Fish Friendly Farming
ECOSYSTEM
CONFIDENCE MEDIUM · ANALYSIS ONLY, NOT AN AUDIT OR CERTIFICATION
Our read
Fish Friendly Farming is a watershed and habitat instrument, and it should be read as exactly that. Its subject is cold clean water and salmonid habitat: cover-cropped vineyard floors that hold soil through winter, every road and culvert inventoried because roads are the main sediment source, ephemeral creeks mapped, riparian corridors restored to a width calculated from the drainage basin above them. The distinctive feature is who signs. The Farm Conservation Plan is certified by one or more of NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, a Regional Water Quality Control Board, the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the County Agricultural Commissioner, after an agency team inspects the property. Very few voluntary agricultural schemes put a federal fisheries agency or a state water regulator behind the sign-off, and it is why the certificate carries real weight with the San Francisco Bay Water Board vineyard permit. What it is not is a climate programme or a labour programme. It says nothing about emissions, energy, pesticides beyond contamination pathways, packaging, or how workers are treated. Two structural caveats: CLSI writes the plan it then presents for certification, and between five-year recertifications the evidence is grower-submitted photographs and a self-completed online audit.
What it covers
- site-specific Farm Conservation Plan written with CLSI technical staff, not a grower self-assessment
- plan certified by NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, a Regional Water Quality Control Board, NRCS and/or the County Agricultural Commissioner
- on-site inspection by the certifying agency team to confirm the plan matches the ground
- salmonid and trout habitat protection as the organising basis for all practices
- full winterisation with dense cover crop across the vineyard floor, roads and turn-arounds
- inventory and repair of every road, culvert, ditch and legacy erosion site
- mapping and condition assessment of all creeks including ephemeral Class III watercourses
- riparian corridor restoration to a width set by drainage-basin acreage
- agrichemical storage, mix-load, application and aquatic toxicity pathways
- annual photo-point monitoring plus an annual online audit of site conditions
- recognised third-party programme for the San Francisco Bay Water Board vineyard WDR permit R2-2017-0033
What it leaves out
Not a criticism of the scheme. A standard is a scope, and this is where this one ends.
- no greenhouse gas measurement, target or carbon claim of any kind
- no labour, wage, worker safety or farmworker housing criteria
- no organic requirement and no prohibited active-ingredient list
- no packaging, waste or circularity criteria
- no winery or winemaking scope; the certificate is a land and watershed instrument
- no energy efficiency requirement
- major projects may be phased over up to ten years after certification
- no published register of decertifications or withdrawn plans
The scheme
| Issued by | California Land Stewardship Institute (CLSI), a California non-profit; the Farm Conservation Plan is certified by one or more government agencies |
|---|---|
| Where it applies | California, United States; the programme operates in Mendocino, Sonoma, Napa, Placer, Amador, El Dorado, Humboldt, Santa Clara, Kern and Solano counties, with a Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta version in development |
| Audit and renewal | Recertification every 5 years, with annual photo-point monitoring and an annual online audit of site conditions required in between |
| Cost | Not published. CLSI provides technical assistance and growers may access grant and cost-share funding for major projects; no public fee schedule was found. |
What we read
Fish Friendly Farming programme pages (certification, farm plans, documenting compliance, regulatory compliance, FAQs) as published July 2026; no versioned standard PDF is issued publicly. Regulatory context is SF Bay RWQCB Order No. R2-2017-0033 (2017).
- what_it_covers - agency certification and on-site inspection — One or more of the following agencies certify the Farm Conservation Plan: National Marine Fisheries Service, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, the Natural Resource Conservation Service, and the County Agricultural Commis
- renewal_period - five-year recertification — Each site is re-certified every 5 years. Recertification reviews the farmer's progress in implementing the actions designated in the Farm Plan and the overall conditions of the site.
- what_it_covers - habitat basis and soil conservation requirement — The protection and enhancement of salmon and trout habitat forms the basis of the Beneficial Management Practices (BMPs) and all FFF projects ... must be fully winterized with cover crops of dense grass on the entire vineyard floor, and alo
- what_it_covers - chemical pathways rather than prohibition — Chemical use in the vineyard including the storage site, mix and load site, method of application, frequency of use, and toxicity of each agricultural chemical to aquatic life are addressed in the BMPs.
- what_it_covers - annual monitoring and online audit — In 2016 CLSI started requiring certified sites to complete an annual on-line audit to indicate BMPs used and if any major erosion problems have occured.
- what_it_omits - phased implementation timeline — Major projects have up to 10 years to be implemented; changes in management practices must be implemented in 2-3 years.
- independence - not a self-assessment — The FFF program is not intended as a self-assessment by the farmer.
- geographic_scope and scale — The FFF Program presently operates in ten counties including Mendocino, Sonoma, Napa, Placer, Amador, El Dorado, Humboldt, Santa Clara, Kern and Solano Counties ... As of December 2017, over 800 properties totaling more than 98,000 acres ha
- regulatory role under the vineyard WDR permit — Complete farm water quality protection plan (Fish Friendly Farming farm plan) with approved third party ... Tier 3 Dischargers are those who elect to develop a Farm Plan for a Vineyard Property independently - without the Farm Plan being ve
- SAI Platform benchmarking — Fish Friendly Farming Achieves Silver Level Benchmark Against the Farm Sustainability Assessment by the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform
What we could not establish
CLSI publishes no versioned standard document, no fee schedule and no register of decertifications, so the enforcement score reflects absence of a published sanction process rather than a documented one. The certified-acreage figures on the FAQ page date from December 2017 while the homepage cites over 200,000 acres enrolled; current certified acreage could not be confirmed. Which of the four certifying agencies signs in any given case, and whether all four review every plan, is not stated. The Silver-level benchmark against the SAI Platform Farm Sustainability Assessment is stated by CLSI on its own homepage and was not independently confirmed against SAI Platform records.
If you hold this certification, it is already on your record. What a buyer cannot see there yet is the evidence behind the parts this standard does not reach.