Friday, April 4, 2014

Ag Today Wednesday, March 26, 2014


Court reverses ag labor ruling [Salinas Californian]
A lawsuit filed against the United Farm Workers by Salinas producer D’Arrigo Bros. was reversed last week by the Sixth District Court of Appeals in San Jose, a ruling that could affect labor actions throughout the Salinas Valley. The case, D’Arrigo Brothers California v. United Farmworkers of America, has a byzantine history that began four years ago in D’Arrigo produce fields and ended in the second highest court in the state. In 2010, the UFW filed two charges against D’Arrigo with the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board alleging unfair labor practices. The UFW alleged the company, one of the biggest in Salinas, launched an effort to boot the UFW out with an illegal decertification campaign. Jeffrey Demain, an attorney with Altshuler Berzon LLP in San Francisco who argued on behalf of the UFW in the appellate court, said that D’Arrigo and the UFW settled one of the claims, but the farmworkers union began voluntarily providing assistance to the Labor Relations Board during its investigation of the remaining claim.

Modesto Irrigation District farmers promised more water [Modesto Bee]
Modesto-area farmers were buoyed Tuesday to learn that they should receive 24 inches of irrigation water per acre this summer, a welcome jump from the dismal prediction a few weeks ago of only 18 inches. That’s getting close to the amount needed by many to produce crops or keep trees alive, reckoned by some at 27 to 30 inches. “That’s going to help a lot of people,” said Modesto farmer Bruce Oosterkamp, reflecting the thanks of many to the Modesto Irrigation District board during a lengthy debate over ways to increase water deliveries even more.

NASA measures snowpack in California, Colorado [Associated Press]
The snowpack atop mountain peaks in California and Colorado has a new set of eyes watching from high above to better gauge the amount of water that will rumble down rivers and streams each spring as runoff. In a new mission, NASA fixed a lumbering twin-engine plane with high-tech equipment to make regular snow surveys, starting last weekend in drought-stricken California before the weather front expected to bring snow to the Sierra this week. At an altitude of up to 20,000 feet, the so-called Airborne Snow Observatory measures snowpack's depth and water content with precision. Improving on the old method of taking snow samples from the ground, scientists said that from the lofty heights they can calculate snow depth to within 4 inches and water content to within 5 percent.

IID Board of Directors approves new fallowing program [Imperial Valley Press]
The Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors approved a new fallowing program Tuesday that compensates landowners and tenants for water that is not used when agricultural land is taken out of production. The new “farm-unit” fallowing program allows farmers to group partial and multiple fields into a larger farm unit, much the same way as the district’s water apportionment plan. The present fallowing program pays $125 per acre-foot of water that is saved, and landowners get 100 percent of the proceeds.

Crafting a 2014 water bond will be tough slog [Sacramento Bee]
Anthony Rendon, a first-term Democrat from Southern California who chairs the Assembly’s water committee, is proud of a water bond issue that he wrote after eight public hearings around the state, calling it “an open and transparent process” in contrast to the backroom deals that had marked previous water bonds. On Monday, his office touted it as “the only current bond proposal that has made it out of its house of origin …” and declared that Tuesday’s hearing in the Senate’s water committee was the “perhaps final” airing before it reached the Senate floor. Fat chance. As soon as Rendon took his seat in the hearing room, he found his handiwork on the receiving end of sharp criticism from the Senate water committee’s chairwoman, Sen. Fran Pavley, other senators and representatives of stakeholders in the notoriously fractious issue.

Opinion: California flies the constitutional coop [Wall Street Journal]
Six states—Missouri, Alabama, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Nebraska—sued California in federal court last month. If they are successful, the U.S. Constitution will be vindicated, and Californians may be spared having to pay through the nose for an omelet. The controversy is all about eggs. A California ballot initiative, Proposition 2, passed in 2008 and mandated that by 2015 all California egg producers must shift to larger cages or "cage-free" housing for its chickens. The Humane Society of the U.S. funded the initiative to the tune of $4.1 million. Anne Wojcicki, wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, shelled out $100,000 for the initiative. Hedge-fund billionaire Tom Steyer gave $25,000. The costs would be deadly. One 2008 analysis by researchers at the University of California-Davis determined that the changes would bankrupt the state's then $337 million egg industry. The researchers expected the initiative to raise production costs for California producers by 20%. If the proposal were adopted nationwide, consumers would pay 25% more for eggs "and perhaps much more," according to the report.

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