How USDA Layoffs Are Disrupting Operations And Redirecting Taxpayer Dollars
Image Source: Randy Fath via Unsplash
Recent USDA layoffs of thousands of research scientists, Forest Service workers, and other federal employees across the country have disrupted ongoing projects and left research groups uncertain for the future. The National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) are two sub-agencies of the USDA that have experienced mass firings, which are disrupting ongoing conservation projects backed with $300 million of funding. “Stopping or hamstringing efforts midway is a huge waste of resources that have already been spent,” says Emily Bass, associate director of federal policy, food, and agriculture at the Breakthrough Institute.
Steak From Dairy Cows Offers Lifeline For American Farmers
Image Source: Sara Naomi Lewkowicz
Most American beef steaks come from grain-fed cattle slaughtered at about two years old. Meat from mature dairy cows (upwards of 6 years old) usually becomes dog food and fast-food burgers. For that meat, US farmers only get about 60 cents a pound. However, in Europe, dairy meat is highly prized because the animals are pastured a bit longer, causing fat to be released into their meat instead of into their milk, which makes the beef richer and more tender. American dairy farmers, who have been struggling for years, are now adopting the practice to make ends meet. Enterprising chefs are thrilled. Want a better-tasting steak? Try mature dairy meat!
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Coffee Farmers Prepare For A Future With Beanless Coffee
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Southern California Aims To Sextuple Coffee Production
Image Source: Julie Wolfson
Before 2000, little to no coffee was cultivated in California. Now, 14 varieties of coffee are being tended on more than 65 farms from Santa Barbara to north of San Diego. “Over the past almost six years, we put more than 100,000 trees in the ground,” says Jay Ruskey, founder of Frinj Coffee. “We’re suspecting by summer 2024 that we’re going to have six to eight times the coffee that we got in 2023." It's not swill either. Daily Coffee News, a leading coffee industry publication, blind-tasted Ruskey’s California coffee in 2014 and named it 27th in the world.
How America’s Taste For Chicken And Cheese Is Depleting Groundwater
Image Source: Rory Doyle
The average American's consumption of both chicken and cheese has doubled since the 1980s. To produce these foods, several states are now using more water than they receive each year, according to data from the World Resources Institute. For example, the roughly 1 billion chickens raised in Arkansas at any given time now account for more than half the state’s water use, resulting in aquifer decreases that are among the country's most severe. Idaho produces more than 1 billion pounds of cheese a year, requiring 6 million acres of irrigated land to grow alfalfa to feed the cows that supply the milk. As a result, 79% of Idaho's aquifer-monitoring wells have hit record lows. Around the country, water aquifers are not refilling fast enough to meet demand for chicken and cheese, and experts have yet to find workable solution. I suppose a rain dance is out of the question.
USDA's New Plant Hardiness Zone Map Shows Half The Country Has Shifted
Image Source: US Department of Agriculture
Researchers behind the USDA's plant hardiness zone map have measured the coldest night of the year, every year, for the past 30 years. The map gives gardeners and farmers a reasonable barometer of which plants will survive in their region. The last time it was updated was 2012. It seems the new 2023 map is about 2.5ºF warmer across the contiguous US, meaning that half the country has shifted into a warmer zone over the past 10 years. In central Arkansas, which moved from zone 7b to zone 8a, gardeners can now try growing kumquats, mandarin oranges, and shampoo ginger, a tropical plant. Welcome, gardeners, to a warmer world.
Pepper X Dethrones Carolina Reaper As World's Hottest Chile Pepper
Image Source: Jeffrey Collins/Associated Press
Hotheads rejoice! You can now enjoy/endure the pain/pleasure of 2.69 million Scoville units in a single bite of the world's new hottest chile pepper, Pepper X. The new pepper relegates the Carolina Reaper, clocking in at 1.64 million units, to second banana, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Both peppers were bred by South Carolina pepper expert (and sado-masochist) Ed Currie. “I was feeling the heat for three-and-a-half hours. Then the cramps came,” said Currie, after sampling his creation. “Those cramps are horrible. I was laid out flat on a marble wall for approximately an hour in the rain, groaning in pain.” Go ahead and try one. I double-dare you!
