BackstoryTo protect endangered fish during 2001’s drought, federal officials shut off irrigation water in Oregon and California’s Klamath Basin, costing agriculture millions. The next year, farmers got their water – along with a massive salmon die-off that infuriated Klamath tribes. Tribal members and farmers remained at odds until 2004, when federal rulings prompted dam-owner PacifiCorp […]
Agriculture
Posted inGoat
Latest agricultural census shows a small-farm revolution
They’re growing houses in the fields between the townsAnd the Starlight drive-in movie’s closing downThe road is gone to the way it was beforeAnd the spaces won’t be spaces anymore Thus sang John Gorka in his heartbreaking 1991 ballad, Houses in the Field, about families selling their farms to developers, who “paid better than the […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Timeline: The BLM vs. Cliven Bundy
A detailed history of the conflict, starting in 1953.
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
The revolt that wouldn’t die
The latest Sagebrush Rebellion flare-up in Nevada was unusually fierce.
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
How we export our water to Asia
A precious resource leaves the West in the form of alfalfa hay.
Posted inArticles
Photos of a standoff
Armed militia members join a Nevada rancher to protest a cattle roundup from public land.
Posted inGoat
Rancher vs the BLM: A 20-year standoff ends with tense roundup
‘As far as I’m concerned,’ Cliven Bundy says, ‘the BLM don’t exist.’
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
Will an apple a day keep the food desert away?
Reinventing the Garden of Eden in the Emerald City.
Posted inDecember 23, 2013: Beauty or Beast
The fignificent fig man
Lloyd Kreitzer’s journey as New Mexico’s premier fig grower.
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Farmers agree to tax those who deplete groundwater
Amid drought and climate change in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, farmers vote for a new approach to rein in their overpumping of groundwater.
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
One Sagebrush Rebellion flickers out — or does it?
“No thief who has to pay for what he steals will steal for long.” — Nevada rancher Wayne Hage, explaining to High Country News in 1995 why he had filed a lawsuit against the federal government over restrictions on his livestock grazing. That landmark Sagebrush Rebellion lawsuit, hailed as protecting the rights of Western ranchers […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2012: Troubled Taos
Love and tomatoes — a natural combination
When other women ask me how I proposed to my wife, the first thing I tell them is that Crissie doesn’t like diamonds. They look at me with either contempt or condescension — the former if they think I’m going to lecture them about African child armies, the latter if they think I’m fool enough […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2011: Ganjanomics
Ganjanomics: bringing Humboldt’s shadow economy into the light
One evening last October, I met with Anna Hamilton in the Northern California town of Garberville. A singer-songwriter with a barbwire voice, Hamilton is known locally for her radio show, Rant and Rave, Lock and Load and Shoot Your Mouth Off — which, it turns out, is a pretty good description of her approach to […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2011: Big Beef
Cattlemen struggle against giant meatpackers and economic squeezes
‘This situation is what I call economic waterboarding.’
Posted inGoat
Thumbs up for Wyo’s wind tax
Wyoming has some of the world’s best winds for generating power. And wind energy developers salivate over all those big, wide-open, unpeopled spaces. It’s no surprise then that turbines have been sprouting in those spaces at a rapid rate over the past year or so, upping the state’s total wind generating capacity by more than […]
Posted inGoat
A change is gonna come
As more consumers choose to eat locally, agribusinesses tailor their ads to fit the market. According to Mark Muller of Civil Eats, this reactionary stance from the corporations is a big shift in our current food system. Lay’s just recently tried on the “local” hat. And Walmart did too last year. But skeptics are put-off […]
Posted inGoat
The cost of progress
The Environmental Working Group just released a two-year study focusing on the toxins found in five minority women at the forefront of environmental justice battles. Within each community, these women work tirelessly to protect citizens from various forms of pollution. And within each of these women, scientists found significantly higher amounts of toxins than other […]
Posted inGoat
Outlawed…
The fruit farmers in Paonia have been a bit worried about our weird weather. Spring came early, so the trees started budding. And this week, it’s been cold – sometimes freezing. If it gets too frosty, we might be out of luck for the season. Something else that’s on farmers’ minds: H.R. 875, a bill […]
Posted inGoat
“Bacterial Economics”
If you’re a skier, you’ve probably schussed on snow made with bacteria. Ski resorts use Pseudomonas syringae as an ice nucleator, which means water freezes around the bacteria quickly to form snowflakes. But don’t worry – the bacteria used are dead and harmless. Now, researchers are finding that P. syringae in its live form could […]
Posted inGoat
Understanding agriculture…and farmers too!
If you know farmers, you know that most of them can be relied upon to provide gloomy reports looking backward and gloomier forecasts going forward. If most of the farmers I know have a good year, they will not talk about it but instead will tell you about all the bad things that are about […]