California
Rethinking wildfires at the start of a potentially devastating fire season
California experienced more wildfire last year than any previous year on record, but the severe drought currently strangling nearly three-quarters of the American West threatens to make the 2021 fire season even worse. And while many state and federal agencies are taking extraordinary measures to prevent the further loss of life and property – including prescribed burns, thinning and the deployment of the largest firefighting force in California’s history – some question the efficacy of these increasingly costly measures. <strong> (No paywall)</strong>
As drought limits irrigation in Klamath Basin, feds offer aid
Growers in the Klamath Basin, in the Pacific Northwest, will receive the smallest amount of water ever from the federal government due to unrelenting drought, said the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on Wednesday. The water will be available around June 1, weeks later than usual.
California orange crop nearly as large as No. 1 Florida
Thanks to a huge decline in the Florida crop this season, California is running neck and neck with the Sunshine State as the top orange-producing state with the harvest season in its final weeks, said the USDA. California has expanded production in recent years while output in Florida, hit by the tree-killing citrus greening disease, has fallen steeply over the past two decades.
A California water fight pits pistachio growers against the U.S. Navy
A legal dispute over water rights in California's Mojave desert has growers for The Wonderful Co. on one side and a town reliant on a sprawling naval base on the other. As Brent Crane reports in FERN's latest story, published with Bloomberg Green, the case offers a glimpse of the coming water wars in California, as the state's all-powerful agriculture interests increasingly square off against thirsty communities over a dwindling supply of fresh water. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Some states tougher than OSHA on coronavirus workplace outbreaks
While the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has been heavily criticized for its handling of workplace Covid-19 outbreaks, California and a handful of other states have implemented more rigorous workplace safety regulations that experts say better protect food and farm workers from the virus. <strong> (No paywall) </strong>
Organic agriculture sales up 31 percent in three years
While still a small sector of U.S. agriculture, organic agriculture is booming, reported the USDA on Thursday. Sales totaled $9.9 billion in 2019, an increase of 31 percent in three years, and 29 percent of organic farmers say they plan to expand production. There are more farms and more land in organic production — 16,585 farms and 5.5 million certified acres — than ever before.
Book: Climate change and the looming crisis in U.S. food production
U.S. appeals court rejects injunction against California’s ‘cage-free’ Prop 12
In a ruling hailed as a victory for farm animals, the U.S. appellate court in San Francisco denied a meat industry request for an injunction against California's voter-approved Proposition 12, which guarantees more space for hogs, calves, and chickens to move about. The meat industry contends that Prop 12 and similar state laws violate the so-called commerce clause of the Constitution, though they have failed repeatedly to persuade the courts.
Nitrate-tainted drinking water plagues California farmworker towns, study shows
California officials have long known that pollution from the state’s $50 billion farming industry fouls drinking water sources in poor Latino communities where many toil as farmworkers. Now a review of state and federal data shows the problem is getting worse. More than 5 million people in California’s largely Latino communities have nitrate levels in their drinking water at or above federal standards, says an analysis by the Environmental Working Group released Wednesday.<strong> (No paywall) </strong>
Wildfires rake California’s wine country
The Glass fire “burned rapidly…through Napa Valley’s fame Sliverado Trail, known for its wineries” and claimed the four-decade-old Chateau Boswell Winery northwest of St. Helena, California, said the Los Angeles Times. The wildfire swept over 11,000 acres and threatened thousands of structures as of midday Monday. “Ash could be seen falling from the sky throughout the region.”
When the West Coast wildfires are out, can mushrooms help with the cleanup?
When the worst wildfire season on record in the West finally subsides, it will give way to another potentially devastating environmental crisis: toxins from charred and melted plastics, electronics, and other household materials leaching into watersheds, endangering residents, agriculture, and ecosystems.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Picking grapes during California wildfires
As California suffers through its worst wildfire season in modern history, agricultural workers are still going to work, risking heat, smoke, and Covid-19 to pick grapes and harvest strawberries, according to FERN's latest story, broadcast on KQED's WorldAffairs show. Teresa Cotsirilos reports that activists in Northern California worry that 2020’s historic combination of disasters is also fueling labor abuses.
Survey finds high risks faced by California farmworkers in pandemic
Farmworkers in California face increased vulnerability to the coronavirus, due to working conditions and lack of access to healthcare, according to a survey released Tuesday by farmworker advocates. In Monterey, one of the top farm counties in the state, the survey found that farmworkers were three times as likely to become infected by the coronavirus than people employed in the county’s non-agricultural industries.
As Covid-19 cases spike, an unprecedented alliance races to protect California farmworkers
An outbreak of the novel coronavirus among farmworkers in California's Salinas Valley spawned a coalition of former adversaries that is racing to safeguard both the workers and the farms where they work, as Liza Gross reports in FERN's latest story, published with Univision.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Farmworkers win rate hike from Driscoll’s supplier after walkout, petition
Farmworkers at a supplier for Driscoll’s, the largest berry distributor in the world, won a raise earlier this month — as well as some Covid-19 safety measures — following a series of actions demanding better pay and working conditions.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Farmworkers at Driscoll’s supplier demand fair pay, safe conditions amid pandemic
In a rare organized action, more than 100 nonunion workers joined a work stoppage at Rancho Laguna Farms, a California grower that supplies Driscoll’s, the largest berry producer in the world. The workers were protesting a demand that they pick only the best fruit for the same pay, even though quality was spotty, making it hard to earn more than minimum wage at their piece-work rate of $1.90 a box.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Covid-19 drives emergency steps for school food in two states
The USDA approved requests from California and Washington State to provide free meals to low-income students when schools are closed due to the coronavirus outbreak. The waivers, good through June 30, were the first by USDA to help schools deal with the disease in part by allowing them to stop serving meals in group settings, such as a cafeteria.
Fewer dairy farms as milk production rises
U.S. milk production is projected to top 220 billion pounds this year as a long-running structural shift puts production in the hands of fewer, but larger, dairies. At the same time, the USDA said there were 34,187 dairy herds licensed to sell milk in 2019, a drop of 9 percent from the previous year.
How climate change could turn America’s poorest region into a produce-growing hub
In FERN’s latest story, published with Switchyard Magazine, reporter Robert Kunzig takes us to the upper Mississippi River Delta, where the idea of growing more fruits and vegetables — to ease the burden on California in the climate-change era — is taking root.