Fire season is harvest time for wineries (ScienceBeta): Farmworkers in California wineries sometimes labor through heat and smoke, risking respiratory and heart diseases, harvesting grapes that mature at the same time as wildfires burn.
China to miss on ethanol (Financial Times): Two years after unveiling a mandate to mix ethanol into the gasoline supply, China is likely to miss its deadline of nationwide use of a 10 percent blend in 2020.
Several Sonoma wineries hit by wildfires (California Farm Bureau): Several wineries in the Alexander Valley of Sonoma County “have been heavily damaged or destroyed” by wildfires and some wine grapes are likely to be lost.
Calls for transparency in RFS waivers (DTN/Progressive Farmer): Biofuel backers called for the EPA to provide more information to the public when it exempts small-volume refineries from the ethanol mandate.
Buying water rights from farmers (Seattle Times): In the southeast corner of Washington state, Crown Columbia Water Resources, backed by private-equity money, is buying water rights from farmers to build a huge private market for water in the Columbia basin, possibly locking up a public resource as the state’s population rises.