U.S., Mexico increasingly competing for farm labor [Wall Street Journal]
The
U.S. and Mexico are increasingly competing for a dwindling supply of farm
labor, according to a new analysis, a development that likely will have
long-term implications for the U.S. agricultural sector. The majority of hired
farmworkers in the U.S., estimated at around 1 million, are Mexican, according
to the U.S. Department of Labor….But the pool of Mexican agricultural workers
is steadily declining, with no indication that it will be reversed, according
to J. Edward Taylor, professor of agricultural and resource economics at the
University of California, Davis….American farmers have called for a national
immigration policy that will enable foreign workers to enter the U.S. legally,
return to their home countries and then re-enter during crop harvests.
“Farmers, ranchers and their employees need a permanent solution,” said Paul
Wenger, president of the California Farm Bureau Federation. He said growers are
concerned about “chronic problems in filling all the jobs farmers have
available.”
Sites
Reservoir in a waiting game [Marysville Appeal-Democrat]
Sites
Reservoir is in a holding pattern as project leaders wait for the state to
settle on regulations for distributing funds from last year's $7.5 billion
water bond. In the meantime, the Sites Joint Power Authority, a group made up
of Northern California counties and water districts, has completed its locally
preferred alternative report that includes a basic project plan $200 million
cheaper than previous versions of the project proposed by state and federal
agencies….But nothing about the project is guaranteed unless the California
Water Commission decides to allocate to the project part of the $2.7 billion
set aside in the water bond for storage projects. The commission is
re-evaluating regulations developed in 2014 after hearing the process to
formulate those regulations went too fast, said Thad Bettner, general manager
of the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District….The wild card in the competition for
bond money is groundwater storage projects, Bettner said.
Rain
predicted, but Merced farmers worry dry January will continue [Merced Sun-Star]
Despite
high hopes for a wet January, rain will continue to elude Merced County this
month, escalating the tension for local farmers. The only possibility of rain
in the next 10 days is Tuesday, forecasters predicted, but it’s only a 20
percent chance….The potential for another dry year is weighing heavily on the
minds of farmers, said Merced County Farm Bureau Executive Director Amanda
Carvajal. Many farmers have made serious sacrifices because of a lack of water,
she added, ranging from fallowing their land to not farming at all. “It’s drastic. I can’t even fathom how bad things
could get,” Carvajal said. “It’s a very stressful situation we’re in right
now.”
$60
million cost for fish passage has district reeling [Ventura County Star]
The
$60 million price tag for a new fish passage on the Santa Clara River has local
water managers reeling — and not with rods and lines. The sum is only part of
what will be spent in coming years to keep water flowing to area farmers and
cities while also restoring habitat for endangered steelhead trout. In all,
hundreds of millions of dollars are expected to go to efforts that either
directly benefit the fish or create replacement supplies for river water that
will be sent to the ocean rather than used for irrigation or drinking….John
Krist, CEO of the Farm Bureau of Ventura County, was at the meeting with Spina.
He said afterward growers in the county’s $2 billion agriculture industry want
to make sure an “extremely costly fish passage” won’t be deemed insufficient in
a few years, as happened before. “They’re not happy to pay more for less water
from a project that’s been in the ground for decades,” Krist said of the
Freeman dam. “That’s just hard for a lot of people to swallow.”
Editorial: We must challenge the
state’s water grab [Modesto Bee]
…The
State Water Resources Control Board is telling some statistical whoppers as it
tries to justify its impending water grab….Two years ago, a water board study
proposed four scenarios for increasing the “unimpaired flows” on the Merced,
Stanislaus and Tuolumne rivers….The state will tell us that taking the water is
for our own good. They’ll say decreasing what we use and increasing the amount
that flows to the Delta and beyond will make our rivers healthier, save the
salmon (which have all but disappeared) and make the Delta less salty….Everyone
who lives here has a stake in this – the farm bureaus, the five irrigation
districts, jobs agencies, the chambers of commerce, county supervisors, city
councils – everyone….Clearly the state’s farmer fantasy models are worthless.
We culled numbers from various sources. What we really need is a more rigorous
study we can trust….We need to show the devastating impacts of this water grab.
We need legislators to know the state isn’t just taking water, it’s endangering
our livelihoods, our homes and our futures.
Editorial: California’s
scrambled eggs [Wall Street Journal]
California
has a way of living up to the worst regulatory expectations, as grocery
shoppers across the country are discovering. The state’s latest animal-rights
march is levying a punishing new food tax on the nation’s poor….The cause of
these price gyrations is an initiative passed by California voters in 2008 that
required the state’s poultry farmers to house their hens in significantly
larger cages. The state legislature realized this would put home-state farmers
at a disadvantage, so in 2010 it compounded the problem by requiring that eggs
imported from other states come from farms meeting the same cage standards,
effective Jan. 1, 2015….The attorneys general from several states, including
Nebraska and Alabama, are suing California in federal court, but this will take
time. Meanwhile, Republicans could revive legislation barring states from
enacting restrictions on out-of-state agriculture producers. If California
liberals want to pay a premium for local free-range chicken eggs, they have
that right. They shouldn’t be able to raise food costs for millions of families
in an attempt to protect the state’s economy from their own destructive laws.
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