Monthly Archives: November 2015

SACRAMENTO – As California prepares for a fifth year of drought, Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today issued an executive order that calls for additional actions to build on the state’s ongoing response to record dry conditions and assist recovery efforts from this year’s devastating wildfires. The full text of the executive order can be found here. California’s Drought Response …

By Nathanael Johnson First comes the drought, then the deluge. It’s not just that climate change is making the weather more extreme, with hotter dry spells and warmer winters that transform mountain snowpack to water. It’s also that the drought has actually made flooding more likely by diminishing the soil’s capacity to soak up moisture. It’s as if dryness defends its turf against …

The 2015 World’s Fair recently concluded in Milan, Italy, and an important development was the Charter of Milan, described by its authors as a moral, non-binding commitment to achieve such goals as regulations guaranteeing rights to food for all; stronger legislation to promote the safeguarding of agricultural land; and the development of a system of open international trade, based on …

By Bettina Boxall Gary Serrato watched as a tractor worked its way across a field of dried-up weeds, slicing the sandy dirt into orderly furrows. The field was being readied not for a crop but for what he hopes will be a bountiful harvest of floodwater this El Niño winter. “We’re going to capture as much as we can,” said …

With the release of the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the California Farm Bureau Federation urged the state’s congressional delegation to support the agreement. The TPP would reduce barriers to trade among the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations. “We’re glad to have the text of the agreement available, and we expect that to ease …

This map helps identify farmlands with the most potential to capture groundwater and help recharge the aquifer. Credit: California Soil Resources Lab, UC Davis By Diane Nelson, UC Davis Growers, researchers, policymakers and others can now pinpoint California’s most promising parcels of farmland to help replenish the state’s dwindling groundwater supplies, thanks to a new interactive map developed by the …

A historic achievement for California rice – on the final day of the 7th Annual World Rice Conference, hosted this year in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, it was announced that the “World’s Best Rice” award had been won by California Calrose rice. This is the first time California Calrose has been the sole recipient of the award. In 2013 it tied …

The latest segment in the Growing California video series, a partnership with California Grown, is “Farm to Folks.”