California’s
farm belt didn’t dodge the summer heat wave [KQED-TV, San Francisco]
Autumn
is here, so says the calendar. Living on the coast, it might be easy to think
that California escaped the heat wave suffered by much of the nation this
summer. While that may be true for most of the large coastal population
centers, it was a different story for much of the state’s interior farm belt….Fresno
saw 27 days above normal during August and most of those days were at least
three degrees above normal, a string one meteorologist at the National Weather
Service in Fresno called, “pretty amazing.” Even Central Valley farmers, who
are used to triple-digit days, were taken aback. “Yeah, this summer has been
one of the hottest that I remember,” said Don Cameron, who runs 7,000 acres of
crops for the Terranova Ranch, southeast of Fresno. He’s been farming the
Valley for 30 years. “Our tomatoes have taken a little bit of a beating from
the 110 degree weather we’ve had, but with the drip irrigation we’re able to
keep them a little fresher, a little cooler when it does get hot like that.”
Prop.
37 reveals food fight over labels [San Francisco Chronicle]
A
box of cereal reading "Made with whole grains" may actually contain
only a small amount of whole wheat flour. A carton of eggs with "cage
free" in big letters may have come from chickens that have never seen
daylight. A jug of apple juice labeled "Made in Sonoma" may contain
apples mostly from Arizona. With Proposition 37, the state initiative to label
genetically engineered food on the November ballot, food labeling is in the
spotlight in California. But experts warn that many food labels are unreliable.
Some are misleading, using broad terms like "natural" or "whole
grain" to lure in consumers. Others are vague and lack important details.
The bottom line for consumers, experts say, is that food labels rarely tell the
whole story.
Weather
cuts into walnut harvest [Visalia Times-Delta]
Despite
enduring one of the driest winters ever recorded in California, a series of
hail storms, high winds and a hotter-than-normal summer, this year’s walnut
crop could be the second-biggest in the state’s history. Current estimates are
for walnut farmers in the state to produce about 470,000 tons of walnuts, about
9,000 more than last year, but 33,000 tons short of California’s 2010 record
crop, according to information provide by the California Walnut Board. But
Tulare County walnut farmers who began harvesting their crops a couple of weeks
ago say they aren’t expecting as big a crop as their counterparts from the
Merced area north.
Great
European wine grapes, just not many to harvest [Reuters]
Europe
is in the midst of another crisis: not debt, but grapes. Yields are sharply
lower, down nearly 40 percent in some of parts of Portugal, which means
winemakers will have fewer grapes to blend and, in the end, fewer bottles to
offer. The situation is even worse in parts of Burgundy, where hail storms pummeled
vineyards in Pommard, Santenay and Volnay destroying nearly 80 percent of the
harvest, according to the Burgundy Wine Board (BIVB). When the growers were not
fighting cold weather or hail, mildew and fungus threatened. "People have
been fighting them strictly," Cecile Mathiaud, a BIVB spokeswoman, said.
Noting the uneven growth of the grape bunches, a condition known as
millerandage, she said it "is bad for quantity, but it is usually the
promise of quality."
Op-Ed: Cesar Chavez,
flawed hero of the fields [Los Angeles Times]
Cesar
Chavez died in 1993, but the Mexican American labor leader's prominence
continues to grow. Streets in many American cities bear his name; his face
appeared on a postage stamp; President Obama embraced Chavez's slogan,
"Sí, se puede" ("Yes, it can be done") in his 2008 campaign;
and Apple featured the United Farm Workers founder in its "think
different" campaign. These honors have all served to heighten public
awareness of Chavez, who for a time seemed to be winning the battle to bring
justice to the farm fields of California. But they have obscured another part
of his legacy, one of miscalculation and failure. That legacy is also important
to consider as the UFW celebrates its 50th anniversary this month….So, why is
it that conditions on farms in California today still resemble those that existed
before 1962? Although the UFW and its advocates point to many reasons, few have
been willing to give any of the blame to Chavez for his failure of
leadership….Acknowledging Chavez's faults is quite difficult for consumers of
his popular image. But many of the movement veterans I have interviewed in
recent years acknowledge their former leader's mistakes, including his failure
to take the advice of his advisors to create a structure of governance that
made him accountable to the workers he represented.
Ag
Today is distributed to county Farm Bureaus, CFBF directors and CFBF staff, for
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