Agriculture

"Covid-19 and climate change are testing a food system that critics say has lost its resilience."

"A vast region of the western United States, extending from California, Arizona and New Mexico north to Oregon and Idaho, is in the grips of the first climate change-induced megadrought observed in the past 1,200 years, a study shows. The finding means the phenomenon is no longer a threat for millions to worry about in the future, but is already here."

"A team of retirees that scours the remote ravines and windswept plains of the Pacific Northwest for long-forgotten pioneer orchards has rediscovered 10 apple varieties that were believed to be extinct — the largest number ever unearthed in a single season by the nonprofit Lost Apple Project."

"The nation’s food supply chain is showing signs of strain, as increasing numbers of workers are falling ill with the coronavirus in meat processing plants, warehouses and grocery stores."

"Smithfield Foods, the world’s biggest pork processor, said on Sunday it will shut a U.S. plant indefinitely due to a rash of coronavirus cases among employees and warned the country was moving “perilously close to the edge” in supplies for grocers."

"The long-standing practice of spreading treated sewage sludge and septage on farm fields has contaminated groundwater in some areas with PFAS, recent sampling shows."

"This week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that soybean farmers in 25 states are now able to spray a pesticide that the agency has determined is likely to cause cancer and drift hundreds of feet from where it is applied."

"Scientists say the Trump administration’s proposed program to cut down trees to gain an upper hand over wildfire and protect the sage-grouse bird may in fact do the opposite: increase the wildfire threat and risk ecosystem “collapse.”"

"Global commodities trader Cargill Inc starting this spring will pay American farmers for capturing carbon in their field soils and cutting fertilizer runoff, an executive said."

"The largest dam removal project in U.S. history came one step closer to fruition this week, as California issued permits for breaching the four dams on the Klamath River."