Dairies brace for long price downturn [Hanford Sentinel]
Kings
County’s $773 million dairy industry -- along with the rest of the state’s
powerhouse milk machine — is going into a downturn that could last for most of
2015, forecasters say….Wholesale milk prices -- the price farmers get paid when
the tanker-truck empties at the processing plant -- have soared to
extraordinary heights lately….The high prices U.S. dairy producers have enjoyed
in 2014 have largely been the product of demand overseas….A recent banking
scandal and other factors, however, have slowed China's economy….Russia also
comes into the mix….Combined with China’s slowdown, Russia’s ban helped create
a worldwide milk glut. U.S. prices are dropping to reflect that.
Midwest
recruiting California dairies to pump up rural economy [Harvest Public Media]
As
drought, feed costs, and urban development wear on West Coast milk producers,
states like Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa are pitching themselves as a dairy
heaven. Even in California, the nation’s No. 1 dairy state, many dairy farmers
are listening….For the Midwest, an influx of dairies isn’t just about milk.
It’s about pumping dollars into the rural economy. “Dairymen in California are
being surrounded by population, the price of land or development is high and so
they’re really kind of landlocked,” said Willow Holoubek, executive director of
AFAN, the Alliance for the Future of Agriculture in Nebraska….The thought of
moving somewhere with lots of available water and open spaces gets the
attention of dairy farmers like Marty DeHoog. DeHoog moved more than 1,400
miles from southern California to a 500-cow dairy in eastern Nebraska last
summer.
U.S.
board: Federal law on high-speed rail trumps state environmental lawsuits
[Fresno Bee]
A
three-member panel of presidential appointees has potentially derailed seven
lawsuits challenging the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s approval of its
Fresno-Bakersfield bullet-train route and raised questions about how California
environmental law will apply to other planned rail sections across the state.
The U.S. Surface Transportation Board, in a ruling issued late Friday, declared
on a 2-1 vote that the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, “is
categorically pre-empted” in connection with the Fresno-Bakersfield route,
which the federal panel OK’d for construction earlier this year….The immediate
effect of the federal declaration is unclear, both on the pending lawsuits and
on how it may affect environmental analysis and regulation for the rest of the
statewide rail project….Stuart Flashman, an Oakland attorney who represents
opponents to the rail authority’s plans, said the effects of the Surface
Transportation Board’s ruling “are about as clear as mud.”
Quagga
concerns alter irrigation practice [Ventura County Star]
It’s
been almost a year since invasive quagga mussels were discovered in Lake Piru,
and some farmers are getting worried. “Pleasant Valley and its growers have
invested millions of dollars in pipelines, transmission facilities and
irrigation appurtenances and therefore we cannot allow those facilities to be
impaired by the quagga,” wrote John Mathews, attorney for the Pleasant Valley
County Water District south of Camarillo, in a letter last month to the agency
that owns Lake Piru. His letter said Pleasant Valley would be “unwilling to
purchase any water that is not quagga free.” The freshwater, coin-sized
mollusks reproduce rapidly and cluster on pumps, pipes, motors and other
infrastructure, creating costly maintenance problems. They have proved almost
impossible to eradicate.
Science
Café: What does GMO mean anyway? [Davis Enterprise]
Pam
Ronald, a plant geneticist, doesn’t call foods “genetically modified organisms.”
“It’s a meaningless term,” she said at Wednesday night’s Science Café, a
monthly evening meetup that brings scientists out of their labs and into a
Davis bar to discuss their research. Ronald directs the Laboratory for Crop
Genetics Innovation and Scientific Literacy at UC Davis. She has focused her
career on creating flood- and disease-resistant rice strains to help farmers in
Asia and Africa. In her talk, she aimed to dispel some of the misconceptions
about GMOs — namely, that organic farmers and plant geneticists are on opposite
ends of the table.
Yurok
tribe hopes California's cap-and-trade can save a way of life [Los Angeles
Times]
This
winter, Yurok tribe forestry crews will be four-wheeling down muddy fire roads,
hiking through steep, slippery brush and trekking across more than 20,000 acres
of forest to count and measure trees. Instead of preparing to sell lumber, as
it has in the past, the state's largest Indian tribe is taking stock of its
firs, redwoods and tanoaks to make money in California's cap-and-trade program.
By managing its forest near Redwood National Park for carbon storage instead of
timber harvest, the tribe is generating credits to sell to oil companies and
other businesses that must reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of the
state's effort to slow climate change…The Yurok tribe has sold millions of
dollars' worth of carbon credits, known as offsets, to some of the state's
biggest polluters….Driving the new activity is the state's 2006 global warming
law, AB 32, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
Ag
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