Word: farmers
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Todd Diedrich watches a lone tractor churn up dust as it lumbers down rows of still-green plants. "We're trying to patch up the cracks," the farmer explains, referring to his desperate effort to retain what little moisture remains in the ground, now that he has been forced to turn down his irrigation drip. Diedrich says the California drought could cost him 750 acres, which he estimates to be worth $3 million. He gestures to the land that his family has been farming for decades. "This will all be gone," he says. "And there may not be a 'next...
...limits on pumping from the Delta, in an attempt to help endangered smelt fish. In a further measure to protect smelt, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced just last week it would cut San Joaquin Valley farm water supplies to 40% of the contracted amount. Many of the farmers in the region have been allotted only one sixth of the water supply they need to sustain their crops through the crucial summer months. "This is a death sentence," says almond and wine farmer Shawn Coburn...
...local farmers are particularly bitter at the environmental priorities governing water use. "We're looking after fish, and yet we're losing crops," says almond farmer Cort Blackburn. "You cannot put the fish in front of all the people." Chris Cardella, a farmer on the east side of Firebaugh, agrees: "We need legislature to overrule all our environmental impacts because humans come first over fish." Mosebar dismisses such "myopic" thinking: "If we're assisting the fish, we're also assisting our food production." He hopes this crisis will spawn better infrastructure for moving and storing water...
...thunderstorms that have unleashed massive tornadoes and caused dams to fail. At least four people were killed as a tornado tore through a Boy Scout camp in the remote hills of western Iowa Wednesday. An entire Wisconsin lake has emptied. Carp are swimming through suburban Milwaukee streets. An Iowa farmer has drowned in his own field. And the havoc is expected to continue, with more bizarre weather and even an alert about a mini-tsunami on Lake Michigan in Chicago. What next? Twisters down Michigan Avenue? Don't scoff...
...Beijing-based environmental groups, the loss of the wild Nu is unacceptable. Sheltered by the Gaoligang and Biluo mountain ranges, the Nu valley has fostered diverse human and animal life. More than a third of China?s 56 recognized minority groups live in the area. Many, like the farmer Yu Guifu, are Lisu, a Tibetan-Burmese group with a high percentage of Christians owing to the early 20th century work of British missionary James Fraser. In Nu prefecture the Han people, who are a vast majority nationwide, make up less than 10% of the population...