Obama,
senators plan major immigration bill [New York Times]
President
Barack Obama plans to push Congress to move quickly in the coming months on an
ambitious overhaul of the immigration system that would include a path to
citizenship for most of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country,
senior administration officials and lawmakers said last week. Obama and Senate
Democrats will propose the changes in one comprehensive bill, the officials
said, resisting efforts by some Republicans to break the overhaul into smaller
pieces – separately addressing young illegal immigrants, migrant farmworkers or
highly skilled foreigners – that might be easier for reluctant members of their
party to accept. The president and Democrats will also oppose measures that do
not allow immigrants who gain legal status to become U.S. citizens one day, the
officials said.
Delta
tunnel alternative proposed [Stockton Record]
An
Australian-born engineer says he's discovered a cheaper and less controversial
alternative to Gov. Jerry Brown's twin tunnels plan. And some local officials
want the state to take a close look….Both plans involve tunnels. But instead of
taking the water from the Sacramento River in the north Delta, Pyke would move
the intake west all the way to Sherman Island, toward Antioch. That would allow
Sacramento River water to flow through the Delta before it's siphoned off the
river. Opponents to the governor's plan believe diverting the water upstream
will ruin the estuary…. Finally, Pyke would also build a canal linking the
export aqueducts with the San Joaquin River, allowing some water to be sent
back to the Delta and improving water quality for farmers there.…Pyke's plan
isn't entirely new. He's been floating it informally for two years, and a
proposal to study it passed out of one committee in the state Legislature
before stalling.
With
almonds' rising revenues, land values soar [Associated Press]
…In
recent years, farmers in California's Central Valley have seen record-high
revenues, buoyed by high demand for fruits, nuts and vegetables in the U.S. and
abroad. Investors both foreign and domestic have taken notice, buying up
farmland and driving up agricultural land values in a region with some of the
highest residential foreclosure rates. California's almond industry, which
grows about 80 percent of the global almond supply and 100 percent of the
domestic supply, saw the most dramatic growth - powered by strong demand from
new money-spending middle classes in India and China. The growth has prompted a
rush for almond-growing land and pushed almond land values through the roof.
Farmland prices have been mostly rising for the past decade throughout the U.S.,
according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But over the past three years,
despite the recession, they reached record highs. "A lot of people thought
values in farmland would drop like the values in housing," said Allan
Barros, a Fresno-area appraiser. "But the sellers ... sat on their
properties and farmland values didn't budge. Everybody gave a sigh of
relief." Then land values went sharply up, Barros said, pushed by rising
agricultural revenues. In this region with the highest farm receipts in the
nation, prices for most commodities rose dramatically. Revenues for almonds and
walnuts increased by 30 percent between 2010 and 2011, and revenues for grapes
rose by 20 percent, according to the USDA. California's agricultural exports
during that time grew by more than $3 billion.
Tulare
County focuses on preserving ag land [Visalia Times-Delta]
It
took nearly nine years for Tulare County officials to develop and finally
approve last year its 2030 General Plan Update. But as Craig Knudson sees it,
“The work is really just starting.” The plan essentially is a series of
guidelines on where Tulare County will allow and promote the development of new
homes and businesses across the county as well as what types of developments
will be allowed in various parts of the unincorporated county. But Knudson, who
raises goats, raspberries and cherries on his Badger-area farm, said he worries
some parts of the General Plan Update may be too broad and non-specific on how
the county will preserve agricultural land over the next couple of decades….The
Tulare County Farm Bureau has urged the county for years to adopt strong
policies to preserve prime agricultural land in the county, and in September
the group sent a letter to the county Planning Commission asking for clearer
policies on building commercial solar farms on farmland.
State
approval of 356 Valley parcels for high-speed rail line sought [Fresno Bee]
State
leaders will consider giving the go-ahead for the California High-Speed Rail
Authority to begin negotiating for property in Fresno and Madera counties
needed for high-speed train tracks. At its meeting today in Sacramento, the
state's Public Works Board is expected to approve the formal selection of 356
separate parcels by the rail authority. The Public Works Board, which includes
the directors of the state's Finance, General Services and Transportation
departments, is in charge of buying land for highway and other transportation
projects in the state.…The Public Works Board's executive director, Greg
Rogers, said selecting the parcels will let the rail authority begin making
offers to owners whose property is targeted for the first stage of
construction. Those parcels are either in the path of the tracks themselves or
will be affected by related construction, including overpasses to carry city
streets and county roads over the tracks or the relocation of Highway 99
between Ashlan and Clinton avenues.
Calif.
chills, but dodges crop damage in cold snap [Associated Press]
Residents
remained bundled up and growers in the Central Valley again took measures to
protect their citrus crops Sunday, as California's cold snap entered its fourth
night….Farmers hoped for another night of successful crop protection, as they
ran wind machines and water to shield their fruit. Spokesman Paul Story of
California Citrus Mutual, a growers' trade association, said so far most orange
and lemon crops probably avoided significant damage despite temperatures early
Sunday in the high 20s. "For the navel oranges, that's not cold enough to
do a measurable amount of damage," said Story. He said more sensitive
mandarin oranges may have suffered some minimal damage.
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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