Cooperation with CALIFORNIA

by Dr Dirk Troskie

IIn August 2019 the California State Secretary of Food and Agriculture, Karen Ross, visited the Western Cape. The delegation included agricultural business people from California, officials from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), Foreign Agricultural Service of the USDA based in Pretoria, and the US Consulate in Cape Town.

During the visit the topic of discussion centred on droughts, floods and climate change adaptation.

To get a better understanding of local conditions, the delegation visited the Bergriver Dam, Holsloot flood construction rehabilitation site and the invasive alien clearing site in the Stettyn mountains. The next day the delegation attended the 2019 BFAP Baseline Launch and Secretary Ross made a presentation titled “Climate Change Adaptation: Lessons from California”.

During the visit Secretary Ross raised their intent to enter into a formal agreement with the Western Cape Department of Agriculture (WCDoA) due to the fact that California and the Western Cape are two of the few regions of the world sharing similar (Mediterranean) climates. It was argued that, due to the similarities in climate, the sharing of knowledge and experience will be to the benefit of both parties. However, the WCDoA indicated that people and knowledge exchange should first take place to determine the real potential of cooperation before it is formalised in an agreement.

The subsequent outbreak of COVID-19, with the associated limits to international travel, put paid to any people exchange.

Despite this limitation, the WCDoA and the CDFA organised three joint webinars:

7 October 2020: Improving agricultural water-use efficiency.

20 July 2021: Most appropriate response to climate change.

21 June 2022: Learnings on climate change adaptation in the wine industries of California and the Western Cape.

Learn more!

Scan the QR code or visit www.facebook.com/windealan/ videos/911501652849959 to view the signing of the MoU.

Already during the first two webinars it became clear that there are real and tangible benefits to be gained from an exchange of information, on-farm practices and technologies between the WCDoA and the CDFA to support a robust and climate resilient agricultural sector. To this end a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), as approved by Cabinet Resolution 488 of 2021, was signed between the WCDoA and the CDFA in March 2022.

In this MOU the following areas of cooperation were prioritised:

Improve water-use efficiency with specific reference to groundwater modelling and remote sensing.

Modelling the impact of climate change on the agricultural sector.

For more information, contact Dr Dirk Troskie:

Exchange of information regarding policies and regulations, governance models and documentation.

Intergovernmental and international visits involving policymakers, regulators, academic institutions and businesses.

Two joint activities annually, such as organisation of and participation in seminars, workshops and meetings, to share information and practices, educate key stakeholders and promote ties between our two agricultural sectors.

Facilitation of innovative partnerships, bringing together parties from public, private and academic entities, bilaterally or multilaterally, to co-develop new technologies and solutions.

To cement the MOU and set the ball rolling, the Western Cape Minister of Agriculture, Dr Ivan Meyer, led a delegation to California in September 2022. The other members of the delegation were Daniel Johnson (Ministerial Media Liaison Officer), Ashia Petersen (Director: Sustainable Resource Use and Management) and Dr Dirk Troskie (Director: Business Planning and Strategy). The report from this visit has been submitted to Cabinet and the main observations and subsequent implementation actions will be reported in the next edition of AgriProbe. AP