Category: Drought_CN FARMING_CN

At an Arizona forum, water managers said the time is ripe to reexamine the water consumption of the thirsty crop.

There was a time when Vermont’s landscape was dotted with weathered red barns full of dairy cows, and every country store was chockablock with local maple syrup and candies. The barns are there still, as are their fading illustrations of cows, and the sugar maples still draw leaf peepers in the fall. But because of industry shifts and climate change, many of the cows are gone and the state’s biggest agricultural products are imperiled.

U.S. President Joe Biden's pledges to slash emissions from farming and to end American hunger by 2030 may be harder to realize now that Republicans flipped the House of Representatives with a thin majority.
Biden's Democrats, who retain control of the Senate, will start negotiating in the coming months with Republican House leaders over a massive farm spending bill passed every five years that funds U.S. public food benefits and farm commodity programs.

From Hurricanes Fiona and Ian, to flooding in eastern Kentucky and a record dry summer as the western US entered its 22nd year of a once-in-a-millennium megadrought, the US has already seen more than two dozen major climate disasters with losses exceeding $1bn (£864m).

Many people in the agriculture sector and elsewhere balk at opportunities to do things differently unless they have strong assurances those changes will bring benefits. An Oregon State University team investigated the effects of co-developing land for farming and solar energy — the results of their study were undoubtedly impressive. They found this approach could generate 20% of the electricity in the United States while only requiring an investment equaling less than 1% of the annual budget.

Solar power is fantastic. It is by far the cheapest energy we have ever had at only $0.06 per kWh and has one of the lowest carbon footprints of any energy source at only 6g/kWh. It makes sense why governments and private companies are scrambling to adopt solar power as fast as they can, given that specs like these could save the planet and make a lot of money in the process. But solar power has a problem.

In rural America, the shoulder-high corn is increasingly competing with a new cash crop: solar power. Acres of solar panels shine brightly in fields along interstates and rural byways, signaling a change in how America’s farming country generates income. The need for a happy marriage between these old and new industries has inspired a burst of innovation and a new word to describe the combination: Agrivoltaics.

That’s not a typo. $310 million, with a zero at the end. This latest round brings Gotham Greens’ total funding up to $440 million since its 2009 launch. The nine-digit raise was led by BMO Impact Investment Fund and Ares Management, with participation from Commonfund, RockCreek, Kimco Realty Corporation, Manna Tree Partners and The Silverman Group.

Rick Richter has spent the past 43 years flying biplanes over California’s Sacramento Valley, dropping rice seeds into vast, flooded fields that churn out grain for consumers across the globe.
In a typical year, Mr. Richter’s company seeds 42,000 acres of rice, earning more than $3 million in revenue. This year, as a worsening drought prompts unprecedented cuts in water allocations to rice farms, he has seeded just 7,000 acres and expects sales of $550,000.

Lack of summer rain forced Nebraska farmer Kevin Fulton to go underground to find water for his crops. Not a perfect solution: the Ogallala Aquifer, where Fulton tapped in, has pumping restrictions in some areas, just not where Fulton is located. That’s because the aquifer is running dry.