Subject: AGRICULTURAL NEWS
From: [email-masked] (Larry Fletcher)
Date: 6 Aug 94 14:40:28 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture

August 05, 1994

MEDFLY REAPPEARS IN LOS ANGELES BASIN (Ag Alert) -- Henry Voss said he's not
surprised by the Medfly's reappearance in the Los Angeles Basin last week. 
Trappers founded the immature male Mediterranean fruit fly near Upland in San
Bernardino County - just inside the massive 1,514 square-mile Los Angeles Basin
treatment zone set up to eradicate the pest.  "We would expect to find more of
them during the summer in the sterile fly release area," said Voss, secretary
of the state Department of Food and Agriculture. 

     August 04, 1994 

STORE OFFERING BLEMISHED FRUIT TO CONSUMERS AT A PRETTY PRICE (The Fresno Bee)
-- Bags of San Joaquin Valley plums bearing ominous "contraband" labels and
deeply discounted prices went on sale at a small grocery chain Tuesday. 
Contrary to some predictions, blemished fruit being sold in defiance of law
appears to have caught the eye of consumers.  State regulators have warned the
store and the grower, Gerewan Farming of Reedley, that fines and other
sanctions may be levied.  This is the latest skirmish in an ongoing dispute
over mandatory quality inspections under agricultural marketing orders that
govern certain crops.  Critics, including Consumers Union, say the rules keep
edible but blemished and potentially cheaper fruit off store shelves.

     August 03, 1994 

USDA CONSERVATION APPROPRIATIONS (Farm Chemical) -- The House Appropriations
Committee ratified the fiscal 1995 appropriation bill for USDA conservation
programs.  Under this bill, the Wetlands Reserve Program would jump from $66.6
million to $93.2 million and the budget for conservation Reserve Program would
remain the same as for 1994, $1.7 billion.  Other conservation programs,
including river basins and watersheds, would fall from $245 million to $107
million.

     August 02, 1994 

VALLEY FARMERS ANGRY OVER ENDANGERED SPECIES PROSECUTION (The Fresno Bee)
-- Taung Ming-Lin was a Taiwanese immigrant with some money and a dream of
farming Chinese vegetables in a remote corner of the southern San Joaquin
Valley.  He started by signing a contract to buy more than a square mile of
land near Taft for $1.5 million.  Then he spent $100,000 to run an electrical
line to the site and drill a well to water his crops.  Then he was arrested. 
His tractor was seized.  And Lin was brought before a federal magistrate on
felony charges of violating the Endangered Specieds Act.  The land he had
disced was home to three rare animals - the San Joaquin kit fox, the
blunt-nosed leopard lizard and the Tipton Kangaroo rat - that once had free
survival in a few unplowed pockets.  The government says Lin was warned - most
notably in a registered letter mailed to him more than a year before his arrest
- that he could be prosecuted if he started farming before compensating for any
harm to the endangered species living there.  Lin's guilt or innocence is
likely to be decided later this year by a U.S. District Court jury in Fresno.

     August 01, 1994 

LEGISLATORS DISH UP BILLS BACKING RICE, POULTRY PRODUCERS (Bee Washington
bureau) --  Wednesday was an arroz-conpollo kind of day for California
lawmakers, who served up a legislative-full plate on behalf of the state's rice
 and chicken producers.  For the Central Valley's rice growers, Rep. Vic Fazio,
D-West Sacramento, introduced a congressional resolution condemning Japan's
recent back tracking on rice imports.  And for the Valley's poultry producers,
Rep. Gary Condit, D-Ceres, and Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer introduced
legislation designed to ensure that chicken labeled as fresh has never been
frozen.  The measures were introduced separately, on behalf of different
interest, but they're not unrelated.  Both reveal simmering frustration among
California farmers, and both show how legislation may serve a purpose even if
the bill never becomes law.

     July 29, 1994 

EPA, CAL/EPA SHARE DATA ON PESTICIDES (California-Arizona Farm Press) -- EPA
and The California Environmental Protection Agency's Department of Pesticide
Regulation have signed a memorandum of agreement to share reviews of acute
toxicology data on pesticides.  The agreement will maximize staff resources by
eliminating many of the duplicative reviews of identical data now required to
be submitted to both agencies in support of product registration.  The Federal
Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act requires that all pesticides sold
or distributed in the United States be registered by EPA.  Some states,
including California, also require state registration before pesticides may be
distributed or sold.