Salinas Valley: Growers contend with how to make sure leafy greens are safe [Monterey Herald]
The Salinas Valley has long billed itself as the Salad Bowl of the World. Last year alone, Monterey County grew $1.4 billion worth of lettuce….The recurring contamination has sparked distrust in international markets, leading to a bombshell announcement in October that Canada effectively banned the importation of Salinas Valley-grown romaine lettuce until Dec. 31. The restrictions apply to romaine grown in four counties: Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Benito and Santa Clara….The move was a stark reminder to local growers who have been working vigorously for more than a decade to safeguard leafy greens from contamination — a journey that in many ways has been an exercise in frustration. “We absolutely recognize that there are millions of servings of these products consumed every single day. And the food is safe — except when it isn’t,” said Trevor Suslow, a food safety expert at UC Davis who recently stepped down as the vice president of produce safety at the Produce Marketing Association.
Salinas Valley: Growers contend with how to make sure leafy greens are safe – Monterey Herald
California must burn more of its forests to save them. Is the public ready? [San Francisco Chronicle]
…Finally, the tide is turning — slowly. California took a huge step forward this year when it reached a landmark deal with the federal government to reduce fire risk on 1 million acres of forest and wildlands annually, including through prescribed fire. California has about 33 million acres of forest land, most of which is controlled by the federal government. Experts believe the 1-million-acre annual target could, in time, go a long way toward making the forests and wooded areas more resistant to ruinous infernos, if the work is sustained. It’s a daunting task. Figures provided to The Chronicle by the Forest Service and Cal Fire indicate that, in order to meet the 1-million-acre goal, the agencies will need to increase their fire-risk reduction work, which includes efforts to manually thin overgrown forests as well as prescribed burning, by hundreds of thousands of acres per year.
California must burn more of its forests to save them. Is the public ready? – SFChronicle.com
Disease is decimating California’s wild ducks and shorebirds. What’s really responsible [Sacramento Bee]
Even through my face mask, I could smell botulism and decay as the mallard baked under the midday sun. The duck floated on its back near a patch of tules. It was writhing with maggots….This year was by far the worst avian botulism die-off on record in the Klamath Basin thanks to the refuge and its adjacent sister property, Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, having their supply water cut off earlier this year….Over the past couple of decades, I’ve watched as these critical wetlands have been drained by drought and environmental regulations. Those rules have kept more water upstream and downstream to protect endangered fish on which struggling Native American communities depend….A decade ago, a diverse coalition of tribes, farmers and conservationists hashed out water-sharing settlements that would have given the refuges a steady supply of water each year, and in the process stopped years of lawsuits, protests and acrimony.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article247818070.html
Tejon Ranch prevails in court case challenging approval of mountain residential project [Bakersfield Californian]
A federal judge has rejected the latest lawsuit aimed at stopping Tejon Ranch Co. from building an upscale residential project near the company’s Lebec headquarters. California Central District Judge Cormac J. Carney ruled Dec. 4 that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not violate federal guidelines when it approved a habitat conservation plan the plaintiffs alleged should have recognized the California condor as a “traditional cultural property” deserving special protection. Such a recognition could have sunk the housing development as proposed….Tejon Ranch said in a news release Carney’s summary amounts to a repudiation of the anti-development efforts of the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity, which was a plaintiff in the suit along with the Ventura-based Wishtoyo Foundation and Delia Dominguez.
New York farmers await state decision on overtime [Wall Street Journal]
Farmers in New York are spending the last week of 2020 worrying that a state panel will recommend a legal change that could increase their overtime costs for the next growing season. A 2019 law required the state’s farms to provide overtime pay to their employees if they work more than 60 hours in a week. It also created the three-person Farm Wage Board, which was tasked with reviewing whether the overtime threshold should be lowered….The New York Farm Bureau and other agriculture trade groups said in a November letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who appointed Ms. Reardon, that there would be significant alterations to farm operations in the state if the threshold were lowered. Phil Schmitt, who grows vegetables and processes horseradish on around 225 acres in Suffolk County, said he employs about 20 seasonal workers to tend, harvest and bunch his crops. Much of what he grows is sold on the wholesale market, and Mr. Schmitt said he was struggling to keep prices in line with growers in nearby states that have lower wage costs.
New York Farmers Await State Decision on Overtime – WSJ
Companies seek to green the grid with trash gas [Wall Street Journal]
…Smithfield Foods Inc., the country’s largest pork producer, expects to be selling gas from all of its Missouri farming operations by summer. Most of its farms already feed methane into the gas grid. Once covers are stretched across the 4-acre lagoons at the rest and then connected to equipment that removes carbon dioxide and impurities from the fumes, Smithfield expects to supply enough gas in Missouri to fuel about 10,000 houses. “We’ve been looking at how to make energy out of manure for a couple decades,” said Kraig Westerbeek, who leads Smithfield’s renewable energy business. “We’ve had some failures, but these projects show that you can actually get it done.”…Gas from landfills, farms, sewage plants, food waste and other anaerobic digestion systems constitutes less than 1% of U.S. natural-gas supply. The market is swamped with so much shale gas that many oil drillers simply burn their once-valuable byproduct—what they call “trash gas”—at the wellhead rather than spend money piping it to market. On Monday, natural gas futures traded down to $2.27 per million British thermal units, a paltry winter price that falls below break-even for many producers.
Companies Seek to Green the Grid With Trash Gas – WSJ
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