Winegrape Growers Embrace Innovation and Study Confirms Value Livestock Grazing

**Winegrape growers are embracing innovations to monitor vineyard conditions amid California’s hotter, drier climate.

In Napa Valley, growers are testing sensor technology designed by Agrology, a company that promotes regenerative farming and data tools to help farmers reduce their carbon footprint.

Growers are also partnering with researchers working on developing new rootstocks and scions for warmer conditions.

Sonoma County growers are deploying a greenhouse emissions and carbon-sequestration accounting system.

**A study from the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service confirmed the value of livestock grazing as a tool to protect western rangelands from wildfires.

The Public Lands Council, which represents ranchers with federal grazing permits, hailed the research as proof of the important role livestock grazing plays in protecting natural resources.

The study showed grazing supports the reduction of fire fuels that pose huge risks in sagebrush ecosystems prone to wildfires.

**The EPA released its final Herbicide Strategy, calling it an “unprecedented step” in protecting over 900 federally endangered and threatened species from herbicides.

EPA will use the strategy to identify ways of reducing herbicide exposure when it registers new herbicides and reevaluates registered herbicides.

This incorporates a wide range of stakeholder input, ensuring EPA protects species AND preserves a wide range of pesticides for farmers.