Cost
of treating citrus insect may force change in state strategies [Ventura County
Star]
California’s
agriculture department should stop trying to control the exploding population
of a disease-carrying citrus pest in some Ventura County residential areas and
focus instead on those closest to commercial orchards. That suggestion is part
of a new direction recommended by the state’s commercial citrus growers as they
concede somewhat in the fight to stop the spread of the Asian citrus psyllid
insect, carrier of a disease fatal to citrus trees. “We just can’t afford
anymore to go into people’s backyards,” said Link Leavens, co-owner of Leavens
Ranches in Santa Paula and a committee member of the Citrus Pest and Disease
Prevention Program, an industry group. “It’s an attempt to realign the
resources to more effectively protect the industry.”
Beekeepers
sue EPA to ban pesticide, protect bees [Associated Press]
Commercial
beekeepers and environmental organizations filed a lawsuit Thursday against
federal regulators for not banning the use of two pesticides they say harm
honeybees. In the suit, filed by the Center for Food Safety in the U.S.
District Court in San Francisco, the group asks the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency to suspend the use of insecticides clothianidin and
thiamethoxam - known as "neonicotinoids," a class of chemicals that
act on the central nervous system of insects. The chemicals are used to treat
corn, cotton and other crops against a variety of pests. Research shows that
the chemicals build up over time in the soil, plants and trees. They are used
widely in the Midwest, where many bees used for California's annual almond
pollination are located. Each February, more than half of the country's
honeybees - about 1.5 million hives - are trucked to California's almond
orchards, the nation's biggest pollination event.
Activists
rally against fumigant [Salinas Californian]
While
leaders of environmental, labor and health-care groups gathered in Salinas on
Thursday, the California Strawberry Commission took umbrage over charges that
not enough effort is being placed on finding a viable alternative to the
controversial fumigant methyl bromide. Surrounded by supporters on the steps of
the Salinas main post office, an anti-pesticide coalition announced it had
delivered about 18,000 signatures to California Environmental Protection Agency
Secretary Matthew Rodriquez calling on him to stop supporting extensions on the
banned fumigant methyl bromide and to set a 2020 deadline to stop its use
completely….Carolyn O’Donnell, a spokeswoman for the California Strawberry
Commission, said Thursday the commission as well as strawberry growers
throughout the Salinas and Pajaro valleys want an alternative as badly as
anyone. There just isn’t any, despite strong investments by the Commission into
the University of California system to fund research on viable alternatives.
Delta
water plan decried by valley officials [Modesto Bee]
Officials
responsible for delivering water and energy to city dwellers and farms punched
holes Thursday in a state plan to give more Sierra Nevada runoff to fish.
Speakers told a state board in Sacramento that a game-changing Bay-Delta Plan
threatens to stymie hydroelectric power during heat waves, would devastate
farms in the Northern San Joaquin Valley and could create water shortages for
Bay Area customers. Officials said studies on the water releases are seriously
flawed because they don't account for the complexity of operating dams such as
New Melones on the Stanislaus River and Don Pedro on the Tuolumne, which
generate energy for hundreds of thousands of people and support the valley's
agricultural economy.
Conveyance
first, then storage, state's biggest water district leader says in Richvale
[Chico Enterprise-Record]
A
handful of issues are creating a bottleneck for improvements to the state's
water supply, the top official of Metropolitan Water District said Thursday in
Richvale. The gathering was the annual landowner meeting for Western Canal and
Richvale Irrigation districts.…The goal for his agency, said General Manager
Jeffrey Kightlinger, is to "solidify" water supplies to sustain the
economy of Southern California in the future. The proposed twin tunnels to
bypass the San Francisco-San Joaquin Delta have included $200 million spent on
studies, Kightlinger said. "We have taken a long, hard look at this.
Hopefully there will be a decision point, rather than paying more money to
study it."…Kightlinger said issues need to come in their proper sequence —
fix conveyance, and then work on storage.
Farmers
Markets: State bill would bring big changes [Los Angeles Times]
A
bill recently introduced in the California Assembly, AB 996, would
substantially change the operations and governance of the state's certified
farmers markets, strengthening some enforcement provisions and weakening
others. The bill would renew authorization for the state's role in the program,
including penalties for cheaters, which are now scheduled to expire at the end
of 2013….Best, a lawyer who manages 11 farmers markets in Sacramento County,
wrote much of AB 996, with input from John Silveira, director of the Pacific
Coast Farmers Markets' Assn. (which runs 68 markets in the San Francisco Bay
Area), the California Farm Bureau and others. Many of the bill's provisions
originated in discussions of the Direct Marketing Ad Hoc Committee in 2011 and
2012. State Assemblyman Roger Dickinson (D-Sacramento) introduced the bill Feb.
22. It may come up for consideration as soon as mid-April, said Taryn Kinney, a
spokeswoman for his office.
Ag
Today is distributed to county Farm Bureaus, CFBF directors and CFBF staff, for
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