As word of food riots and export shutdowns in Asia reached California in recent weeks, worried shoppers have been buying up hundreds of pounds of rice at a time from the Asian supermarkets that line Stockton Boulevard, looking for security against rising prices. In recent weeks, the retail price for a 50-pound sack of Thai jasmine rice, the prized variety served steamed in Chinese and Southeast Asian cuisine, has risen from roughly $20 to $40, straining budgets for families and restaurants. Spot-market prices for bulk California rice are up 50 percent since February, to about $20 for 100 pounds. Sacramento Bee 4/19/08
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Proposition 98, backed by the California Farm Bureau Federation and an anti-tax group, would prohibit governments from seizing property, including farmland, for private use. But some farm groups – including the Fresno-based Nisei Farmers League and Western Growers Association – fear the measure would block use of eminent domain for construction of long-sought pipelines, canals and reservoirs, including one targeted for east of Fresno. Sacramento Bee 4/21/08
California voters face dueling measures on home seizure by eminent domain LA Times 4/20/08
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The full effects of the one-year salmon fishing ban will not be known immediately. Much depends on the size of the Alaskan harvest, how that state's industry prices its top-grade salmon and whether consumers will swallow premiums. Still, restaurants and supermarkets could be pressed to find appealing substitutes to satisfy palates and pocketbooks of customers who savor right-off-the-boat king salmon. Mike Plotnick, a fisheries research analyst with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said sockeye salmon anglers could reel in the eighth-largest harvest on record, though. San Diego Union Tribune 4/21/08
Global warming could put the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta under much deeper water than previously estimated. A panel appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is urging him to prepare for a sea level rise of 55 inches in the Delta by the end of this century. That's a lot more water than any estimates currently in use by the state. The Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, in fact, found during its research that many state agencies still have no target number at all to plan for sea level rise. Sacramento Bee 4/20/08
In a scenario that seems unthinkable in the age of antibiotics, the nation's tuberculosis doctors and health workers are considering the tactics of another era - discussing the use of public health laws and sealed wards to isolate some TB patients, the way doctors once separated people with leprosy, plague and yellow fever to halt epidemics. There have been about 50 cases of XDR TB in the United States since 1993, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but California has had 19, according to the California Department of Public Health, including several in the Bay Area. SJ Mercury 4/20/08
Midwestern growers of commodities such as corn and grain have been able to absorb the cost hikes of growing fertilizer prices as their crops fetched higher prices. But growers in California, the nation's leading agriculture state, have yet to see retail prices increase for the fruits and vegetables that dominate their farms. long with soaring labor, water and fuel costs, increasing fertilizer costs have been draining farmers' savings and will probably lead to higher prices for fruits and vegetables to go with separate increases in meat, poultry and dairy products. SJ Mercury 4/20/08
The East County cities of Antioch, Oakley and Brentwood have become the epicenter of the county's foreclosure crisis, and are now recognized as ground zero for West Nile prevention because of the area's warmer temperatures and abundance of abandoned homes. Oakley was also the locus of the county's three reported cases of West Nile in 2007. CC Times 4/19/08
The new five-year farm bill under negotiation may spend a few million dollars saving bees, but definitely will spend billions on farm subsidy policies that contribute to their destruction. SF Chronicle 4/19/08
Local salmon is off the menu. Fresh crab is getting scarce. And now the food perhaps most synonymous with San Francisco itself is taking a hit. Sourdough bread, the legendary staple of the original Forty-Niners, may be headed for luxury status. An unprecedented spike in the cost of flour has meant prices for sourdough and other locally baked breads are surging. SF Chronicle 4/21/08
In Lean Times, Biotech Grains Are Less Taboo NY Times 4/21/08
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