California Water Wars
A family sued San Luis Obispo in superior court, claiming it has to supply them with enough free water for 30 head of livestock under a deal reached in 1911.
Read moreAgriculture
Fear of Pandemic Creeps Across Rural America
The social distancing rules repeated like a mantra in America’s urban centers, where the coronavirus is spreading exponentially, might seem silly in wide-open places where neighbors live miles apart and working from home means another day branding calves or driving a tractor alone through a field.
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Global Ban on Ozone-Eating Chemicals Credited in Change to Southern Jet Stream
International efforts to curb ozone-depleting chemicals have paused and potentially reversed shifting jet stream winds that affect storm patterns, ocean temperatures and Antarctic sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere, scientists found in a study released Wednesday.
Read moreChicken Antitrust
In a federal antitrust complaint, El Pollo Loco accuses Tyson Foods, Koch Meat Co., Sanderson Farms, Perdue Foods, et al. of conspiring to fix the price of chicken.
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Virus Chaos Snarls Farm Workers as New Season Buds in Europe
Asparagus grower Henning Hoffheinz is looking at blue skies, a record-early harvest – and a big problem.
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Water Theft a Growing Concern in Increasingly Dry Spain
Inside her greenhouse, Emilia Gomez bends down to see how her strawberries are faring following a difficult season with barely any water after her farm’s illegal well was shut down.
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California’s Strict Air Quality Rules Help Its Farmers Grow More Food
Despite their lack of popularity with farmers in California’s Central Valley, the Golden State’s strict air pollution regulations have increased productivity for their farms and created greater wealth for them, according to research released Monday.
Read moreWestern Water
Waterwatch of Oregon, et al. sued the Army Corps of Engineers in federal court, claiming its reallocation of 487,400 acre-feet of water stored in the Willamette River Basin Flood Control Project to industry and farming imperils endangered salmon and steelhead.
Read moreFrankenfoods
The Center for Food Safety brought a federal complaint over the Department of Agriculture’s refusal to prohibit organic certification of soil-free hydroponic operations.
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Booming Business of the Booty-ful Nut of the Seychelles
It is the world’s largest seed, and with a shape suggestive of a woman’s hips and myths of love-making powers, the coco de mer is an icon of the Seychelles.
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Abandoned Cropland Helps Make Europe Cooler
Nature is not concerned with human crops and will reclaim land when it is abandoned. The process has a benefit: Croplands that are no longer tended help cool the planet.
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Africa’s Giant Locust Outbreak Spreads to Congo
A small group of desert locusts has entered Congo, the first time the voracious insects have been seen in the Central African country since 1944, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said Tuesday, warning of a “major hunger threat” in East Africa from the flying pests.
Read moreYarnell Hill Fire
The Ninth Circuit ruled against a firefighter seeking records relating to the Yarnell Hill Fire of 2013, which killed 19 firefighters in Arizona. The court ruled that even if the U.S. Department of Agriculture once held the records the firefighter seeks, there is no question that the department’s search for them was adequate.
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Mushrooms Grow From Beer Waste in the Cellars of Brussels
In Belgium, a country where beer is the culinary king, its brewing also creates magic for mushrooms.
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Arctic ‘Doomsday Vault’ Stocks Up on 60,000 More Food Seeds
A “doomsday vault” nestled deep in the Arctic received 60,000 new seed samples on Tuesday, including Prince Charles’ cowslips and Cherokee sacred corn, increasing stocks of the world’s agricultural bounty in case of global catastrophe.
Read moreCalifornia Sues Trump Administration Over New Federal Water Rules
California filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the Trump administration to block new rules that allows farmers to use more water from the state’s largest rivers, citing the rules’ failure to protect endangered fish species.
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Locust Swarms Eat Their Way Through East Africa
The worst locust outbreak that East Africa has seen in 70 years has reached South Sudan, a country where roughly half the population already faces hunger after years of civil war, officials said Tuesday.
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Study Finds Humans Have Been Hurting Reefs for Centuries
Long-standing human stressors like agricultural runoff, overfishing and warming ocean temperatures brought on by climate change are in part responsible for large-scale coral reef die-offs.
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Louisiana Pelicans Recover, Along With Their Island
Nearly wiped out by agricultural pesticides in the 1950s, Louisiana’s state bird the brown pelican has made a tremendous comeback. Now, thanks to 150,000 cubic yards of Mississippi River sand and help from $18.7 million of BP’s multibillion-dollar settlement for the catastrophic oil spill a decade ago, one of the pelicans’ essential nesting grounds is also coming back.
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Climate-Driven Farming ‘Frontiers’ Pose Real Environmental Risks
High-altitude and polar regions previously unsuitable to support agriculture are now being looked at for future farming opportunities, but research shows bringing agriculture to these areas could significantly impact biodiversity, water resources, and greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
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