drought
White House offers producers more cushion against drought
The White House announced changes in the federally subsidized crop-insurance program to cushion farmers against the ongoing drought in the West or other natural disasters. The changes broaden the number of crops and the area covered by the Actual Production History yield exemption and are estimated to generate $30 million in additional relief to farmers in the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1, and $43 million in the following fiscal year.
Growers reap one-fifth of winter wheat crop in one week
Farmers harvested 7.4 million acres of winter wheat in the past week, 19 percent of the total crop. The harvest is now 38 percent complete, according to the weekly Crop Progress report.
Flavorful “petite peaches” a result of water shortage
Organic grower David Masumoto, who farms near Fresno, tells the Los Angeles Times, "We've been experimenting with this petite peach method this year, where we're cutting back water use 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent on some select areas of the orchard to see how it responds."
House Republicans try again on California water bill
California Republicans in the U.S. House proposed "an ambitious new, but familiar," drought relief bill "that once again includes hot-button items like scaling back a San Joaquin River restoration program," reports the Fresno Bee.
In California, it’s farmer vs farmer for irrigation water
Rudy Mussi, who farms in the Sacramento Delta, "is not the California farmer you've been hearing about," says the NPR blog The Salt. "He is not fallowing all his fields or ripping up his orchards due to a lack of irrigation water."
U.S. directs $150 million in forest, drought aid to California
The Agriculture Department announced $150 million to revitalize forests in Northern California and for drought relief for farmers and rural communities.
Higher density planting in the water-short California
Avocado farmer Nick Stehley is vigilant to chop down weeds on his farm in San Diego County in the southwestern corner of California. Weeds "can suck up a lot of water and he's protecting every drop of water he can. He's also removing trees and fallowing fields," says Capital Public Radio.
In Central Valley, farmers help farmers survive drought
For farmer Cannon Michael, life "is almost exclusively focused on finding ways to overcome the drought, and in California, when it comes to saving water, there's no time to waste," writes Sena Christian in the online magazine Ensia.
Record-high beef prices to keep climbing
Beef prices are at record-high levels in the grocery store and will keep climbing, the government forecasts in its new Food Price Outlook. The USDA now estimates beef prices will rise by 6 percent this year, up by one-half point from the previous forecast. Beef prices soared by 12.1 percent throughout 2014, driven by high demand and an historically low number of cattle in the country. Lower feed prices allow producers to fatten cattle to higher weights, which delays marketing, and to rebuild their breeding herds rather than send animals to slaughter now, so supplies remain tight.
“We see clearly what a bust cycle looks like”
On the central California coast, cattle ranches are withering. "Roughly 75 percent of the cattle in San Luis Obispo County have been sold or taken out of state over the last four years to escape conditions in the most drought-stricken region in California," says the Los Angeles Times. San Luis Obispo County, midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, also is home to the Hearst Castle, near San Simeon. For decades, ranching was well-suited to the county's rolling and wooded hills. Rainfall was only a quarter of the usual 10 inches last year. Grassland is turning into bare ground.
Drought’s pricetag rises for California agriculture
California's farmers will have less irrigation water and will idle more cropland this year than they did last year, says a study by UC-Davis. It estimates direct agricultural losses of $1.8 billion, comprised of $1.2 billion in lower crop, livestock and dairy revenue and $600 million in higher costs to pump water from wells. "When we account for the spillover effect of agriculture on the state’s other economic sectors, the total cost of this year’s drought on California’s economy is $2.7 billion and the loss of about 18,600 full- and part-time jobs," say the authors.
Drought blossoms in upper Midwest and northern Plains
Most of Minnesota -- 88 percent -- is in moderate drought, a dramatic expansion from 6 percent a week ago, says the Drought Monitor. Record-high temperatures accelerated dryness.
California leaders propose $1 billion in drought relief
Gov. Jerry Brown and California legislative leaders proposed a $1 billion drought-relief package as the state enters its fourth year of drought. The pair of bills includes $128 million to alleviate the impact of drought...
Drought emergency in nearly half of Washington State
Gov. Jay Inslee declared a drought emergency in an additional 13 river basins in Washington State because of low snowpack that will reduce streamflow in coming months. Coupled with a March 17 declaration covering 11 other watersheds, 44 percent of the state is covered by a drought emergency.
Drought emergency is declared in Washington state
The governor of Washington state declared a drought emergency in three regions of the state, including key agricultural areas, due to record-low snowpack levels, said Reuters.
Drought could idle 1 million acres of California farmland
As California nears the end of a skimpy rainy season, "Farmers said they anticipated leaving as much as one million acres fallow, nearly twice the area that went unplanted last year," according to the New York Times.
“Exceptional drought” reaches Oregon, expands in California
For only the second time in 15 years, a portion of Oregon is under "exceptional drought" - the most severe rating - as state officials face widespread dryness east of the Willamette Valley. Some 82 percent of the state is rated in drought conditions ranging from moderate to extreme. The weekly Drought Monitor listed a sliver of the state, 0.12 percent in south-central Oregon along the California border, in exceptional drought.
The urban-vs-rural water war in California
The order by Gov. Jerry Brown for a 25-percent reduction in urban water use "reopened a generations-old, urban-versus-rural debate about who should control California’s water and how it can best be used," says the San Diego Union-Tribune. Critics say agriculture got a free pass from Brown because of political clout. The farm bloc says it already endures cutbacks. This is the second year of "zero allocation" of federal irrigation water to farmers and the state has cut its allocation to farms to 20 percent of normal, says the Union-Tribune.
Water stress is growing risk for world’s crops, says think tank
One-quarter of the world’s crops, from bananas and plantains to rice, wheat, corn, and soybeans, are grown in areas where the water supply is highly stressed or highly variable, said the World Resources Institute on Wednesday. Rice, wheat, and corn, three of the most important crops, are particularly vulnerable, it said.