Monthly Archives: June 2014

By Alice Daniel Beekeeper Chris DePrada wears protective clothing to check the health of the bees for Bradshaw Honey Farm.(Alice Daniel/KQED) These are hard times for honeybees; colonies are collapsing for reasons ranging from pesticides to parasites. And with this … Continue reading →

By Julie Cart There’s not much anyone can tell Barry Sorensen about Idaho’s Big Desert that he doesn’t know. Sorensen, 72, and his brother have been running cattle in this sere landscape all their lives, and they’ve weathered every calamity … Continue reading →

The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is now accepting applications for the State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program (SWEEP), authorized by emergency drought legislation (Senate Bill 103).  An estimated $10 million in competitive grant funding will be awarded … Continue reading →

Note – The farmer profiled in this story, Vonita Murray, was featured last year in CDFA’s Growing California video series. The segment can be viewed at the end of this story. ———————————————-      By Blair Anthony Robertson Farming wasn’t … Continue reading →

By Ezra Klein and Susannah Locke The future of the nations will depend on the manner of how they feed themselves, wrote the French epicurean Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in 1826. Almost 200 years later, how nations feed themselves has gotten … Continue reading →

  By the Kitchen Sisters and Lisa Morehouse In 1898, the U.S. Department of Agriculture created a special department of men called Agriculture Explorers to travel the globe searching for new food crops to bring back for farmers to grow … Continue reading →

  By Eliza Barclay If you’re a scientist and you work for a pest control company, you’re used to thinking about bugs as the enemy you’re trained to kill. Now try putting one in your mouth. It took some mental … Continue reading →

Alameda County Fair 6/18/2014 to 7/6/2014 Pleasanton, CA El Dorado County Fair 6/12/2014 to 6/15/2014 Placerville, CA Kings Fair 6/12/2014 to 6/15/2014 Hanford, CA Merced County Fair 6/11/2014 to 6/15/2014 Merced, CA Placer County Fair 6/19/2014 to 6/22/2014 Roseville, CA … Continue reading →

By Nick Miller If Sacramento is truly the nation’s farm-to-fork capital, then the state Capitol has an opportunity this week to prove so by putting millions of budget dollars where its mouth is. Here’s what’s at stake: California’s cap-and-trade carbon tax … Continue reading →