Coronavirus has crippled global shipping. That’s bad for California farmers and winemakers [Sacramento Bee]
By disrupting worldwide cargo shipping, the coronavirus pandemic is creating major headaches for California’s $50 billion-a-year farming industry. From rice to pistachios to oranges, farm exporters said they’ve been struggling to get their hands on empty cargo containers needed for shipping goods to international markets….The coronavirus outbreak, which was declared a pandemic Wednesday by the World Health Organization, has clobbered the shipping industry to a degree never seen before….As a result, farm trucks have been lining up daily at the Oakland docks, waiting for empty containers that they can drive back to their farm customers. It’s often a frustrating wait.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article241104291.html
Drought expanding in California — nearly half the state now affected [Bay Area News Group]
A major snowstorm is forecast to hit the Sierra Nevada this weekend. But drought conditions continue to spread across California, with nearly half the state now affected, federal scientists reported Thursday, as recent rains weren’t enough to significantly slow a drying trend that has been growing more serious all winter. Overall, 48% of California is classified as being in moderate drought — up from 34% a week ago, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor,…That’s the highest percentage in California since January, 2019….Luckily for California’s water supply, because of a wet winter last year and the year before, reservoirs across the state continue to hold a significant amount of water, which will help reduce the risk of shortages this year.
Trump has big plans for California highway repair, but no plan to pay for it [McClatchy News Service]
No federal gasoline tax increase this year. A new Trump administration plan for $810 billion to fix crumbling roads and bridges. That’s the latest pitch from the White House as it promotes its election-year ideas for helping the nation’s transportation system. But it’s offering no details yet and no way to pay….California increased its gasoline tax 5.6 cents a gallon July 1. State motorists pay the highest combined federal and state gas taxes in the country.
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/congress/budget/article240851601.html
Doctors’ group wants processed meats added to California’s cancer-warning list [San Francisco Chronicle]
California requires Proposition 65 cancer warnings on hundreds of products, ranging from tobacco and gasoline to beer and french fries. But there are no warnings on processed meats, like hot dogs, corned beef and bacon, despite an international agency’s findings in 2015 that those foods cause cancer in humans. A doctors’ group is going to court Wednesday to try to cure that omission. “California has been violating the law for nearly five years by failing to add processed meat to the Proposition 65 list,” Mark Kennedy, a lawyer with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, said in a statement accompanying the lawsuit in Sacramento County Superior Court.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Doctors-group-wants-processed-meats-added-to-15121237.php
Citrus showcase details the state of the industry [Foothills Sun-Gazette, Exeter]
California’s biggest citrus showcase came to Visalia on Thursday, highlighting the state of industry and exploring the issues citrus growers face….Dr. Georgios Vidalakis, a plant pathology and microbiology researcher from UC Riverside, described California’s collaborative approach to prevent Huanglongbing (HLB), a devastating citrus disease, from destroying the state’s citrus groves….Vidalakis said HLB’s potential to harm California’s citrus industry is worrying. Luckily, the state has taken the threat of the disease seriously, establishing committees to monitor the disease and determine the best practices to combat its effects.
https://thesungazette.com/article/news/2020/03/11/citrus-showcase-details-the-state-of-the-industry/
Agtech startups use machine learning to analyze farm data [Wall Street Journal]
Startups focused on agriculture and aquaculture technology are turning to cloud-based machine-learning services to process and analyze data so they can give customers better predictions on fertilizer needs, harvest yields and disease rates. These companies, which include OneSoil and Aquabyte, are using Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and other major hosting providers to store vast amounts of data, including publicly available satellite images, weather information and data from sensors in fields that measure soil moisture and air temperature. Then they use the cloud providers’ tools to build, train and deploy machine-learning algorithms.
