6/14/24 - Farm Bureau Friday Episode 5: Interview with California Farm Bureau's Shaun Crook on Wildfires and the State of the Forestry Industry

·34 min·3 clips

Shaun Crook reveals how the timber industry's collapse foreshadows regulatory threats to all California agriculture.

The episode is an interview with Shaun Crook, First Vice President of California Farm Bureau, focusing on California's forestry industry and wildfire issues. Crook introduces himself as a third-generation logger from Tuolumne County, born into the family business Crook Logging. He explains that 60% of California is timberland, split between private and federal ownership, with private harvests requiring THPs under CAL FIRE and federal projects needing NEPA approval. Crook describes the industry's decline since the 1980s due to regulations and lost sawmill capacity. He details how forests have become dangerously overgrown, with 300-500 trees per acre compared to the historical 50-70, creating excessive fuel for wildfires. Crook argues that the solution is logging larger, valuable trees to economically fund fuel reduction work, but political decisions like the 30-inch rule hinder this. He discusses the 2013 Rim Fire, which burned his family's land and wiped out over a decade of AB32 carbon reduction gains through smoke emissions. Crook connects wildfires to broader issues like health impacts from smoke and California's insurance crisis, where companies leave due to unprofitability from wildfire risks. He emphasizes the need for increased pace and scale in forest management. The hosts, Kristen Platts and Anna Genesee, ask about Farm Bureau's legislative work, including SB94 on wildfire smoke data. Crook calls for Farm Bureau membership to amplify agriculture's voice in policy discussions, noting that less than 2% of people are in production agriculture. The episode ends with a reminder about the 2024 Crop Consultant Conference.

As heard by us

A grounded forestry discussion ties wildfire danger to the economics of getting fuel reduction done.

California forestry is the practical center of this Farm Bureau Friday episode, with wildfire treated less as an abstract threat than as a management and funding problem.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want to understand one Farm Bureau leader's argument for why California wildfire prevention keeps running into the economics of forest management.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The MyAgLife Podcast