Life Sciences Commons^™

2016 - Agricultural Lands Stewardship

Miscellaneous Documents and Reports

The agricultural lands stewardship strategy (ALS) focuses primarily on private land in agriculture including cultivated land and rangeland. Agricultural land in California comprises about 31.6 million acres. Agricultural systems in California are varied in the way resources are used, ranging from intensive conventional agriculture (irrigated crop cultivation) to more extensive systems such as livestock grazing, each with a different relationship to natural resources. They also affect and are affected by surface hydrology and groundwater recharge in different ways. Stewardship of this land requires constant balancing among natural constraints, market forces, and ever-changing social expectations. Institutions and policies have been developed …