Napa Valley Register did a write up about what’s been keeping me busy for the last month or so: Harvest Nights
(This is why I drop off the face of the planet for half of August and the months of September and October.)
Category Archives: Agriculture
Recommended Feeds: Rodale Institute RSS
The Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania is doing some really interesting research — and they have a really excellent couple of blogs. I highly recommend you subscribe to these feeds. Especially the “Global Warming News and Research.” It will pretty much keep you up to date — and help me resist the temptation to re-post *all* of their articles here.
Drought
Bad news from California (like we didn’t already know) in the Wall Street Journal: Shrinking Water Supplies Imperil Farmers.
Dwindling water supplies are compounding economic woes in California’s Central Valley, causing farmers to leave fields fallow and confront the prospect of going under.
The state’s water supply has dropped precipitously of late. California is locked in the third year of one of its worst droughts on record, with reservoirs holding as little as 22% of capacity. On top of that, a federal judge in Fresno last year issued a ruling in an environmental lawsuit that could restrict diversions to farmers by as much as one-third, as part of an effort to save an endangered minnow, the Delta Smelt.
Keep in mind that at least half of the fresh produce in the United States comes from California! (Or so the gov’t is telling immigrants . . .)
Farming the White House
These folks aim to turn the White House lawn into something way more yummy and useful.
I say it’s about dern time!
EDIT: And these folks are working on picking which farmer . . .
Parched, but still hoping for a March Miracle
Well, as a farmer, I have a lot of worries, but lately this is what has been keeping me up at night.
California teeters on the edge of the worst drought in the state’s history, officials said Thursday after reporting that the Sierra Nevada snowpack – the backbone of the state’s water supply – is only 61 percent of normal.
January usually douses California with about 20 percent of the state’s annual precipitation, but instead it delivered a string of dry, sunny days this year, almost certainly pushing the state into a third year of drought.
The arid weather is occurring as the state’s water system is under pressure from a growing population, an aging infrastructure and court-ordered reductions in water pumped through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta – problems that didn’t exist or were less severe during similar dry spells in the late 1970s and late 1980s.
It just kills me whenever I hear folks praising all the sunshine we’ve had. How can people be so out of touch?!?