California halts insurance cancellations in major wildfire areas across 22 counties [Sacramento Bee]
Wrestling with an insurance crisis that’s bedeviled much of rural California for years, the state imposed a one-year ban Monday that prevents carriers from dropping homeowners in areas affected by the Dixie Fire, Caldor Fire and other major 2021 wildfires. The one-year moratorium, announced by Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, affects about 325,000 homeowners. It came a month after Lara imposed a similar moratorium affecting 25,000 homeowners who live in the vicinity of the Lava and Beckwourth Complex fires. Lara acknowledged that the moratorium isn’t a cure-all for the breakdown of the property-casualty insurance market in areas prone to wildfires. Responding to the rash of mega-fires in recent years, insurance companies have decided not to renew policies for tens of thousands of Californians. Many end up having to buy coverage from the California FAIR Plan, the state’s “insurer of last resort,” which sells bare-bones policies that insure only against wildfire risk. By the time they’re finished purchasing separate policies covering burglary and other perils, their annual insurance bill has doubled or tripled, costing them thousands.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article254385134.html
Opinion: California’s greenhouse gas plan is already hurting farmers [Desert Sun]
From Jamie Johansson, California Farm Bureau: It can’t be said enough. California’s farming industry is a cornerstone of this great state – our growers provide food for your families and the world. As we hear so often during this pandemic, farming and agriculture are essential. Yet, we are facing unprecedented obstacles to growing and producing the food you pick up at the grocery store or farmers’ market. Many challenges are the result of climate change. We are all too familiar with its impacts. Our member-farmers strive to be good partners and stewards of the earth to combat climate change, leading our industry to make significant advances to grow more with less water, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and limiting the environmental impact of growing enough food so people can eat. We have also increased carbon capture on natural and working farmland by using better soil and tillage practices; that helps offset the amount of carbon emitted in the atmosphere every year. In fact, the most successful greenhouse reduction program on a dollar per ton basis is the Dairy Digester program that traps methane and turns it into electricity or renewable natural gas. Unfortunately, California’s administration and legislative leadership’s approach to setting mandates to cut greenhouse gas emissions has left agriculture to become collateral damage rather than a meaningful partner in meeting them.
California’s War on Bacon Has Tempers Sizzling in Farming States [California Globe]
From the first state in the nation to offer prison inmates an all-vegan menu, California voters passed a ballot measure in 2018 mandating more living space for veal calves, cows and pigs, and banned the confinement of egg-laying hens in cages. Proposition 12, the Farm Animal Confinement Initiative, also set up a ban on the sale of these agricultural products in California that don’t meet the new requirements, attempting to influence how farmers in other states raise their animals. The rest of the country does not appreciate California’s nanny regulations as they reverberate across the land. OnJanuary 1st California will begin enforcing Prop. 12 that requires this extra space for breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and veal calves. “National veal and egg producers are optimistic they can meet the new standards, but only 4% of hog operations now comply with the new rules,” USA Today reported. “Unless the courts intervene or the state temporarily allows non-compliant meat to be sold in the state, California will lose almost all of its pork supply, much of which comes from Iowa.” Yahoo reported in July that bacon may actually disappear in California because pork farmers can’t retool farms very easily to provide more space for hogs.
With Californians consuming more than 15% of all pork produced in the U.S., the “ban” could drive the cost of pork way up
Sonoma County farmers feel widespread economic pain of drought and prolonged pandemic [Santa Rosa Press Democrat]
The past few years have been rough for Sonoma County’s farmers and agricultural workforce. Wildfires, the COVID pandemic and crushing drought have made the process of shepherding a crop to maturity daunting – but so far, not impossible. “We’re close to wrapping up,” said Cameron Mauritson, a partner at Mauritson Farms. Mauritson cultivates about 500 acres of premium wine grapes in the Dry Creek Valley, Alexander Valley and the Rockpile viticultural region near Lake Sonoma. Yields for 2021 are down 15 to 30%, Mauritson said, but the quality is superb. Unlike last year, there’s less fear of “smoke tainted” fruit due to wildfires. That said, water – or the lack of it – weighed heavily on growers’ minds this year, particularly for grape growers along the Russian River, where severe irrigation strictures have been enforced, curtailing stream water rights that stretch back decades. With the crop largely in, Mauritson’s greatest worry is next year. Soils were dry when the growing season began, meaning that the vines struggled to produce the foliage and canes needed to manufacture and store nutrients through the fall. “There wasn’t much canopy this year, and the canes were smaller,” said Mauritson. “That means fewer carbohydrates were stored, and that will likely limit crop capacity next year.”
Monterey County agriculture industry aims to address production issues [Salinas Californian]
The California agriculture industry faced many enemies in the last year including wildfires, drought, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Mary Zischke, with Grower-Shipper Association, said the industry is taking on another challenge this season, a multi-million dollar decline in leafy greens production caused by infected plants. Currently, diseases like Pythium wilt, which infects the roots of different lettuce plants, and Impatiens Necrotic Spot Virus (INSV) which causes damages to plants, have destroyed many crops is the Salinas Valley area. Researchers said they are not dangerous to humans. “There’s quite a bit in the county. If you go to farms in Gonzalez, for example, you can really see the damages,” Zischke said. “We know the virus doesn’t seem to like heat and it seems to be building. The insect that moves this kind of virus around is on the increase right now as well and it’s probably because it’s nicer weather.” She estimates losses in the local ag industry have been anywhere between $75 and $100 million based on damages and inability to control the diseases throughout the last year.
CSUB’s Edible Garden gets $50,000 gift to help it grow [Bakersfield Californian]
Luminaries and speeches abounded at Cal State Bakersfield on Monday afternoon. But the star of the show may very well have been the university’s edible garden, which provides thousands of pounds of garden-fresh produce to students at the southwest Bakersfield campus.
On Monday, CSUB announced that Adventist Health Bakersfield and the Grimm Family Education Foundation have given a gift of $50,000 to improve and enhance the the university’s edible garden.All the food grown in the garden feeds CSUB students through the Food Pantry on campus, which opened in 2017 after a survey found that food insecurity among students was far more widespread than anyone imagined. CSUB Assistant Director of Basic Needs Jason Watkins said the garden is both a place to grow food and a place to learn. “As you can see, there’s a lot of great things going here, but there’s a lot that needs to be done,” Watkins said. “We really envision this as very much an educational space,
a living classroom where faculty and students can come and be engaged in the learning process
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