Word: firebaugh
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Diedrich's farm is located on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, traditionally a cornucopia of tomatoes, almonds, cantaloupe, pistachios and lettuces. The area around Firebaugh has been hit hard by a severe drought caused by two years of below-average rainfall, a diminished Sierra Nevada snowpack and new court-ordered environmental restrictions on pumping. Despite having officially recognized the drought on June 4, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has yet to declare a state of emergency that would lift some of the environmental restrictions on providing relief to the farmers - although he is pushing the state legislature to approve...
...stricken farmers face another wrenching decision: which of their long-time employees to send home. Diedrich has just laid off 25 employees, and he is hardly unique. The impact is noticeable in Firebaugh's community of some 7,500, mostly Latino farm workers. At noon on a Monday, the small town's streets are full of pickup trucks and vans that would normally be in the fields this time of year. Butch Fleming, who owns the town's Ag & Industrial Supply, gestures at his empty store, which he says is usually packed with customers. "Farmers don't know what they...
Californians across the state are voluntarily cutting down on sprinkler use and dealing with curbs on development and high fire hazards. But the farmers around Firebaugh have more to lose. "This is the first time water has ever been rationed like this," says Sarah Clark Woolf, spokeswoman for Westlands Water District, which has been forced to cut irrigation supplies to hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land. California Farm Bureau Federation President Doug Mosebar estimates that Fresno County could lose 20% to 30% of its agricultural output this season...
...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...
They were able to continue working together when Firebaugh came to Harvard as a visiting professor last year...