Amy Mayer

Efforts to raise awareness and to work toward ending the stigma around mental health paid dividends when the COVID-19 pandemic further ratcheted up stress levels. But challenges remain.

New research offers a “win-win-win” scenario for conservation, food safety and crop production.

Two scourges that sometimes appear together but have not been definitively linked to each other continue to threaten lettuce: Pythium wilt and Impatiens Necrotic Spot Virus. The state budget allocated $1 million in new research funding aimed at developing more strategies to effectively protect the major crop.

A minor oilseed may be poised to take on a larger role as climate-smart policies emphasize low carbon fuels and the soil health benefits of cover crops. Camelina is seen by some as a cover crop that recoups a farmer’s investment because it can be harvested instead of plowed under.

The Department of Labor (DOL) is publishing today its 2022 Adverse Effect Wage Rates (AEWR), which are the minimum an employer must pay H-2A nonimmigrant agricultural workers, and proposing some changes to how those rates are set for certain jobs.

California growers produced the largest walnut harvest to date in the 2020-2021 crop year. The California Walnut Board (CWB) says the 785,000 tons is an increase of 20% over the 2019 crop.

Water scarcity poses a grave threat to consumer staples, including packaged meat, according to the sustainability nonprofit Ceres. In a new report, it estimates the total risk at $200 billion.

Farmers and water managers across the West are bracing for another potentially dry year, even as they wait for rain and snow that could help alleviate drought conditions. But with climate change reducing annual snowpack and the water it promises, the Bureau of Reclamation is in search of new and more accurate forecast tools.

Funding from the USDA Organic Research and Education Initiative and Western SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) helped plant scientists at the University of California, Davis, develop organic dry bean varieties that taste good, can survive the bean common mosaic virus and are viable in organic systems.