FOUNDATION FOCUS FIVE YEARS ASSISTING RANCHERS
RTAP HELPING YOU NAVIGATE COMPLEX ISSUES by Noah Lopez for the Rancher Technical Assistance Program The Rancher Technical Assistance Program (RTAP) is about to enter its fifth year serving California’s cattle producers. RTAP’s goal for 2025 is to expand our service by providing more assistance to more ranchers on more issues. Although the program has grown and evolved significantly in the last five years, its core function remains the same: help California ranchers navigate complex regulatory, environmental and business issues. RTAP does this at no direct cost to the rancher because it is funded by the California Cattle Council and provided by the California Cattlemen’s Foundation. The California Cattle Council is truly a program for ranchers by ranchers. Since this is your program, it’s only appropriate to provide an update briefly taking a look at where we’ve been, where we are, and where we hope to go. RTAP DIRECT RTAP’s services can be organized into two main categories: RTAP Direct and RTAP Resources. RTAP Direct is assistance provided directly to individual producers on a specific issue. In most instances, a rancher will call or email us looking for assistance with a specific issue. The RTAP team which consists of Noah Lopez and Jack Rice with occasional help from others, aims to identify and answer questions with the goal of helping the rancher navigate the issue or situation. This usually involves researching the issue, organizing and synthesizing the research, and presenting solutions or options to move forward. The goal is to provide the rancher with information they can understand and act on. In its five years, the types of RTAP Direct issues have run the gambit, ranging in everything from transportation regulations to grant programs, and estate planning questions to neighbor disputes. The variety has been immense, though perhaps this should not be surprising in a state with a regulatory and business landscape as complex as California. It’s also not surprising that many of the inquiries seem to follow seasonal patterns or react to current events. For example, during the 2021-22 drought, RTAP received countless inquiries about water right curtailments and every January RTAP fields questions about water rights reporting prior to the Feb. 1 reporting deadline. Likewise, after a major fire, RTAP often receives inquiries about federal disaster assistance programs and disaster tax deferment. When new regulations are enacted, such as the recent California Air Resources Board, (CARB) Clean Truck Check, RTAP receives questions about requirements and compliance.
30 California Cattleman February 2025
When tracking issues, we try to organize them into these general categories: Water, Land, Tax, Air & Transportation, Wildlife & Conservation, and Assistance Programs. However, many RTAP Direct inquiries don’t fit neatly into any of these categories, so we categorize these issues as “Other.” Over the last five years, the “Other” category has included all kinds of interesting and unique questions. We’ve helped ranchers grapple with things like the liability of volunteers riding on the ranch, how the US drought monitor makes its determinations, what to do when insurance carriers drop the ranch policy because of fire risk, how to fix a faulty GPS map location, how to comply with slaughter and sale regulations for direct to consumer marketing, and even what to do when the neighbors bull keeps jumping the fence. If we aren’t the right team to help navigate the issue, we’ll do our best to provide contacts for the appropriate person to help. The geographical distribution of RTAP Direct inquiries has also been broad. RTAP has received inquiries from 50 of California’s 58 counties (though we’re not holding our breath for an inquiry from San Francisco County). The images on page 32 demonstrate the variety of issues and geographical reach of RTAP Direct. Sometimes these RTAP Direct issues are handled in a 10-minute phone call, other times it requires extended correspondence and work. Either way, RTAP is available to all cattle producers and we work to provide detailed and ongoing assistance on all questions, whether simple or complex. Over the last five years we have also been able to significantly improve RTAP Direct’s efficiency and effectiveness. We have developed an evergrowing “issues library” with research, resources, and professional contacts relevant to each question or issue. When we receive an inquiry regarding an issue we have already dealt with, the library helps us avoid the need to duplicate work and allows us to provide timely and thorough assistance. RTAP Direct continues to be the primary service provided by the program with the goal of acting like a researcher or “helpline” for ranchers across the state. RTAP RESOURCES Another key component of RTAP is general information we call “RTAP Resources.” RTAP ...CONTINUED ON PAGE 32