The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO] says the world needs to boost agriculture production by 60 percent to meet its estimated food needs over the coming decades. The FAO says declining amounts of arable land and fresh water resources, however, create challenges. The FAO says improving food security levels by 2050 may require a
With 2013 the driest year on record and 2014 possibly worse, the devastation of California's drought is trickling down to crops, fields, farmers markets, grocery stores -- and the kitchen table. While it's too early to tell precisely how much the drought will push up household grocery bills, economists say consumers can expect to pay
A state water official said Thursday that despite the "horrifying" drought gripping the state, there's still a chance that farmers will get San Joaquin River water this summer instead of the "zero allocation" announced. "I'm hoping that it's not going to be zero," Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board, said at
Republican James Gallagher has scored two key endorsements that could put him ahead in the open race for California's 3rd Assembly District. The sprawling district north of Sacramento is solidly Republican, and with incumbent Dan Logue, R-Marysville, running for Congress, the race appears to be between Gallagher, a Sutter County supervisor from a longstanding farming
Is the locally sourced, fresh, organic, sustainable grocery trend reaching the saturation point? http://www.sacbee.com/2014/03/06/6216274/fresh-market-closing-all-3-sacramento.html#mi_rss=Latest%20News
Lawyers are pitching state attorneys general in 16 states with a radical idea: make the food industry pay for soaring obesity-related health care costs. http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=CC5125FC-B826-418A-9361-2AFDD5423DB9
Well-known San Joaquin Valley farmer John Diener is collaborating with California State University ag research and the Department of Water Resources on commercial cactus cropping – just in time, as it turned out. http://westernfarmpress.com/irrigation/cactus-farming-future-california
The mysterious mass die-offs of honeybees that have wiped out roughly a third of commercial colonies each year since 2006 may be linked to a rapidly mutating virus that jumped from tobacco plants to soy plants to bees, according to a new study. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/us/bee-deaths-may-stem-from-virus-study-says.html
The California Roundtable for Agriculture & the Environment met with state regulators and reports these actions for regulatory streamlining: http://aginnovations.org/images/uploads/Regulations_agpublic.pdf
"I have a son who is really interested in farming and it is really sad that we just can't farm the way we used to," Sagouspe said. "It seems like it is a fight for everything — a fight against regulations, a fight against government and now a fight for water." http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/01/18/3721739/desperatemeasuresfor-valley-farmers.html