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Technical assistance grant money available for Climate Smart Ag programs

The California Department of Food and Agriculture is soliciting applications for technical assistance grants for Climate Smart Agriculture programss.The grants are for organizations that can provide assistance to applicants to the CSA programs.Nonprofit organizations, California academic institutions and California Resource Conservation Districts are eligible to apply.The three CSA programs are: State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program (SWEEP), Healthy Soils Program (HSP), and Alternative Manure Management Program (AMMP). [node:read-more:link]

Farmers Are Seeking More Temporary H-2A Workers, And Keeping Them Longer

The high-desert town of Palisade, Colorado, is synonymous with fresh, locally grown peaches. Years ago, thousands of migrant workers would flock here each year in October to harvest the fuzzy fruit. But today, on its narrow dirt roads, Bruce Talbott drives a truck loaded down with 9 tons of wine grapes.For more than 100 years and five generations, Talbott’s family has grown mostly peaches. But he’s diversified, he said, because in the early 2000s, that pool of labor began drying up. [node:read-more:link]

Canada can enter trade deal with China, says agriculture minister

The United States and Mexico can’t exclude Canada from entering formal trade negotiation with China, Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay says — despite an ongoing global trade war and questions about a clause in the trilateral trade deal. MacAulay was asked by reporters on Monday about a clause in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that allows any member of the trade pact to veto a free trade agreement with a “non-market economy” — including China.A non-market country is a country that doesn’t operate on free-market principles that go beyond traditional trade protections. [node:read-more:link]

California to impose its elite food standards on farmers in other states

On Nov. 7 California voters approved Proposition 12, which will set new minimums for cage size for breeding pigs and calves sold in California. The proposition passed by an overwhelming majority. California's Legislative Analyst’s Office claims Proposition 12 will cause increased prices for eggs, pork and veal. Even the California Department of Food and Agriculture indicates its added workload to enforce it will cost the department approximately $10 million annually. Proposition 12 will impact farmers in all other states exporting these products to the California consumer. [node:read-more:link]

Bucksport, Maine: The Town That Refused to Die

When the paper mill that had defined Bucksport, Maine, for eight decades shut down just before Christmas 2014, the town, like others before it, could have withered away. Instead, something else happened.Over the decades Bucksport became known for producing the finest lightweight coated paper in the world, paper that was used in such magazines as Time and Sports Illustrated and Good Housekeeping andNewsweek and catalogs like L.L. Bean and Sears and Victoria’s Secret and Avon. [node:read-more:link]

Bankers Expect Farmland Prices to Continue Decline

For a ninth straight month, the overall index rose above growth neutral. On average, bankers estimated that farmland prices declined by 4.0 percent over the past 12 months and expect farmland prices to fall by another 3.2 percent over the next 12 months. Approximately one-fifth of bank CEOs expect low farm income and falling farmland prices to present the greatest challenge to banking operations over the next 5 years. Loan demand by farmers remains strong.  [node:read-more:link]

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