Agriculture

Some good buys for your health and your pocketbook: Buy fresh fruits and vegetables in season. Buy frozen otherwise. Frozen is cheaper and may even be better for you than fresh. That's because produce is usually frozen at its ripest, which is usually when it maxes out in nutrient content too. Some nutrients do break down or leach out in the freezing process, but most make it through.

Analyzing DNA from four ancient skeletons and comparing it with thousands of genetic samples from living humans, a group of Scandinavian scientists reported that agriculture initially spread through Europe because farmers expanded their territory northward, not because the more primitive foragers already living there adopted it on their own. The genetic profiles of three Neolithic hunter-gatherers and one farmer who lived in the same region of...

The rotund, early ripening Hamlins and the yellowish, elongated Pineapples have all been picked. Soon it will be the Valencias' turn, and Mason G. Smoak plucks one of the smooth-skinned fruit from the tree and opens it with a serrated knife to see if it's ready. The orange, which gleams in the morning sun, is gorged with juice, and droplets explode into the air as Smoak cuts into the rind.

Organic agriculture generally comes at a cost of smaller harvests compared with conventional agriculture, but that gap can be narrowed with careful selection of crop type, growing conditions and management techniques, according a new study. Organic farming has been touted by supporters as a more environmentally sustainable method of farming that's better for consumers because crops contain fewer man-made chemicals. But without the high-nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides often employed in conventional agriculture, it's also less efficient.

On a coastal plain near Camarillo not far from a U.S. Navy base and an outlet mall, the future of California farming is taking shape. Rising out of verdant acres of strawberries and artichokes between Highway 101 and the Pacific Ocean in Ventura County are two mammoth, high-tech greenhouses. Climate change is a serious threat to California's $36-billion agricultural economy.

Across the countryside of this nation on the heel of the Arabian Peninsula, the pumps and drills roar. Wildcatters bore as much as 1,000 feet into the earth and draw out the valuable liquid. They pump it into tankers and haul it away to sell to the highest bidder. But soon the reservoirs will run dry.

First they noticed a spike in home-based marijuana growing operations. Seattle-area authorities shuttered 450 indoor pot farms in two years. Then they zeroed in on the supply chain, targeting businesses that provide goods and services needed to grow the illegal weed indoors. Then they went after a mortgage loan company they say financed houses in which the plants were grown.

Tractors do not yet rival cruise ships as vacation icons. But they would if my 2-year-old were in charge. Thanks to the obscure video "Farm Country Ahead," my son is obsessed with agricultural machinery, hay bales and cows. So my boyfriend, Chris, and I did what doting parents do: We set out to find him some. Recreational tractor access, it turns out, is surprisingly limited for us urbanites.

A years-long environmental battle ended abruptly when the company producing a fumigant for strawberries and other crops yanked it from U.S. distribution, bringing relief to activists and raising concern among growers. Methyl iodide, meant to replace an ozone-depleting fumigant being phased out by an international treaty, was believed to have little effect on air quality. But some scientists say it can cause cancer, brain damage and miscarriages among workers who handle it and can be a threat to ground water.

On the city's east side, where auto workers once assembled cars by the millions, nature is taking back the land. Cottonwood trees grow through the collapsed roofs of homes stripped clean for scrap metal. Wild grasses carpet the rusty shells of empty factories, now home to pheasants and wild turkeys. This green veil is proof of how far this city has fallen from its industrial heyday and, to a small group of investors, a clear sign. Detroit, they say, needs to get back to what it was before Henry Ford moved to town: farmland.

A spectacular stretch of Northern California coastline that includes ocean-side bluffs, beaches, rolling hills and redwood groves will be permanently protected from development under a landmark deal approved by the state Coastal Commission. Nearly 10 square miles of untouched shoreline, wooded glens, streams and farmland in northern Santa Cruz County, extending several miles inland, will be transferred to the state and federal governments, which will operate it as open space and preserve portions for agriculture.

Area homeowners are responding to agricultural officials' call to action to help save the state's $2-billion citrus industry and their beloved backyard trees from a bacterium that the Citrus Research Board has referred to as "a death sentence for California citrus. " About 100 worried homeowners buzzed with questions during an information session last week in the San Gabriel Valley. State agricultural inspectors have enacted a quarantine in a five-mile radius around the neighborhood where Huanglongbing, or yellow dragon disease, was first confirmed March 30 in a citrus tree in Hacienda Heights.

A years-long environmental battle ended abruptly when the company producing a fumigant for strawberries and other crops yanked it from U.S. distribution, bringing relief to activists and raising concern among growers. Methyl iodide, meant to replace an ozone-depleting fumigant being phased out by an international treaty, was believed to have little effect on air quality. But some scientists say it can cause cancer, brain damage and miscarriages among workers who handle it and can be a threat to ground water.

The House approved a bill Wednesday that rewrites two decades of water law in California, wiping out environmental protections and dropping reforms of federal irrigation policy that have long irritated agribusiness in the Central Valley. The legislation passed on a mostly party line vote of 246-175 in the Republican-controlled House. But its prospects of becoming law are poor. The White House has issued a veto threat, and it is unlikely to survive the Democratic-controlled Senate, where both of California's senators have vowed to work against it. "It essentially says farmers will get theirs and nothing for anybody else," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)

A chicken, a raven and a peacock greeted Lisa and Ron Cerda when they moved into their southeastern Tarzana neighborhood almost two decades ago. It was just the sort of bucolic reception the couple hoped for when they fled crowded West Los Angeles for one of the city's rare residential-agricultural zones, a district that permits farming and the keeping of livestock. Today, the Cerdas say their rustic neighborhood is threatened with extinction. Schools, synagogues and commercial businesses have crept into the district, despite dogged opposition from dozens of residents.

Kelly Bayer took a vacation from her job in a sleep laboratory by toiling in a vegetable patch in Santa Barbara. The sun beat down on her back as she worked a garden hose over a collection of tomatoes, peppers, carrots and onions that would eventually be consumed on the organic farm. "I'm kind of interested in farming and sustainable living," Bayer said, before giving away a bit of her real motivation for working on the farm: a quick and cheap way to visit the West Coast. Bayer, 26, was part of an itinerant crew passing through the one-acre property that included a nursing student from Korea, an engineering student from France and a free-spirited 18-year-old fleeing the East Coast before starting college.

The cowboys rose well before dawn, stars still high in the West Texas sky. They strapped on spurs and leather chaps and climbed into their saddles for one last roundup. They didn't have to do much to rustle the cattle from the dusty flats about 220 miles west of Dallas. Hundreds of hungry black Angus and Herefords, tired of foraging for scarce, drought-dry grass, came running — drawn by the hope of feed. The cowboys herded the youngest, thinnest and weakest animals into a separate pen, some with ribs and hipbones jutting after weeks without a decent meal.

Melanie Horwath phoned the California Tomato Board with what she assumed was a simple request. She needed promotional materials that her family's tomato packing company could display at a Salinas Valley agricultural event called Taste of the Valley. Do you have posters or recipes? she asked. We don't have that. What kind of promotion do you guys do? We don't do that kind of promotion. That's odd, Horwath thought.

As Californians savor their Thanksgiving feasts, the states' farmers are especially thankful. California's agriculture sector is on track for a record year, a rare bright spot in the state's economy. Prices for cotton, grapes and other crops are near all-time highs. Foreign buyers are gobbling California almonds, grapes, citrus and dairy products. Agricultural exports through September are up 16% over the same period last year. Net farm income is projected to post strong gains in 2011 after nearly doubling over the previous decade.

Stanford University's Graduate School of Business has been given $150 million by an alumnus and his wife to establish an institute dedicated to helping developing economies and reducing poverty around the world. The gift, which the university will announce Friday, is from Robert King, who earned a master's degree in business administration from in 1960 and became a successful Silicon Valley investor, and his wife, Dorothy. University officials described it as the second largest single publicly disclosed gift to Stanford, topped only by a $400-million donation from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in 2001.