5 April 2013 (Reuters) – A cool spring in the Midwest has farmers eager for soils to warm up before planting what is expected to be the region’s biggest crop in decades. Farmers this week could begin planting corn in many spots across the upper Midwest, according to insurance policies that cover costs if they […]
By STEPHANIE STROM5 April 2013 BLOOMING GROVE, Texas (The New York Times) – Gary Price is a rarity among cattle ranchers these days. He’s making money on his herd of 200 cows in this tiny town about an hour south of Dallas-Fort Worth. “The market is very good, and we’ve been able to keep what […]
5 April 2013 (Reuters) – Rising foreign demand for beef and soybeans will tempt Brazil to clear more of the Amazon rainforest, in a reversal of recent success in slowing forest losses, a study said on Thursday. About 30 per cent of deforestation in Brazil in the decade to 2010 was due to farmers and […]
2 April 2013 (APNZ) – The drought is likely to be felt well into autumn, as river and soil moisture levels in the North Island take some time to recover, climate scientists predict. NIWA’s seasonal climate outlook for April to June has predicted higher than average temperatures across the North Island, and lower than normal […]
By DAMIEN CAVE 2 April 2013 EL CARGADERO, Mexico (The New York Times) – The pretty houses in the hills here, with their bright paint and new additions, clearly display the material benefits of having millions of workers move to the United States over the past few decades. But these simple homes also reveal why […]
By John Mangels1 April 2013 (The Plain Dealer) – The record-shattering glut of toxic algae that fouled much of Lake Erie in 2011 wasn’t a fluke, but a sign of what’s likely ahead for the troubled lake, researchers say. A combination of weather extremes and long-standing farming practices that unwittingly aid algae growth spawned the […]
By Andrew Freedman 1 April 2013 (Climate Central) – The insurance industry had its third-most expensive year on record in 2012, with global economic losses from natural catastrophes and manmade disasters totaling $186 billion, according to a report released March 27 by the reinsurance giant Swiss Re. The total insured losses for the year was […]
By MICHAEL WINES28 March 2013 BAKERSFIELD, California (The New York Times) – A mysterious malady that has been killing honeybees en masse for several years appears to have expanded drastically in the last year, commercial beekeepers say, wiping out 40 percent or even 50 percent of the hives needed to pollinate many of the nation’s […]
By FELICITY BARRINGER26 March 2013 CARLSBAD, NEW MEXICO (The New York Times) – Just after the local water board announced this month that its farmers would get only one-tenth of their normal water allotment this year, Ronnie Walterscheid, 53, stood up and called on his elected representatives to declare a water war on their upstream […]
By Ian Simpson26 March 2013 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fifty-five percent of U.S. river and stream lengths were in poor condition for aquatic life, largely under threat from runoff contaminated by fertilizers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday. High levels of phosphorus and nitrogen, runoff from urban areas, shrinking ground cover, and pollution from […]
