Central Valley

Farmers and urban water systems can work together to improve water quality, says a white paper that presents nine examples from upstate New York to the Everglades and California.

The highly pathogenic H5N8 avian influenza virus was confirmed in a commercial turkey flock in Stanislaus County, in the heavily agricultural Central Valley of California, said the Agriculture Department.

California is the world's largest grower of almonds, with trees on 860,000 acres, a crop that be imperiled especially in the drought now entering its fourth year, says the New York Times.

With California seeing its first major rainstorm of the season, the Los Angeles Times said, "Scientists have yet to determine whether the Eastern Pacific is falling into an El Niño pattern and will produce a wetter than average year...

Sixty years after the Double T dairy farm went into business in California's Central Valley, owner Tony Azevedo sold his cattle, partly due to unrelenting drought and partly out of frustration over disagreements with his son on transfer of the business to a new generation.

Congressional efforts to provide drought relief to California farmers are dead for this year, according to Sen Dianne Feinstein, says the Associated Press.

Growers in California harvested a record crop of tomatoes for processing, the thick-skinned varieties used in making soup and pasta sauces, says Bloomberg.

"(T)he nation's largest irrigation district is in the wrong place," says the Los Angeles Times in story about the Westlands district of the Central Valley of California and its role as a driving force behind a $25 billion projects to ship water from...

As many as 2 million rural Californians rely on household wells for their water, says NPR. "Some of those people are among the hardest hit by the state's severe drought, as wells across the state's Central Valley farm belt start to go dry."

California's agriculture sector would shrink but survive a mega-drought that lasts decades, says the Los Angeles Times, based on computer simulations by university scientists.

Drought will cost California farmers $1.5 billion out of a statewide total of $2.2 billion this year according to a report by UC-Davis, said Business Insider. Losses will include 17,000 part-time and seasonal jobs. Because of sparse precipitation, growers are getting one-third of their usual water deliveries and are offsetting the reduction by pumping much more water from wells.

It's well-known that agricultural practices can affect soil fertility, water quality, wildlife populations and pest numbers for good or bad.