Tag Archive for: Farmers

Framework for Agreements to Aid Health of Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is a Starting Point With An Uncertain End

Voluntary agreements in California have been touted as an innovative and flexible way to improve environmental conditions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the rivers that feed it. The goal is to provide river flows and habitat for fish while still allowing enough water to be diverted for farms and cities in a way that satisfies state regulators. But no one said this would be easy.

Opinion: California Water Policies Inhibit Food Production by Valley Farmers

Over the past several weeks, the COVID-19 pandemic has created images Americans never expected to see in this country: Empty supermarket shelves and people lined up outside of markets waiting to enter to purchase food.

Groundwater Might Be Newest Cash Crop for Valley Farmers

San Joaquin Valley farmers may soon have another crop to sell along with almonds, tomatoes, and peppers — the groundwater beneath their land.

Opinion: California’s Farm Workers Desperately Need PPE and Coronavirus Tests

The COVID-19 epidemic has made clear how much our society depends on essential services we too often take for granted. Among these is agricultural work and the people who plant and harvest our food.

Opinion: What Gov. Gavin Newsom Needs to Do to Protect State’s Water Future

Today, responding to a global pandemic is every governor’s top priority. When we emerge from this crisis, Gov. Gavin Newsom will face a challenge to ensure California’s future economic and environmental health. In this context, his water policies will represent critical decisions. Along with public health, jobs, energy, transportation, education, housing and fire protection, water is a compulsory gubernatorial priority.

Oceanside Farm Delivers Fresh Produce Across North San Diego County

With farmers markets closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a family who has been farming in Southern California for more than a century is taking its produce directly to homes throughout North County and beyond.

For the last three years, Yasukochi Family Farm has been putting together and delivering CSA (community supported agriculture) boxes full of fresh produce.

“They’re buying local vegetables,” said Donal Yasukochi explaining how the community is supporting the operation. “It helps us stay in business.”

Farmworkers Confront Losses, Anxiety Despite Demand for Food

The coronavirus brought much of San Diego — and the country — to a standstillResidents are isolating in their homes and working remotelyclassrooms are moving online, most beaches and parks are closed, and many businesses have temporarily shut down.  

City streets that once buzzed with people are going quiet in the wake of local leaders implementing policies that prohibit large gatherings. That makes grocery stores and other businesses that sell food items some of the only pieces of the economy that are going strong. 

But while it may seem as if business is boomingthe agricultural industry in San Diego — the farmworkers, farmers and food distributors — is experiencing the economic impact of the global pandemic as hard as anyone else as it quickly shifts to accommodate a changing marketplaceFood is in high demand, yet some of those in charge of providing those products are struggling to stay afloat. 

 

Opinion: Collaboration is the Answer to California’s Fishery and Water Supply Challenges

California has the opportunity to enter a new era in water management. Unprecedented efforts by leaders at the state and national level have led to the kind of cooperation that will provide valuable benefits to water users and the environment.

I know because that’s what we’ve been doing in the Sacramento Valley for many years. The kinds of success we’ve achieved can be replicated in other parts of the state. By working together, we can accomplish much more than can ever be achieved when competing interests are fighting.

California’s current water regulatory system is completely broken. Farms, towns and cities suffer continued cutbacks and threatened fish species continue to dwindle. The only recourse currently available seems to be an ongoing parade of lawsuits that further paralyze the system and help no one.

New State Water Regulations Cause Angst on All Sides

A new set of water regulations aimed at protecting California’s native fish came down from the state earlier this week to near universal condemnation from both agricultural and environmental water folks.

The regulations are contained in a 143-page “incidental take permit” issued by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife that lays out when — and how much — water can be pumped out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta by the State Water Project.

Agricultural contractors who get water from the project fear they could lose up to 300,000 acre-feet a year under the new permit.

Environmentalists say the permit gives a “free pass” to pumpers and is a path to extinction for native fish.

Largest US Dam Removal Stirs Debate Over Coveted West Water

KLAMATH, Calif.  — California’s second-largest river has sustained Native American tribes with plentiful salmon for millennia, provided upstream farmers with irrigation water for generations and served as a haven for retirees who built dream homes along its banks.

With so many demands, the Klamath River has come to symbolize a larger struggle over the American West’s increasingly precious water resources, and who has claim to them.

Now, plans to demolish four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath’s lower reaches — the largest such demolition project in U.S. history — have placed those competing interests in stark relief. Tribes, farmers, homeowners and conservationists all have a stake in the dams’ fate.