A bitter dispute ends as California water agencies pledge cooperation on Colorado River [Los Angeles Times]
Two years ago, a pact to safeguard the West’s shrinking water supplies took effect at a ceremony high above the Colorado River. Major water districts across the West that supply water to Denver, Phoenix and Los Angeles gathered to sign a deal in hopes of preventing reservoirs from falling to critically low levels. But notably absent from the May 2019 ceremony were representatives of California’s Imperial Irrigation District, the single largest user of Colorado River water. Managers of the agricultural irrigation district in the Imperial Valley had been locked in a heated dispute with the state’s other water behemoth, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and were suing to challenge the deal. Now, more than two years later, conditions have grown increasingly dire. As the Colorado River’s largest reservoirs sit at their lowest levels on record, and as an unrelenting drought intensified by climate change continues to ravage the West, water managers across the region have acknowledged that greater cooperation and larger steps are needed to prevent the reservoirs from bottoming out. The Imperial Irrigation District announced last week that it has agreed to settle its dispute with the MWD — a major shift that means California’s two largest users of the Colorado River will once again be able to work together on ways of taking less water from the river in an effort to address the crisis.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2021-09-28/california-water-agencies-settle-dispute
Beyond, Impossible join crowded plant-based chicken market [The Associated Press]
Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods found success with realistic plant-based burgers. Now, they’re hoping to replicate that in the fast-growing but crowded market for plant-based chicken nuggets. Beyond Meat said Monday that its new tenders, made from fava beans, will go on sale in U.S. groceries in October. Walmart, Jewel-Osco and Harris Teeter will be among the first to offer them. Impossible Foods began selling its soy-based nuggets this month at Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons and other groceries. They’ll be in 10,000 stores by later this year. The rival startups, both based in California, helped redefine what plant-based burgers could be. Beyond burgers were the first to be sold in grocery aisles next to conventional meat in 2016; Impossible burgers joined them a few years later. But this time, Beyond and Impossible will be stacked in freezers already bursting with plant-based chicken options. More than 50 brands of plant-based nuggets, tenders and cutlets are already on sale in U.S. stores, according to the Good Food Institute, which tracks plant-based brands.
Raw milk recalled from Modesto-area dairy four times. Owner explains his process [Modesto Bee]
Joe Bento hopes to get back soon to his tiny niche in the dairy industry: selling raw milk directly to consumers. Four times since 2019, the state has ordered recalls at Valley Milk Simply Bottled, about six miles west of Modesto. Routine testing found excessive levels of bacteria each time, but no illnesses were reported. “We still have all the costs associated with it and no income coming in,” Bento said amid his nearly 200 cows. He also produces smaller amounts of goat and sheep milk, which are under quarantine, too. Bacteria called Campylobacter jejuni prompted the actions each time by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. It can cause digestive trouble and fever, but most people recover completely, the agency said. Some people have no symptoms. The first recall was in March 2019 and the second in July 2020, both involving cow milk. The third was about a month ago, for goat milk. The latest recall was for cow milk in gallon and half-gallon jugs labeled “Valley Milk Simply Bottled Raw Milk” or “Desi Raw Milk.” They have expiration dates from Sept. 26 to Oct. 3 and brown-colored caps. Purchasers should dispose of them at home.
https://www.modbee.com/news/business/agriculture/article254482937.html
U.S. Farm Belt Revival Prompts Mad Dash for ‘Dirt and Iron’ [Wall Street Journal]
A revival in the U.S. Farm Belt is in full swing, boosting markets for land and equipment and raising concerns over farmers’ escalating costs. A monthslong rally in prices for major agricultural commodities such as corn and soybeans is pushing up incomes for U.S. farmers and unleashing spending and investment that had been subdued for years, according to agricultural economists and executives. The run-up in land and equipment prices that has followed could leave farmers exposed if big harvests send crop prices lower again, some economists said. U.S. cropland values hit a record this year, federal data shows. Prices for new and used farm equipment have soared, as rising sales and disruptions in key components, such as semiconductor chips, cause shortages and delivery delays for new machinery. Retail sales volumes of new high-horsepower tractors in the U.S. were up 27% from year-ago levels during the first eight months of 2021, according to the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. The red-hot machinery market has produced a windfall for manufacturers like Deere, whose profit from large farm equipment surged 50% in the company’s latest quarter. “It’s like the Wild West out there right now,” said Scott Irwin, an agricultural economist at the University of Illinois, referring to the scramble for land and equipment.
Farmers need practical innovation, not moonshots, to stave off global food crisis [World Economic Forum]
We are firmly entering a new era of the humanitarian and environmental crisis centred around food and agriculture. Without sustainable systems that make global production more efficient, the divide between those who have enough food and those who don’t will continue to grow. Farmers shoulder the most direct burden of preventing this. Yet around the world, they are plagued by emerging threats to their crops’ health and the health of their businesses. The agricultural industry is trying to tackle these complex issues, but its innovation pipelines have stagnated. For example, it takes companies between 13-15 years to discover a new crop protection product and bring it to market, despite the urgent pest resistance issues farmers face. This forces growers to continue using old tools even as new problems emerge and worsen. The severe weather that threatens crop yields – including droughts, heatwaves and heavy rains – will become more frequent and severe over the coming years. Meanwhile, food production must increase 60-70% in the next few decades to keep up with population growth and an impending labour shortage in some regions threatens growers’ businesses. This will get harder as climate change worsens. This year alone, droughts are threatening corn in Brazil, cocoa in the Ivory Coast and many crops in the American West. This exacerbates other challenges to keeping crops healthy. Drought weakens crops’ defenses against pests, and if crops are also competing with weeds for soil nutrients and water, those defenses get even weaker. Crop yields can plummet as a result.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/09/agriculture-farming-innovation-technology/
A champion Napa pumpkin grower dishes on gourds, gardens and Mondavis [San Jose Mercury News]
You might say Gary Miller has a passion for pumpkins. For about 30 years, this Napa farmer has been growing giant ones and winning competitions, including Half Moon Bay’s 2013 World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off with a 1,985-pounder. Raised on a farm in Ohio, he says he followed the famous advice given to generations of Americans. “I went as far west as I could, got my feet wet and backed up a little,” he says, chuckling. And here in California he stayed and found a new calling when wine royalty — the Mondavis — came to him with a pumpkin request. “They asked me if I would grow a giant pumpkin for an event they were having at their home one October. I had never heard of giant pumpkins so I went to work researching the concept.” Says Miller: “Growing giant pumpkins is like crafting a marble sculpture. It takes a whole year of planting a seed crop, then turning the soil, starting the seeds and finally planting small seedlings in rich, well-managed earth. It is a work of heart and devotion.”
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