Watch video of a grease theft

By Sharon Bernstein

California is trying to find new ways to catch thieves who steal used cooking grease from restaurants in hopes of making money by selling it to companies that turn it into alternative biofuels.

Citing a rise in such thefts, state Assemblyman Chris Holden has introduced a bill in the state legislature to allow California Highway Patrol officers to pull over the typically unmarked pumper trucks that thieves use to carry such oil and demand to see paperwork proving that it is theirs.

“The theft of used cooking oil (Inedible Kitchen Grease or IKG) from restaurants is on the rise in California,” the state Department of Food and Agriculture says on its website. “It has become a major crime in our cities and counties.”

Like copper, the state says, the grease has value as a commodity, and is often sold by restaurateurs to make extra money. Legitimate haulers also try to turn a profit by agreeing to remove the waste from restaurant sites and sell it to rendering companies, which turn it into usable fuel such as bio-diesel.

The state’s website shows a picture of a red pickup truck with an unmarked cylindrical container in its bed, which the website said is an image of a black-market hauler siphoning grease from a container into which it has been placed by a restaurant.

As currently written, Holden’s bill would provide for penalties of up to $10,000 for those convicted of stealing the grease, which the state Department of Food and Agriculture says is worth about $600 per truckload.

The Pasadena Democrat’s bill would also allow the CHP to confiscate the trucks of drivers who do not carry the necessary paperwork.

Holden’s spokeswoman, Wendy Gordon, said she was not certain whether the high penalties would remain in the bill as it makes its way through the legislative process. But she said the thefts are becoming more common as biofuels increase in popularity.

It is already illegal to steal the grease in California, because restaurateurs do not want black marketeers on their property, and some hope to profit from its sale themselves. Others are glad to have it towed away, entering into contracts with legitimate haulers who themselves are counting on the income from selling it.

Food and Agriculture officials run a hotline – complete with a $500 reward – that citizens can call if they suspect thieves are slipping away with someone else’s goo.

Selling one’s own used grease is perfectly legal in the state, and many restaurants contract with haulers who take it away and earn profits when they sell it to rendering companies. What’s not lawful is to steal the grease from a restaurant or another hauler.

Gordon said the Food and Agriculture Department, which has jurisdiction over the grease, is limited in its ability to enforce the law. Holden’s bill, she said, would make the law easier to enforce.

Link to article – http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/31/usa-california-grease-idUSL2N0L42GS20140131

USDA News Release

USDA California Farm Service Agency (FSA) State Executive Director Val Dolcini has announced Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) availability for multiple counties in California. ECP provides emergency funding and technical assistance to farmers and ranchers to rehabilitate farmland damaged by natural disasters and for implementing emergency water conservation measures in periods of severe drought. The program’s initial focus will be to provide assistance to livestock producers with emergency water needs. Interested producers can sign up until March 27, 2014.

Dolcini encouraged farmers and ranchers impacted by California’s ongoing drought to contact their local USDA Service Center to seek information and assistance. “2013 was one of the driest years in our history,” Dolcini said. “FSA is ready to help California’s farmers and ranchers who continue to be affected by this horrible drought.”

ECP is available to livestock producers with severe water shortages to assist where feasible with rehabilitation of spring developments, new or deepening of livestock wells, development of seeps, and pipeline, tanks, troughs and dugouts. The program will also assist with water hauling costs to confined livestock.

Producers must submit their requests for ECP assistance to FSA prior to beginning construction work. Completing constructive work before submitting an ECP request could result in forfeiture of program eligibility.

ECP program participants can receive financial assistance for up to 75 percent of the cost to
implement approved emergency conservation practices. For more information on ECP or other disaster assistance programs and loans, please contact your local county office or visit FSA online.

 

I am honored to represent the State of California and the California Department of Food and Agriculture at this year’s World Ag Expo, one of the premier events of its kind in the country. The Expo represents a unique opportunity to build local and global partnerships, showcase innovation, and present new technologies, products and equipment.

The Expo is also an opportunity to discuss and tackle some of the industry’s biggest challenges, including the severe drought conditions impacting California and other Western states. Last month, Governor Brown declared a state of emergency, and while we can’t make it rain, we’re committed to working day-in and day-out with our local and federal partners to help our agricultural community – farmers, ranchers and farmworkers.

California’s 2013 crush totaled a record high 4,685,075 tons, up 7 percent from the previous record high 2012 crush of 4,387,434 tons.  Red wine varieties accounted for the largest share of all grapes crushed, at 2,405,942 tons, up 5 percent from 2012.  The 2013 white wine variety crush totaled 1,824,625 tons, up 6 percent from 2012.  Tons crushed of raisin type varieties totaled 327,790, up 21 percent from 2012, and tons crushed of table type varieties totaled 126,718, up 28 percent from 2012.

The 2013 average price of all varieties was $706.29, down 4 percent from 2012.  Average prices for the 2013 crop by type were as follows: red wine grapes, $842.09, down 5 percent from 2012; white wine grapes, $620.01, down less than 1 percent from 2012; raisin grapes, $254.80, down 20 percent; and table grapes, $221.21, down 19 percent.

In 2013, Chardonnay continued to account for the largest percentage of the total crush volume with 16.1 percent.  Cabernet Sauvignon accounted for the second leading percentage of crush with 11.1 percent.  The next eight highest percentages of grapes crushed included wine and raisin grape varieties.  Thompson Seedless, the leading raisin grape variety crushed for 2013, held 6.2 percent of the total crush.

Grapes produced in District 4 (Napa County) received the highest average price of $3,691.07 per ton, up 4 percent from 2012.  District 3 (Sonoma and Marin counties) received the second highest return of $2,248.89, up 3 percent from 2012.  The 2013 Chardonnay price of $863.41 was up 2 percent from 2012, but the Cabernet Sauvignon price of $1,334.96 was down 4 percent from 2012.  The 2013 average price for Zinfandel was $648.94, down 9 percent from 2012, while the Merlot average price was down 6 percent from 2012 at $750.88 per ton.

The Preliminary Grape Crush Report includes all grape tonnage crushed during the 2013 season.  It also includes purchased tonnage and pricing information for grapes with final prices prior to January 10, 2014.  The March 10, 2014 Final Grape Crush Report will contain any late reports or corrections to the preliminary report.

The entire Grape Crush Report is available online at www.nass.usda.gov/ca.

By John Ellis

The White House announced Friday that President Barack Obama will come to Fresno on Feb. 14 to discuss the drought and federal efforts to deal with it.

A White House official said further details about the president’s trip to the central San Joaquin Valley will be made public in the coming days.

The trip will mark Obama’s first visit to the Fresno area. The only other time he visited the region was in October 2012 when he traveled to the United Farm Workers headquarters at Keene in Kern County to dedicate the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument.

The drought has been a key focus of action in the House this week. The Republican-led House on Wednesday passed a water bill authored by Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, that would limit water releases into the San Joaquin River to help the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The measure, which passed on largely party lines, also would allow expansion of McClure Reservoir on the Merced River, allow more storage at New Melones Reservoir, lengthen some federal irrigation contracts and pre-empt some state laws.

Congressional Democrats denounced the bill, and California Gov. Jerry Brown called it divisive. Sen. Dianne Feinstein promised to propose a bill of her own.

House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, visited a dusty field in Bakersfield on Jan. 22 to see the impact of the drought firsthand. Following that meeting, he and Valley Republican congressmen — Valadao, Devin Nunes of Tulare and Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield — called on fellow lawmakers to support emergency legislation to help the farm-dependent Valley deal with the drought.

The emergency legislation passed by the House is now in the Senate, and Nunes is hopeful that the Senate will either take up the House bill or that Feinstein will offer her own legislation.

“I welcome the president to the Valley — as long as he’s going to tell us which way he’s going to get us water. We don’t need press conferences. We need action by the Senate and a signature by him.”

Nunes said the Obama visit “must mean the Senate is going to take up our bill, pass it, and we can have a bill-signing ceremony in Fresno next Friday. I hope that’s the case.”

Democrat Rep. Jim Costa of Fresno was glad to learn of the president’s upcoming visit.

“We’ve been wanting the president to come to the Valley for a long time. The federal agencies’ willingness to work with the governor and state to deal with our short-term water problems is absolutely essential,” he said. “I expect the president to talk about how he’s going to cooperate with the governor to address problems not only in the Valley, but throughout California.”

Trent Orr, an attorney with the Bay Area environmental group Earthjustice, said he will be curious to hear what Obama says next week. Orr has helped litigate issues related to the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta and fish like the Delta smelt.

“I hope he realizes and recognizes that it is not the fish that are causing the drought,” he said. “That seems to be the theme you get from Costa and Nunes and those guys. Right now, nobody’s getting water — including the fish.”

Link to story – http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/02/07/3756469/president-obama-plans-feb-14-visit.html

 

 

From the USDA Blog

California is in the throes of the worst drought in the 160 years during which records have been kept. As a result, the state’s overextended water system is in crisis. All segments of California’s economy— one of the largest in the world—are experiencing the effects of this drought. The economic, social and environmental impacts on agriculture, industry, jobs, communities’ drinking water and the ecosystem will reverberate across the country, and that is why actions need to be taken to address the situation not just in the short term, but also to sustain the state over the long run.

 

 

In fact, the technology is moving so fast that 3-D printers might be coming to your kitchen this year — or at least, to a bakery or bistro down the street.

A company from South Carolina unveiled the first restaurant-grade certified 3-D printer at the Consumer Electronics Show, or CES 2014, in Las Vegas last week.

The countertop device, called the ChefJet, is about the size of a microwave and can churn out chocolate and sugar candies in any geometric shape imaginable. Think hollow honeycombs, rainbow dodecahedrons, interlocking Buckyballs and stitched up globes — all made with sugar infused with mint, sour cherry or vanilla.

 

 

The ChefJet printer isn’t cheap.

The company behind it, 3D Systems, is planning to start selling two models of the device later this year. The first one will cost about $5,000 and spins out candies in only one color. The top model, ChefJet Pro, will run you $10,000. But it will create not just multicolored candies but also photograph-quality pictures for wrapping around cakes.

“What’s happening in this machine is that it’s basically spreading out a fine layer of sugar,” a spokeswoman for 3D System told the BBC Wednesday about the ChefJet. “And it’s using an inkjet print head to paint on top of that sugar with water. And that allows the sugar to recrystallize and harden into a 3-D printed object.”

Of course, the ChefJet isn’t the only 3-D food printer in development.

The pasta giant Barilla is said to be working with a Dutch company to put a new twist on fusilli and rigatoni: “Barilla aims to offer customers cartridges of dough that they can insert into a 3-D printer to create their own pasta designs,”The Guardian reported last week. “But the company declined to give further details, dismissing the claims as ‘speculation.’ ”

Meanwhile, a team in Barcelona is probably the closest to getting printed pasta boiling on your stove.

They have developed an appliance, called The Foodini, that automatically prints items like ravioli, gnocchi, pizza and quiches on a baking pan. And then you pop them in the oven to cook.

“We recently made a ‘designer fish and chips’ with the Foodini,” says Lynette Kucsma, the co-founder of Natural Machines, which makes the device. “We printed up mashed potatoes in the shape of a honeycomb and then filled each hole with fish or mashed peas.”

The Foodini is still in the early stage of development. Kucsma and her team have a working prototype of it, but they won’t start manufacturing it for another six months or so, she says.

In the end, Kucsma hopes the device will not only speed up home cooking but also get kids more interested in healthful foods.

“I have two young kids,” she tells The Salt. “They are suspicious of anything green on the plate. They wouldn’t touch a spinach quiche I made” — until she printed out the dish in the shape of a dinosaur and a butterfly.

“They actually ate every single one of the dinosaur quiches,” Kucsma says. “I couldn’t believe it. It was the exact same recipe. It was just making it fun for kids so they’d try new foods.”

Still, at about $1,300 for each Foodini, that’s a pretty pricey bite of spinach.