The 5 crops endangered by climate change — all California ag economy mainstays — according to this new National Geographic study: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/04/140406-climate-change-ipcc-report-foods-chipotle-guacamole/
One thing that's become clear amid the fallowed cropland and rationing is that there is not enough water storage in California to sustain all the competing interests. The dilemma has again put a spotlight on the precious water that gets away. In an average year, rain and snowmelt in California generate about 71 million acre-feet
The 5 crops endangered by climate change — all California ag economy mainstays — according to this new National Geographic study: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/04/140406-climate-change-ipcc-report-foods-chipotle-guacamole/
HURON, Calif. — When Chuck Herrin, who runs a large farm labor contracting company, looks out at the hundreds of workers he hires each year to tend to the countless rows of asparagus, grapes, tomatoes, peaches and plums, he often seethes in frustration. It is not that he has any trouble with the laborers. It
California’s historic drought and shrinking water supplies are putting a spotlight on hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” and its thirst for freshwater. In other states, the controversial technique is a heavy water consumer, using millions of gallons of freshwater to extract oil or gas from each well. In California, fracking uses less water on average than
Even before the drought, the southern San Joaquin Valley was in big trouble. Decades of irrigation have leached salts and toxic minerals from the soil that have nowhere to go, threatening crops and wildlife. Aquifers are being drained at an alarming pace. More than 95 percent of the area's native habitat has been destroyed by
Tens of thousands of squiggling salmon fattening up on bugs and other nutrients on flooded cropland in the Sacramento Valley could soon provide a solution to the long-running dispute over who should get the bulk of California's diminishing supply of water: farms or fish. Researchers from UC Davis flooded rice paddies on a 1,700-acre Yolo
By 2002, this Scientific American commentary notes, Golden Rice was technically ready to go. Animal testing had found no health risks. Syngenta, which had figured out how to insert the Vitamin A-producing gene from carrots into rice, handed all financial interests over to a nonprofit organization, so there would be no resistance to the life-saving technology
Zinfandel will flow like the water once did in Paso Robles this weekend. Bottles will pop open during a wine festival as rigs drill deep across the city to find a resource whose scarcity threatens Paso Robles to its core: water. How scant has the crucial underground water supply become around the San Luis Obispo
Most drought-plagued Merced Irrigation District farmers will receive just 6 inches of water per acre during this year’s truncated irrigation season. “People are used to having 3-plus acre-feet per acre over a seven-month season, so this is quite a cutback,” MID General Manager John Sweigard said Tuesday. http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2014/03/18/3555099/merced-farmers-to-receive-smallest.html