California's 2024 legislation, AB 2113, formally wrote sustainable pest management into state statute, overhauling how the Department of Pesticide Regulation funds, reviews and regulates pesticides. The target: shifting growers away from high-risk chemical dependency.

That's a statutory change, not a slogan. And it lands on farm budgets through two agencies — DPR, which regulates, and the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which is now funding the transition.

SPM expands on integrated pest management. DPR describes IPM as an ecosystem-based approach using pesticides only when necessary. SPM widens the frame to balance three pillars: human health and social equity, environmental protection, and economic vitality.

IPM remains ubiquitous in California agriculture. But the legal footing has moved.

What does this change for growers?

Money, mostly. CDFA is offering grants and programs while working with DPR and the state EPA on implementation.

"CDFA has a role for the adoption of SPM in California," said Kevi Mace, a senior environmental scientist supervisor in the ag agency's Office of Pesticide Consultation and Analysis. That office dates to 1992, formed to help farmers when DPR was created.

Mace laid out CDFA's efforts Monday at the California Association of Pest Control Advisers' 52nd annual conference, held at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim.

The centerpiece she highlighted:

• Biological Integrated Farming Systems (BIFS) — funding to support biologically integrated farming systems aligned with the state's SPM goals. (Not to be confused with the Beef Improvement Federation, which works on cattle genetics.)
• Projects must demonstrate alternative pest management options built on biological and cultural techniques that let growers maintain yields and quality, per CDFA.

Growers with questions can reach the agency at [email protected] — correction, [email protected] should read [email protected].

Where's the next funding window?

DPR runs its own SPM grants, backing research, knowledge, tools, outreach and implementation across agricultural, urban and wildland settings. The agency's 2028 grants cycle is expected to open in summer 2027.

That's a long runway. Growers weighing input costs and chem rotations between now and then face a regulator whose review criteria are already shifting under AB 2113.

The bet behind the statute is that economic vitality sits alongside environmental and health outcomes as an explicit pillar — meaning SPM's designers intend transitions to pencil out, not just comply. Whether BIFS-funded biological and cultural methods hold yields at commercial scale will show up in harvested results, not condition reports.