Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through downtown Mexico City on Thursday to protest recent trade openings that removed the last tariff protections for ancestral Mexican crops like corn and beans. Farmers here say they can't compete with bigger U.S. farms that receive more government support. Under the terms of NAFTA, Mexico got a 15-year protection period to improve its farms, but that phase-in period ended Jan. 1, and Mexican farms -- mostly tiny plots of 12 acres or smaller -- still lag behind. CC Times 2/01/08
The California Department of Education on Thursday urged school districts throughout the state to stop serving all but a few beef products after allegations that a Chino-based meat supplier butchered and distributed weak or ill cattle. The actions follow news that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is investigating Westland after the release of a video showing slaughterhouse workers using forklifts and water hoses to move or rouse weak and sick cows before slaughter. LA Times 2/01/08
The good news: After last year's bone-dry winter in which the Sierra had just 40 percent of its average annual snowpack -- and local water agencies encouraged residents to start conserving -- the newest tallies show the snowpack ranges from 115 percent to 123 percent of average for this time of year, depending upon the location. CC Times 2/01/08
…and the bad news: California and Bay Area cities must start planning now for new and costly systems to control increasing runoff from urban storms, springtime floods from swollen rivers and rising sea levels as they invade lowlands, all as a result of global warming, climate scientists and water experts warn. Climate change, they say, will result in thinner winter snowpacks in the Sierra and other Western mountains. SF Chronicle 2/01/08
After months of losing fights over how much water can be pumped to farms from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a coalition of farm groups is striking back with a federal lawsuit blaming state agencies for endangering native fish in the Delta. In a suit filed in Sacramento federal court, the groups ask for a halt to California's practice of maintaining predatory, nonnative striped bass in the Delta for the benefit of fishermen, claiming the policy violates the Endangered Species Act. Sacramento Bee 1/31/08
Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, the aggressively expanding U.S. division of Tesco PLC, the world's third-largest retailer, plans to build smaller than typical outlets offering prepared meals, fresh produce and perishables in Antioch, Concord, San Jose, San Francisco, Hayward, Oakland, Oakley and elsewhere, many in neighborhoods that other grocery stores have long avoided. SF Chronicle 2/01/08
Most senators cited fiscal concerns in their decision not to support the Governor’s Universal Health Care bill. But it was clear Tuesday that neither the speaker nor the governor truly believed that the fiscal analysis was the true reason health care failed in the Senate. Capitol Weekly 1/31/08
The wines that will be popular in five years – wines that are quirky, regional, with rich background stories – aren’t what the mainstream domestic industry seems to be selling today, according to a panel discussing the state of the industry Wednesday morning at the annual Unified Wine and Grape Symposium in Sacramento, the largest conference of the year for the U.S. wine business. Among other announcements at the event, retail sales topped $30 billion, up 4 percent on the year, and grape prices were up. Sacramento Bee 1/31/08
The laws governing direct interstate shipments from wine retailers to consumers are confusing, arcane, inconsistent, often ignored and rarely discussed. A move by Wine.com has brought focus to these laws. In what amounted to its own sting operation, Wine.com last summer ordered wine from several retail merchants and asked them to ship it to states where such shipments are illegal. Upon receiving the wine, Wine.com then sent letters to state regulators turning in the transgressors. The attention illuminates the tensions inherent in an Internet economy bound by post-Prohibition laws that created the three-tier system of producers, distributors and retailers, regulated on a state-by-state basis. NY Times 1/30/08
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