Meat-Inspector
furloughs wouldn't happen for months [Wall Street Journal]
Furloughs
for government meat inspectors are months away, Agriculture Secretary Tom
Vilsack said Tuesday, and disruptions related to spending cuts would be
staggered if the government pulled back on inspections.…Mr. Vilsack's comments,
made at a congressional hearing, are the latest example that disruptions caused
by the automatic spending cuts known as the sequester, which went into effect
on March 1, may be slow-moving.…The Agriculture Department is sending
preliminary furlough notices to thousands of meat inspectors this week. It must
give all of the inspectors 30 days' notice under union rules, Mr. Vilsack told
lawmakers at a House Agriculture Committee hearing. Lawmakers at the hearing
criticized the possibility of meat-inspector furloughs. Rep. Randy Neugebauer
(R., Texas) said he was concerned the Agriculture Department was dragging out
negotiations with unions to "make this process more harmful than it needs
to be." Others said Mr. Vilsack should find a way to make required
spending cuts without cutting inspection hours.…"Inspections are very,
very important, and we're going to do everything we can to minimize disruption,"
Mr. Vilsack said.
State
ag board puts focus on reducing food waste [Fresno Bee]
Reducing
food waste and finding ways to provide unmarketable or surplus food to the
hungry is taking on greater importance in the state, California agriculture
officials say. The State Board of Food and Agriculture convened a panel of
experts during its Tuesday board meeting to better understand the issue and
sort out how to raise awareness of the problem….California Department of Food
and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross said the state has set a goal to double
the amount of produce donated to the California Association of Food Banks' Farm
to Family program. The program collects fresh produce that, in some cases,
would be culled and donates it to the state's food banks. Ross said she would
like to see that amount of donated food doubled from 100 million pounds to 200
million pounds by 2015.…The discussion of food waste has become a hot topic
nationally, fueled in part by a report last year from the Natural Resources
Defense Council. It's the subject of an occasional series in The Bee about food
waste in the Valley titled, "Our Wasted Bounty."…Among the solutions
NRDC proposed is to make more growers aware of tax credits for donating food,
create more flexibility in produce-grading standards, and raise consumer
awareness about food waste.
UC
Merced tries food pantry [Merced Sun-Star]
…UC
Merced recently began to offer a monthly food assistance program to students,
faculty and staff who are in need. The program is made possible under a
partnership with the Merced County Food Bank and the United States Department
of Agriculture. Vernette Doty, assistant director of Student Life and Civic
Leadership at UC Merced, said the program is open to the public, but officials
are targeting students, staff and faculty. It's no secret that students go
hungry for financial reasons, she said, and officials wanted to help address
the issue.…According to the UC Undergraduate Experience Survey, in 2012 at UC
Merced, 32 percent of 1,815 respondents reported that they somewhat to very
often skipped meals to save money, Doty said.
New
hearing on delta smelt, water deals [San Francisco Chronicle]
A
federal appeals court granted a new hearing Tuesday to environmentalists
challenging the government's decision to renew 41 long-term contracts for water
from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for agriculture purposes, an action that
opponents say would threaten the endangered delta smelt and worsen conditions
in the delta. A panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 in
July to dismiss a suit by environmental groups that claimed the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation should have consulted with Fish and Wildlife Service biologists
before renewing the contracts in 2004-05 for periods of 25 and 40 years. On
Tuesday, the court said a majority of its judges had voted to refer the case to
an 11-judge panel for a new hearing in late June….Andrew Hitchings, a lawyer
for Sacramento River contractors, said the court hasn't specified the issues it
will address, but its ruling could introduce "a level of uncertainty"
in water deliveries.
Op-Ed: More water
regulations, but no gain [Bakersfield Californian]
If
Paul Harvey were alive today, he might have to amend his beautifully written
"So God Made a Farmer" piece to something like this: "And God
needed someone to fill out multipage, state-mandated documents detailing how he
was irrigating each crop, where every drop of water was going, what
fertilizers, crop protection and soil amendments he used on every inch of
ground, how he rinsed spray tanks, the calibration of his equipment, conduct
detailed soil analysis, take tissue samples of crops, analyze how fertilizer
was moving in the soil, calculate yields, list the fertilizer used and how much
fertilizer it took to reach his projected yield.…But it wasn't God who needed
all this -- it's the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, which
is drafting the Southern San Joaquin Order under the Irrigated Lands Regulatory
Program, based on an order imposed in other areas of California….Everyone wants
to protect groundwater. But Kern County farmers have long been in a unique
position to do just that, and have for many years….Still, the water quality
board is proposing one-size-fits-all regulations that will require detailed
reporting by all Kern farmers about their irrigation practices. It will require
them to pay for the work of local entities like the Watershed Coalition to
administer the program. This would all be well and good if it actually improved
groundwater. But due to the county's unique geographical position, these
regulations would do nothing but add administrative and monetary burdens to
farmers. Paul Harvey's romantic depiction of the tenacity and determination of
farmers was right on target, but he might be shocked if he knew the
bureaucratic intrusions Kern farmers now face. We hope the Central Valley water
quality board will take a look at Kern County's unique situation and work for a
reasonable and effective regulatory program on our irrigated lands that
actually accomplishes the goal of groundwater protection.
Ag
Today is distributed to county Farm Bureaus, CFBF directors and CFBF staff, for
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