In the Wild: Ruchika Jaiswal with the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service

My name is Ruchika Jaiswal (she/her) and I am a second-year student in EPM. Prior to this program, I studied Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning at UC Davis and worked with Hydrologic Sciences Ph.D. candidate Nusrat Molla on her work in water access to farmworkers in the San Joaquin Valley. Currently, I am specializing in Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems and Spatial Information Science. My goals are to work in community food policy and become proficient in spatial mapping software to better inform my work.

During spring and summer of 2023, I worked with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), an integral part of the US Department of Agriculture. Using ArcGIS Pro, I conducted spatial analysis to better identify which landscape-level areas to prioritize for agricultural protection within the Sacramento Valley. Additionally, I compared countywide policies to identify consistencies and gaps in agricultural preservation.

The NRCS aims to preserve agriculture and natural resources. A main method of preservation is through an Agricultural Land Easement, in which landowners submit their parcels to be approved for perpetual agricultural use. To determine which parcels should be protected, the Conservation Assessment Ranking Tool (CART) is used to score each parcel on an array of criteria such as countywide population and farmland changes, soil type, and proximity to urban cities. My work was intended to provide a landscape-level visualization of areas of highest importance as a preceding step before using CART on an individual parcel. This spatial approach acts as a proactive method of prioritization.

While I had limitations on the amount of data I could analyze, I still managed to identify some spatial relationships. The Sacramento Valley contains more urbanized areas inland and closer to the San Francisco Bay Area, while natural, open spaces lay outwards near the mountain ranges. National ranking within CART prioritizes land within one mile of protected areas, such as designated open spaces. This is due to a lower likelihood of adjacent farmland being converted to urban uses. However, state ranking prioritizes land closer to incorporated, urban cities, as this denotes a high risk of farmland conversion as a result of urban sprawl, thus requiring preservation. These differences in ranking are important to consider when looking at a county’s land distribution. Do we prioritize a county with higher risk or lower risk of farmland conversion?

Moreover, using data from the 2017 Census of Agriculture, counties under highest threat of reduced farmland cover were Glenn, Butte, and Solano. Counties under highest threat of increased population density and urban sprawl were Sacramento and Placer. The lack of overlap between these top counties indicates that there may be factors other than urban sprawl contributing to farmland loss. Do we prioritize a county with the most loss, or with the most urban sprawl?

In terms of each county’s General Plans, I found that all counties want to preserve agriculture as a main economic source for community livelihood. They placed a high priority on outlawing urban development in areas zoned for agriculture. However, the plans lacked details on how these would be achieved and how to actually ensure the livelihoods of farmworkers in the face of depleting resources.

Moving forward, I want to be able to conduct statistical analysis on the relationships I found in combination with the weighted scoring of CART. Based on my conflicting results, there is much room for improvement of this ranking system. I would also like to utilize other spatial components such as soil quality, water availability, mitigation banks or conservation corridors, and Spheres of Influence. I hope for my project to expand to the rest of Central Valley and even the state of California to better inform agricultural easement prioritization.