On February 20, California’s Water Resources Control Board released a sweeping report to the state Legislature aimed at cleaning up drinking water contamination caused by nitrates used in agriculture. Chief among the water board’s 15 recommendations is a fee on fertilizers, considered the major source of nitrate contamination. The report also recommends a point-of-sale fee [...]
Author Archive | Stett Holbrook
California Board Proposes Fertilizer Tax to Combat Groundwater Contamination
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Farm Bill Passes Senate, with Significant Changes to Crop Insurance
The Senate has changed its tune on crop insurance. Legislators approved the Farm Bill today by a vote 64-35. Known as the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012, the bill lived up to the reform part of its name with several key amendments related to crop insurance. As previously reported by FERN, the [...]
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Crop Insurance a Boon to Farmers – And Insurers, too
Here’s a deal few businesses would refuse: Buy an insurance policy to protect against losses – even falling prices — and the government will foot most of the bill. That’s how crop insurance works. The program doesn’t just help out farmers, however. The federal government also subsidizes the insurance companies that write the policies. If their losses grow too big, taxpayers [...]
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CA Water Board Votes Unanimously for New Rules on Pollution from Agriculture
Just two days after the University of California at Davis released a highly anticipated report on nitrate contaminated groundwater and the agriculture industry’s culpability therein, the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board Thursday unanimously approved a hotly contested set of rules aimed alleviating water pollution caused by farming. But the new regulations won’t cover [...]
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Farming Communities Facing Crisis Over Nitrate Pollution, Study Says
Nitrate contamination in groundwater from fertilizer and animal manure is severe and getting worse for hundreds of thousands of residents in California’s farming communities, according to a study released today by researchers at UC Davis. Nearly 10 percent of the 2.6 million people living in the Tulare Lake Basin and Salinas Valley might be drinking [...]
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