Winemakers are worrying about smoke taint, but wine drinkers should not [San Francisco Chronicle]
… By now, it’s clear that smoke and its possible effects on wine grapes will be the question of the California wine industry’s 2020 harvest. It’s a question that we can’t yet answer. Yes, it seems inevitable at this point that some of this year’s wine grapes will be irreparably tainted by smoke. But how widespread that damage is, and the degree of harm to individual vineyards, are still unknown quantities. … Farmers are at risk of losing their paycheck for the entire year. … Winemakers, on the other hand, have to contend with the possibility of investing in wine that could turn out to be undrinkable. … But for you, a drinker of California wine, there are no risks.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/wine/article/Winemakers-are-worrying-about-smoke-taint-Wine-15554615.php
Opinion: Forget a special legislative session. California lawmakers first need to get their act together [Los Angeles Times]
This was the ideal time — politically and policy-wise — for the Legislature and the governor to authorize loads of extra spending on wildfire prevention and helping victims. But they botched it. Shame on them. The people’s representatives couldn’t get their act together amid internal turmoil to agree on a stripped-down $500-million wildfire appropriation before they were forced by law to adjourn the two-year legislative session at midnight Aug. 31.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-10/george-skelton-california-legislature-turmoil
6 Western states blast Utah plan to tap Colorado River water [Associated Press]
Six states in the U.S. West that rely on the Colorado River to sustain cities and farms rebuked a plan to build an underground pipeline that would transport billions of gallons of water through the desert to southwest Utah. In a joint letter Tuesday, water officials from Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming urged the U.S. government to halt the approval process for the project. … If the approval moves forward, state water leaders wrote, “multiyear litigation” would likely be inevitable and could complicate negotiations over the future of the Colorado River, which serves 40 million people but faces threats from persistent drought and climate change that are dwindling the supply of water.
https://apnews.com/bbbb07c5b9c4d16a39a1e3c2d7a5f1d7
Air district asks ag, construction businesses to hold off dusty operations [Bakersfield Californian]
Until the wind settles down or the smoke clears up, local air-quality officials are asking local agricultural and construction companies to pitch in for better air quality by minimizing operations that can kick up dust. … The district reports getting positive responses from construction companies, such as those using earth-moving equipment, and said it often receives cooperation from ag operations, many of whom are in the middle of the almond or pistachio harvests. … On Wednesday morning the Kern County Farm Bureau sent out a mass email advising its members of the air district’s request.
Hamburgers are hard on the planet. These cattle ranchers are trying to change that [CNN]
… Scientists last year implored governments to set reduction targets for livestock farms in order to help fight climate change in a letter to the Lancet Planetary Health Journal. … Still, “there are ways to produce beef that are a lot better than others,” said Tim Searchinger, research scholar at Princeton University and a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, a nonprofit group that works on climate change solutions. … Certain grazing practices can help improve the local ecology and capture carbon from the atmosphere, while adding ingredients like lemongrass or seaweed to cattle diets could potentially help reduce methane, he said. Some farmers have adopted these grazing practices, and say the methods are making a huge difference.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/10/business/meat-climate-change/index.html
‘Green rush’: Cannabis boom squeezing farmland in North America [Reuters]
… The legal cannabis industry set sales records across the United States and Canada over the past six months, according to cannabis analytics firm New Frontier Data, which partially attributed the market’s growth to the COVID-19 outbreak. That lucrative revenue stream has caught the eye of cash-strapped local and state officials, but the surge in interest in cannabis has farmers and land experts worried about competition for the land needed to grow the plant.
https://af.reuters.com/article/usa-land-cannabis-idAFL8N2FZ1MZ
