California drought: Record heat gives some cantaloupe crops sunburn [Los Angeles Times]
The
temperatures were so hot this year in Joe Del Bosque’s cantaloupe fields in the
San Joaquin Valley that some of the melons could have used sunscreen. The
surface of the fruit got sunburned, which looks bad and in some cases affects
taste. He had to throw those away. The first six months of the year were the
hottest ever in California, the National Weather Service said Monday. That’s
nearly five degrees warmer than the 20th century average and more than a degree
hotter than the record set in 1934….Across the state, the bone-dry and hot
conditions have been contributing to a much larger number of fires….The fact
that it’s also been dry for at least three years straight in much of the state
has worsened an already difficult situation. The agricultural industry is
facing $1 billion in lost revenue this year from the state’s worst drought in
decades and might have to pay about $500 million for additional groundwater
pumping.
Editorial: Tactics for dealing with drought or just plodding
through it? [Marysville Appeal-Democrat]
…It doesn't help to
start panicking — it won't make the drought stop any sooner. But there really
is reason to start examining our water practices — the only reason to do it in
a panic is we waited too long. And the real danger in that is we start adopting
one-size-fits-all policy and practice, instituting new regulations and fines
and adjusting rates and questioning century-old practices. There might be districts
where there isn't much of a water shortage, but they'll be affected about the
same as everyone else in a state where the variables from one tip to the other
are incredibly different….The only thing worse than the feeling of desperation
you get from a drought is resorting to a stubborn, one-day-at-a-time strategy
for plodding through it. We should be planning storage and conservation
measures now ... that would be a good way to occupy ourselves until the drought
is over.
Plans to raise dam
already impacting some Lake Shasta businesses [Redding Record Searchlight]
More
than 100 people filled the Lions Club in Lakehead Monday morning to voice
concerns, get information and pose questions to Congressman Doug LaMalfa about
a proposal that would raise Shasta Dam as much as 18.5 feet. The addition to
the dam would increase the capacity of the 4.5 million acre-foot reservoir by
about 13 percent, a move proponents say is necessary amid California’s ongoing
water woes. But it would also raise the lake’s level and displace dozens of
local residents and businesses. Those concerns were the focus of Monday’s
meeting. LaMalfa, R-Roseville, assured folks he would only support the dam
raising project if locals affected were justly compensated and given the
opportunity to relocate in the area….LaMalfa said water was just too big an
issue in California not to look at all available options, including raising the
dam. He said his role would be to fight for those affected to ensure they were
appropriately compensated and treated fairly in the deal.
Climate scientists
have a beef with beef [Los Angeles Times]
If
you want to slow climate change, white meat may be the right meat, according to
two studies that tally the environmental effect of the beef industry. Raising
cattle in the U.S. requires 28 times as much land and 11 times as much
irrigation water, and pumps at least five times as much planet-warming gases
into Earth's atmosphere than producing the equivalent calories of dairy products,
poultry, pork or eggs, according to a study published online Monday in the
journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And from 1961 to 2010,
worldwide emissions of planet-warming gases from livestock increased 51%, with
the bulk of the increases coming from developing nations that are rapidly
adopting the U.S. model of meat consumption, according to another study
published Monday in the journal Climatic Change.…The beef industry, not
surprisingly, is not impressed. "The PNAS study represents a gross
over-simplification of the complex systems that make up the beef value chain, a
point which the authors acknowledge," Kim Stackhouse-Lawson, director of
sustainability research for the National Cattlemen's Beef Assn., said in a
statement. "The fact is the U.S. beef industry produces beef with lower
greenhouse gas emissions than any other country."
Cash crops with
dividends: Financiers transforming strawberries into securities [New York
Times]
His
boots were caked with mud when Thomas S. T. Gimbel, a longtime hedge fund
executive, slipped in a strawberry patch. It was the plumpness of a strawberry
that had distracted him. Mr. Gimbel, who once headed the hedge fund division of
Credit Suisse, now spends more time discussing crop yields than stock or bond
yields. He is the man on the ground for a group of investors — including New
York’s biggest real estate dynasty, two Florida sugar barons and the founder of
a multibillion-dollar investment firm — who have been buying up farms across
the United States through a real estate investment trust called the American
Farmland Company. Hedge funds are not new to farmland….But in the latest twist,
a small but growing group of sophisticated investors and bankers are combining
crops and the soil they grow in into an asset class that ordinary investors can
buy a piece of.
Some food companies
are quietly dumping GMO ingredients [NPR]
…The
news that Ben & Jerry's is taking a vocal stand on a controversial issue is
no surprise; it's part of the company's calling card. But some other mainstream
companies are carefully — and much more quietly — calibrating their non-GMO
strategies. General Mills' original plain Cheerios are now GMO-free, but the
only announcement was in a company blog post in January. And you won't see any
label on the box highlighting the change. Grape Nuts, another cereal aisle
staple, made by Post, is also non-GMO. And Target has about 80 of its own brand
items certified GMO-free….Nathan Hendricks, an agricultural economist at Kansas
State University, says big food producers are trying to gauge what direction
consumers are headed in….But even as they create GMO-free products, many of
these corporations are fighting state initiatives that would require them to
give consumers more information about their ingredients.
Ag
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