Tulare
County citrus growers brace for psyllid restrictions [Fresno Bee]
Tulare
County and state agriculture officials updated about 300 members of the citrus
industry in Tulare on Tuesday about its plan to attack the dreaded Asian citrus
psyllid. Six of the bugs were found on insect traps south and east of
Porterville about two weeks ago, prompting regulators to propose a quarantine
to keep the psyllid from spreading. Farmers, nursery owners and residents
within five miles of the finds will face restrictions on the movement of plant
material while residential homes with citrus trees will be treated with
insecticide.
Salad
mix pegged in Nebraska, Iowa cyclospora outbreak that sickened hundreds [Omaha
World-Herald]
Public
health officials in Nebraska and Iowa say they would eat prepackaged salad mix
from a grocery store or restaurant even after identifying the mix as the source
of a parasitic infection that has sickened more than 200 people in the two
states.…Still, Dr. Anne O’Keefe, senior epidemiologist with the Douglas County
Health Department, said she wouldn’t just open a new bag of salad mix and put
it in a bowl. “I would wash it,” she said.…Some salad mix, containing romaine
lettuce, iceberg lettuce, carrots and red cabbage, was contaminated with the
Cyclospora cayetanensis parasite, possibly by water contaminated with feces.
House
plan on food stamps would cut 5 million from program [New York Times]
Nearly
half a million people who receive food stamps but still do not get enough to
eat would lose their eligibility for the program under proposed cuts that are
expected to be taken up again by Congress. An additional 160,000 to 305,000
recipients who do get enough to eat would also lose their eligibility and the
ability to adequately feed themselves. In total, about 5.1 million people would
be eliminated from the program, according to a new report. The Health Impact
Project, a Washington research group, released a study on Tuesday about the
impact of the proposed cuts to the food stamp program. The project is a
collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Pew Charitable
Trusts.
Pot
growers alarm California farmers [Wall Street Journal]
Farmers
here in the Central Valley, home to one of the country's richest agricultural
regions, are grappling with a mounting problem: pot. California's legalization
of medical marijuana in 1996 and a crackdown on illegal marijuana crops in the
nearby Sierra Nevada in recent years have led to an expansion of pot farms in
the region's agricultural flatlands. This trend is alarming many farmers—both
from the standpoint of seeing their region lose productive farmland as well as
from an accompanying rise in violence tied to pot thefts. "We're sitting
in a war zone," said Dennis Simonian, whose family owns 80 acres on the
outskirts of Fresno where they grow peaches, grapes and other produce.
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Local
grape growers: Harvest is two weeks ahead of schedule [Lodi News-Sentinel]
Get
the oak barrels and stainless steel tanks ready. Local wine grape experts say
harvest will come about two weeks early this year. Normally, the grape harvest
gets started in Lodi during the last two weeks of August. Instead, many growers
are getting ready to pick this week. That kicks off the whole winemaking
process days earlier, forcing wineries to find places to store grapes and juice
until they have room in the fermenting tanks to start on 2013’s vintage. Some
growers are picking early because their grapes will go to wineries making
sparkling wines, said Amy Blagg, executive director of the Lodi District Grape
Growers Association. Picking early means less sugar in the fruit, leading to a
lower alcohol content and a more acidic flavor.
Column: Foundation says air
measure component is illegal [Bakersfield Californian]
Representatives
of the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is suing the state over its "cap
and trade" program, have been making the rounds up and down the state
educating business people and average citizens about what they say is a harmful
hidden tax rather than a simple regulatory scheme to improve the environment.
Tuesday they spoke to the Kern County Farm Bureau in front of a group of about
40 people….On Tuesday, Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Tony Francois was in
Kern answering questions about the lawsuit and the intricacies of the program.
Francois said most people don't understand how much cap and trade will affect
their daily lives. "The real effect of the C02 limits will impact the use
and price of fuel," he said.
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