Agriculture Daily News April 30

Agriculture:

 

Calif. bill would allow roadside farm stands to expand sales -- Current state retail regulations make it difficult for small fruit farmers to package their produce and sell it in pies, jams or bags of dried fruit at their roadside stands. A bill by Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, seeks to help operators of small farms by relaxing the California retail food code. The law is designed to regulate places where processed food is sold and applies mostly to grocery stores and other retail outlets. In part, it requires those establishments to have clean running water and restrooms, something many small farmers cannot provide at their roadside stands. SJ Mercury 4/30/08

 

New farm bill retains big crop subsidies -- Subsidy payments to big crops will continue to go out automatically under a new $300 billion farm bill Congress has in the works, despite an 80 percent rise in grain prices over the past three years. President Bush issued a strongly worded warning to Congress Tuesday that he expects more reform in the farm bill, which promises to lock in the subsidies for five more years. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, was instrumental in efforts to preserve the subsidies when she pushed the legislation through the House last summer as a way to protect newly elected Democrats from conservative Midwest farming districts. SF Chronicle 4/30/08

 

California awaits sizable stone fruit crop -- Despite reports of weather damage to Washington, South Carolina and Georgia stone fruit crops, California grower-shippers will be able to fill all the gaps, according to the California Tree Fruit Agreement. At a packed 2008 spring meeting April 29, the CTFA said the state’s projected volume of peaches, plums and nectarines is slightly larger than 2007’s large deal. “We’re forecasting the volume of the three crops will be 56.6 million cartons,” a representative said. That total is 1.1 million cartons above the 2007 actual of 55.1 million cartons. The forecast is for 23.8 million cartons of peaches, 21.3 million cartons of nectarines and 11.5 million cartons of plums. The Packer 4/30/08

 

Water:

 

*Delta canal measure put on hold -- An Assembly committee on Tuesday shelved legislation to build a canal around the suffering Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, telling the bill's author to try again next year. Two years in the making, Senate Bill 27 tackled a subject so politically charged that author Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, carefully avoided using the "P" word – Peripheral Canal – as he presented the bill as a way to shore up state water supplies without harming the environment. Sacramento Bee 4/30/08

 

Bio-fuels:

 

*Ethanol maker has new plant -- Pacific Ethanol Inc.'s newest plant increases the Sacramento company's production capacity by 60 percent at a time when some analysts believe there's a supply glut. The plan becomes the company's third wholly owned facility at a time when many ethanol companies are struggling, including Pacific Ethanol, because a surplus of supply has depressed prices and profits. Pacific Ethanol's strategy is to expand so it can lock up much of the West before the market is saturated. Sacramento Bee 4/30/08

 

Health:

 

Fast-food laden areas less healthy -- Where people live affects their risk of obesity or diabetes, especially if their neighborhoods lack access to fresh fruits and vegetables, a new statewide report shows. The greater an area's ratio of junk food to nutritious food, the less healthy residents its are. CC Times 4/30/08