Farmers scrambling to find harvest labor [San Francisco Chronicle]
Skip Foppiano of Morada Produce is praying for cool weather. The San Joaquin County grower and packer is thick into cherry harvest season and is short on labor - 20 to 30 percent fewer pickers than he had last year….Farmers across California are experiencing the same problem: Seasonal workers who have been coming for decades to help with the harvest, planting and pruning have dropped off in recent years….But the American Farm Bureau Federation and its California chapter believe there is plenty of reason to worry. "There have been instances in which growers had to disc up whole crops because they didn't have the workforce to harvest," said Kristi Boswell, the Farm Bureau's director of congressional relations. She points to Georgia, where whole tomato fields were plowed under last year….In San Mateo County, home to Brussels sprouts, English peas, fava beans, pumpkins, leeks, green beans and various flower varieties, growers say they are having more trouble than ever getting enough workers - especially at harvest time, said Bill Gass, executive director of the San Mateo County Farm Bureau….California has yet to calculate its losses, but Bryan Little, director of labor affairs for the state's Farm Bureau Federation, said some asparagus growers have already had to disc up their fields because there weren't enough pickers.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/27/BUAK1OLQ31.DTL
California budget cuts hurt long battle against invasive weed threat [Sacramento Bee]
Yellow star thistle is public enemy No. 1 in the California weed world, found in every county but one and covering as much as 14 million acres. It is blamed for altering native landscapes, turning meadows into deserts and even killing horses, which are uniquely vulnerable to a toxin in the plant's leaves….A coordinated effort across 14 counties has made strides in recent years to keep star thistle out of the Sierra Nevada, one of the few California regions the weed has not yet penetrated entirely. But now star thistle appears poised to win that battle, too, with a powerful ally on its side: state budget cuts. The Star Thistle Leading Edge Project was funded by the state Department of Food and Agriculture as part of its weed control budget totaling $2.7 million in 2011….All that money was cut from the 2011-2012 state budget cycle.
California's egg-farm law prompts a push for national standards [Los Angeles Times]
…Proposition 2, passed by a wide margin in 2008, requires chicken farmers to give their egg-laying birds enough room to stand and spread their wings. Although farmers have until 2015 to implement the changes, JS West is one of the few to have already installed new cages in an attempt to comply with the law. The Central Valley company, which helped bankroll the campaign against Proposition 2, says it has spent more than $7 million for two barns filled with the new 4-by-12-foot cages, each holding 60 birds….That solution may now be going national. In a rare alliance, the Humane Society of the United States and egg ranchers have joined forces to lobby for federal legislation that would set national standards for egg ranches similar to those implemented at JS West….California egg farmers say Proposition 2 had major flaws that federal standards could correct. For example, the state law does not specify how many square inches they need to provide their birds.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-egg-farms-20120527,0,2029128.story
Delta tunnel details emerge [Stockton Record]
By July, Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to announce plans to build a canal or tunnel to siphon water past the Delta - a multibillion-dollar project that people around Stockton have been fighting for decades. But some details are already emerging about where the announcement is heading. And so far, Delta advocates don't like what they're hearing. The governor's representatives briefed environmentalists, water users and a coalition of Delta counties this week, and, while nothing has been placed on paper, the discussion is indeed centering on a tunnel beneath the Delta.
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120526/A_NEWS14/205260314&cid=sitesearch
Senate farm bill a small step forward for Calif. [San Francisco Chronicle]
The Senate is poised to take up a new farm bill in the coming weeks that will set the nation's food policy for the next five years and cost nearly $1 trillion over a decade. But California, the nation's largest farm producer and a strong voice in environmental and health policy, is destined to cede billions of dollars to entrenched commodity interests in the Midwest and South. The state's fresh fruit and vegetable growers are pleased that the Senate bill preserves hard-fought gains in the last farm bill in 2008, including research for organics and produce, farmers' markets and more fruit and vegetable purchases for school lunches and other federal food programs.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/28/MNCG1OMDA6.DTL
Demand strong for government program paying farmers not to plant crops [Wall Street Journal]
More farmers than expected applied to put their land in a government program that pays the farmers not to plant crops and not all of the acres could be accommodated, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Friday. The USDA accepted 3.9 million new acres into the Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP, in the latest sign-up period and turned away 600,000 acres. Interest in the program was so high, a USDA spokesman said, the agency extended the time period to allow farmers to get their applications filed.
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