amendments into their farming practices during the project. In Fresno County, the estimated use of these practices is only 5 percent. Three years of physical, chemical and biological data have been collected and analyzed to monitor the impacts of this biologically intensive soil management program. Increases in total soil carbon, microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen, exchangeable potassium, and organic matter were seen in the BIFS sites, as compared to the conventional sites. A soil quality index is being developed with this data that should help growers decide on specific management practices that are beneficial for their soils. In 1998, through the educational activities of the West Side BIFS project, the California vegetable and field crop industry has been introduced to the potential of conservation tillage. In the area of pest management, intensive monitoring for cotton pests and beneficial insect species has been undertaken in the last two years. By the third year, several more biologically-based integrated pest management practices have been tried on-farm such as the use of cowpea buffer strips for Lygus management and release of beneficial insect species. Overall cotton insecticide use was not significantly reduced on the BIFS demonstration acreage: in 1997, 12 versus 13 applications were made, and in 1998, 26 versus 29 applications were made, respectively, in four of the enrolled sites. For weed management, the use of the pre-emergence herbicide TreflanŽ at variable rates at layby in tomatoes has been adopted by 40 percent of BIFS growers, and 90 percent forgo its use completely if fields have low weed pressure. The use of this technology has been estimated to reduce the amount of TreflanŽ used by 40-60 percent. TreflanŽ is used in nearly all tomato acreage in Fresno County, and BIFS growers reduced their use of the product by 20 percent during the project. Farmer and management team participant surveys conducted in November 1998 (9 respondents) reveal that all of the respondents deemed the project successful, with over half responding "very successful" in terms of exchanging and extending information. The general knowledge of participating farmers with respect to the use of cover crops, crop residue management, and biologically integrated pest management has increased.
The BIFS program advisory review board and the UC SAREP director have reviewed 1997 annual results from both projects. Specific suggestions and requirements of continued funding were identified in 1997, specifically for the West Side BIFS project. These were communicated to the project coordinator, and steps were taken to address these issues by the project. Annual and final reports were submitted in December 1998 and will be reviewed by the program advisory review board in early 1999.
New legislatively-supported funding for the BIFS program has just been allocated through Assembly Bill 1998 (Assembly Member Helen Thomson). These funds, together with continued support from US-EPA and the University of California, will permit UC SAREP to fund additional projects in 1999. A new RFP was released in November 1998.