- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
California's dairy operators are struggling with a bleak bottom line as the commodity price for milk has tumbled. According to a story over the weekend in the Fresno Bee, milk prices dropped 50 percent in the last six months, from about $20 for every 100 pounds to about $10. The overall cost to produce milk in California is estimated at $19 per 100 pounds, the story reported.
Bee ag reporter Robert Rodriguez spoke to UC Davis dairy specialist Leslie "Bees" Butler for his perspective on dairies' dismal numbers. He blamed the drop in milk value to dramatic changes in the export market. Australian producers are recovering from a recent drought that...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The creamy, healthy complement to spicy, crunchy nachos - avocados - may be in short supply this spring, according to a Los Angeles Times story that has been picked up all over the nation. California farmers expect to harvest the smallest avocado crop since 1990 and possibly even as far back as 1980, the story said, and prices will creep higher.
"Holy guacamole," joked LA Times reporter Jerry Hirsch in promoting the story on his Twitter account.
For the article, Hirsch spoke to UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Ben Faber to get his take on California's...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
In another sign of our dire economic times, grant funds allocated by the state of California's Sierra Nevada Conservancy came to a screeching halt last month. The agency announced funds made available after the passage of Proposition 84 will no longer be dispersed. The November 2006 proposition had authorized the state to issue bonds for the protection and restoration of rivers, lakes and streams and other natural resources.
One of the projects losing its funding would have collected and analyzed data on three riparian/meadow monitoring sites in the South Ash Valley area of Lassen County, where landscape junipers were being removed to assist in the restoration of sagebrush steepe habitat, according to an article...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
In a move that might only occur in a county named for a body of water, the Lake County Board of Supervisors declared a state of emergency last week after Fish and Game officials decided not to stock several local lakes and streams with fish.
Fish and Game made the decision after the Pacific Rivers Council and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit that blamed the fish stocking program for threatening native fish and amphibians, such as the hardhead minnow, spring- and winter-run chinook salmon, California red-legged frog, arroyo toad and foothill yellow-legged frog.
Fish and Game had decided to drop Upper Blue Lake, Cache Creek, Indian Valley Reservoir and Pillsbury Reservoir from...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, UC Cooperative Extension advisor Mike Marzolla joined a study tour of Cuba, picking up some ideas that could be implemented in the U.S. for a greener society. The 10-day trip was sponsored by the North American Association for Environmental Education, according to a Santa Barbara Independent article written by Chanti Burnett.
Marzolla noted a number of efforts Cubans are making to conserve energy, such as
- Almost universal use of energy-saving lighting
- Bio-energy refrigerators provided by the government
- Decentralized power generation
Local gardening...
