seasonal agriculture – Enviro Updates

Michele Anna Jordan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Although most of us don’t think about it this way, eggs are, for the most part, a seasonal food.

A few breeds continue to lay when there is less daylight and cooler temperatures, but for most hens raised naturally, outside on pasture where they can scratch and peck, egg production slows in fall and winter. The slow-down often begins sometime in September, when many breeds begin to molt. Some flocks lay no eggs at all for weeks and other months; others slow from an egg a day per hen to just a few eggs a week.

This cycle has little if any bearing on the commercial egg business, especially the larger ones. If you get your eggs at a supermarket, they are simply always there. But if you get your eggs from your own backyard flock or from a local farm stand or farmers market, you understand this slowdown has already begun. Some farmers have no eggs at all right now, and others have a fraction of what they had in late spring, when production peaks.

Most farmers markets have eggs year round, but not as many at this time of year. This means you need to reserve them or show up early at your farmers market. Depending on what sort of winter we have, production will begin to increase not long after the first of the year and by spring, you can sleep in on weekends and still snag great eggs at your local farmers market.

Ellen Knickmeyer, ASSOCIATED PRESS
After more than a century of building levees higher to hold back its rivers, California took another step Friday toward a flood-control policy that aims to give raging rivers more room to spread out instead.

The plan, adopted by the flood-control board for the Central Valley, a 500-mile swathe from Mount Shasta to Bakersfield that includes the state’s two largest rivers and the United States’ richest agricultural region, emphasizes flood plains, wetlands and river bypasses as well as levees.

Backers say the changing strategy will better handle the rising seas and heavier rain of climate change, which is projected to send two-thirds more water thundering down the Central Valley’s San Joaquin River at times of flooding.

The idea: “Spread it out, slow it down, sink it in, give the river more room,” said Kris Tjernell, special assistant for water policy at California’s Natural Resources Agency.

Handled right, the effort will allow farmers and wildlife — including native species harmed by the decades of concrete-heavy flood-control projects — to make maximum use of the rivers and adjoining lands as well, supporters say.

They point to Northern California’s Yolo Bypass, which this winter again protected California’s capital, Sacramento, from near-record rains. Wetlands and flood plains in the area allow rice farmers, migratory birds and baby salmon all to thrive there.

For farmers, the plan offers help moving to crops more suitable to seasonally flooded lands along rivers, as well as payments for lending land to flood control and habitat support.

Environmental Center of Sonoma County

Tag: seasonal agriculture

A last, lingering taste of farm eggs

California flood protection starts giving rivers more room