Monthly Archives: October 2014

It is encouraging to see World Food Day observed today, a designation made possible by the inspiring work of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The goal of this day is to reach a point in time when people are no longer going hungry. The world produces enough food to feed everyone on the planet. We must …

A California farmer broke a North American record on Monday when his large, bulbous gourd clocked in at 2,058 pounds during the annual Half Moon Bay pumpkin weigh-off, which has been drawing veteran growers and hobbyists alike since 1974. The giant squash, dubbed by festival organizers as the “colossal ghost,” grown by John Hawkley of Napa — especially large for …

Tomorrow, five students from the Pittsburg Unified School District in Contra Costa County will join First Lady Michelle Obama and students from schools in Arizona, Ohio and Washington D.C. to harvest vegetables from the White House Garden and work with chefs to turn them into a healthy meal. Pittsburg’s students are attending the event in recognition of the Farm to …

By Angela Bowman In January, the Drought Monitor first began to report areas of exceptional drought in California. Thirty-seven weeks later, the drought continues to rage. According to the latest Drought Monitor report, currently 58 percent of California is in exceptional drought, unchanged for the 11th consecutive week. Last week, temperatures soared to 6 to 10 degrees above normal, and …

By Allen Young Exports of California food products took a dive in August, with fruit and tree nuts decreasing by 8 percent when compared to the same time last year and vegetables dropping by 7.8 percent, according to data released Friday by Beacon Economics. The cause is fairly obvious, said Beacon trade expert Jock O’Connell. An unprecedented drought has led to fallowed fields and …

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released a comprehensive report synthesizing current literature that explores opportunities in the emerging bioeconomy. The report, entitled Why Biobased?, was created as a precursor for a more comprehensive economic study to be released in the coming months by the USDA BioPreferred program on the economic impacts of the …

WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2014 – Agriculture Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden today announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will improve farm loans by expanding eligibility and increasing lending limits to help more beginning and family farmers. As part of this effort, USDA is raising the borrowing limit for the microloan program from $35,000 to $50,000; simplify the lending processes; …

By Angela Fritz Researchers studying the fingerprint of human-caused climate change on extreme weather events in 2013 have found that it played a role in half of the events that they looked at, including the California drought and extreme heat events. Climate change attribution — figuring out what role climate change is playing in our weather events — is a very difficult …

This is a reprise post from our Growing California video series. Apple Hill is now open for its annual fall run in El Dorado County. This video content is no longer available.