Deportation
deferrals put employers of immigrants in a bind [New York Times]
Manuel
Cunha has been fighting for three decades to persuade the federal government to
provide more legal immigrant workers for farmers in California’s verdant San
Joaquin Valley. So he was initially excited when President Obama announced in
June that he would suspend the deportations of hundreds of thousands of young
illegal immigrants. But after reading the program’s fine print, Mr. Cunha is
telling the growers and small-business owners he organizes to proceed with
caution. Immigrants applying for two-year deportation deferrals can ask
employers to verify their job status as one way to meet a requirement showing
that they have lived for at least five years in the United States. But
employers who agree to those requests could be acknowledging that they knowingly
hired an unauthorized worker — a violation of federal law. Mr. Cunha fears that
the enforcement authorities could one day use the information in their files to
prosecute the employers.
Better
land use a priority for second Obama term, Vilsack says [Bloomberg]
The
U.S. should focus on improving how land resources are used to meet increased
demand for food and biofuels should President Barack Obama win a second term,
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. Global demand for food, combined with a
desire to increase trade and expand production of alternative fuels, means U.S.
agriculture needs to find additional uses for a greater range of crops, Vilsack
said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “Conversations with Judy
Woodruff.” The program was taped today and will run later this week. “We’re not
utilizing our landed resources as much as we could,” Vilsack said. Getting more
productivity from land, partly by finding ways to rotate crops more
efficiently, would “actually aid conservation, conserve water” and “restore the
soil,” he said. It may also help create new feed stocks for energy and
bio-based products and “take some of the pressure off of corn,” the biggest
U.S. crop, which is used to make most of the country’s ethanol, he said….In
response to a question, Vilsack declined to say whether he would return as
agriculture secretary in a second Obama administration.
Fresno
County sets record $6.8 billion crop value [Fresno Bee]
Fresno
County's 2011 crop values reached a record $6.8 billion, the latest in a string
of record-setting performances that solidified the county's status as the
leading farm region in the state. But it's a record that's not likely to be
replicated once 2012's crops are harvested, county Agricultural Commissioner
Carol Hafner said Tuesday while presenting the annual report to the Board of
Supervisors….But any celebration over Fresno County breaking the $6 billion
mark was quickly tempered by Hafner and others, who reminded the board that the
annual report reflects the gross values of the crops, not farmers' net income.
"Certain segments of the industry, such as the dairy and stone fruit
industries, are struggling significantly," said Ryan Jacobsen, executive
director of the Fresno County Farm Bureau….There was very little shifting among
the county's top 10 crops, with the exception of cotton, which moved up from
the No. 10 spot to No. 6. Fresno County cotton farmer Dan Errotabere said an
increased allocation of federal water for west-side farmers, coupled with
healthy cotton prices, caused acreage to jump 95% to 141,000 acres. The cotton
crop's overall value rose a whopping 163% to $398 million. "We saw prices
that we may never see again," Errotabere said.
Editorial: Prop. 37 should be
rejected [Merced Sun-Star]
…We
don't oppose labeling of genetically modified food and we believe that some
producers and processors will start such labeling as a marketing strategy. But
the standards should be developed by the Food and Drug Admin- istration, based
on good science and with the input of the food industry. The standards should
not be set state by state. Proposition 37 is a classic example of an initiative
that shouldn't be on the ballot. It is an overreach, is ambiguous, and would
open the way for countless lawsuits against retailers who sell food that might
lack the proper labeling. Its proponents made no effort to push the concept
through the Legislature. While such a bill might have failed, at least the
Legislature's attorneys and analysts could have refined ambiguous provisions.
For these multiple reasons, newspapers around the state are opposing
Proposition 37, even those that supported that most recent ag-related initiative,
Proposition 2, which increased the space that egg producers must provide for
laying hens.
Op-Ed: No on Prop. 37
opinion: Genetically engineered food-labeling law is too flawed [Vacaville
Reporter]
The
labels required by Proposition 37 would mislead consumers into thinking that
foods made with GE ingredients are dangerous. Biotechnology, or genetic
engineering, has been utilized for nearly two decades to grow varieties of
corn, soybeans and other crops that resist diseases and insects and require
fewer pesticides. Thousands of common foods are made with ingredients from
biotech crops with no health or safety issues. More than 400 published
scientific studies around the world have found GE foods to be safe, and the
National Academy of Sciences, the World Health Organization and other
scientific associations agree. As recently as June this year, the American
Medical Association stated, "There is no scientific justification for
labeling of bioengineered foods."…Foods imported from China and other
foreign countries are exempt if sellers simply declare, on the honor system,
that their products are "GE-free." Unscrupulous foreign companies
could game the system, to the disadvantage of California's farmers.
Ag
Today is distributed to county Farm Bureaus, CFBF directors and CFBF staff, for
information purposes, by the CFBF Communications/News Division, 916-561-5550; news@cfbf.com.
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