Calif.
expected to lose 100 dairy farms [San Francisco Chronicle]
The
nation's drought and high corn prices are devastating California's $8 billion
dairy industry to the point where farmers can't afford to feed their cows - and
their professional trade organization has been regularly referring despondent
dairymen to suicide hotlines. Experts in the industry estimate that by year's
end California, the largest dairy state in the nation, will have lost more than
100 dairies to bankruptcies, foreclosures and sales….Now, not only can't
farmers pay their feed bills, but they also can't make their loan payments. As
a result, farmers are having to slaughter productive milk cows once worth
$2,000 each for meat, and are receiving only $1,200 a head. "I've never
seen a time where a milk cow is worth more for meat salvage than dairy
production," said Ray Souza, a Turlock dairyman whose grandfather started
dairy farming in 1930….Farmers plan to rally in Sacramento on Thursday,
pleading with California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen
Ross to make milk price adjustments, which are primarily fixed by the Chicago
Mercantile Exchange, though the state does have some wiggle room. Farmers have
petitioned Ross to increase the cap on the whey portion of the pricing formula
for milk used in cheese to as much as $2 more per 100 pounds.
Opinions
on immigration differ in California agricultural town [Sacramento Bee]
…This
is one place in California where the Republican nominee for president is
expected to do well. Republicans greatly outnumber Democrats in Tulare County,
and John McCain beat Barack Obama here by 15 percentage points in 2008. Yet
this is also a region, because of its agricultural setting and large Latino
population, steeped in one major policy area neither Romney nor Obama talks
about much – immigration. This electorate on that matter is torn. Throughout
Porterville and the surrounding orchards and dairies are Democrats who feel
Obama failed to do enough for undocumented immigrants, and Republicans who
groaned when Romney suggested "self-deportation" as part of his
solution…."We do have, I would say, a fiscally conservative population
here," said Tricia Stever Blattler, executive director of the Tulare
County Farm Bureau. "But agriculture does take the extreme right
representation and pull it back to a more moderate, middle-of-the-road stance
when it comes to immigration, because we are largely reliant on a foreign and
undocumented immigrant worker population."
Groups
making progress on Delta [Stockton Record]
Judging
by the headlines, all California's water interests do is fight. The truth,
however, is they have reached consensus on hundreds of millions of dollars
worth of new projects to build up Delta levees, restore habitat, protect Delta
residents from floods and add to California's water supply. How? By ignoring
that $14 billion elephant - the peripheral canal.
Tenuous
water supply shrinks this year at Valley wildlife refuges [Sacramento Bee]
…For
a century, Central Valley refuge areas such as Sutter have been last in line
for water, behind thirsty farms and cities. A 1992 federal law written to correct
that imbalance is now widely understood to have missed the mark….In addition to
containing protections for endangered fish such as salmon and smelt, the act
required the Bureau of Reclamation, by 2002, to supply more than 133,000
acre-feet of water annually to 19 Central Valley wildlife refuges, including
Sutter….But Reclamation has not met those requirements. Even 10 years after the
deadline, the goal remains elusive….As water has grown more expensive since
1992 amid increasing demand, Reclamation has never had enough money to buy
permanent water rights for the refuges, Woodley said. Instead, it shops around
each year for temporary supplies that others might not need. The availability
and cost of that water varies greatly, depending on whether it is a wet or dry
year. And as the human population grows and demand for water increases, the
option to purchase permanent water rights moves further out of reach.
For
dollars' worth of copper farmers out thousands [Associated Press]
Cannon
Michael is a folk hero across California's agriculture heartland, where these
days the price of scrap metal influences a farmer's bottom line as much that of
the fine pima cotton he grows….Within two months the screech of bare rims on
asphalt alerted everyone within earshot that the 6-inch tire spikes Michael
buried near his besieged pumps had thwarted the thieves' getaway.…California
farmers are facing a calamity. Petty metal thefts, which law enforcement
officials believe are driven by Central California's high rate of
methamphetamine addiction, are creating damages 10 times higher than the value
of the metal crooks rip out to recycle. In the nation's No. 1 agriculture
county, thieves are on track this year to steal more than $1 million worth of
metal they'll sell for pennies on the dollar.…"That's just in metal
loss," said Sgt. Mike Chapman of the Fresno County Sheriff's Office
Agriculture Task Force. "That's not what it's going to cost to replace or
repair the equipment, which can be 10 times more." That's what makes metal
thefts worse for farmers than thefts of crops or, five years ago when prices
skyrocketed, diesel fuel.
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/14/4910676/for-dollars-worth-of-copper-farmers.html#storylink=misearch
Commentary: Using junk science
to promote Proposition 37 [Los Angeles Times]
…But
where science is at the heart of a campaign, as it is for Proposition 37, the
promotion of manifestly shoddy research is especially shameful. That goes
double where multibillion-dollar industries, tens of thousands of jobs, and the
health and well-being of millions of consumers are at stake….The research in
question is a paper published a few weeks ago by a team led by French biologist
Gilles-Eric Seralini. Its findings were explosive: Laboratory rats fed for up
to two years on genetically modified corn of a type widely used in the U.S.
developed huge, grotesque tumors….The chief overall criticism of his experiment
is that it seemed designed to prove a specific conclusion, rather than objectively
test a hypothesis. Although Seralini claimed no conflicts of interest in his
work, he's known as a campaigner against genetically modified foods;…Still,
it's the political exploitation of a manifestly imperfect study that's
disturbing. The use of poor information to promote an initiative aimed at
creating an informed consumer is a defining flaw of the Proposition 37
campaign.
Ag
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