Farm

It is ironic that the original attraction of certified farmers markets, buying direct from the grower, has been so diluted by success that it's hard to find an actual farmer at many markets these days. But if you walk through the Hollywood or Santa Monica Main Street markets and take one look at Rocky Canyon Farms' Greg Nauta — stocky, suntanned, big hands — you can tell he's the real deal. He's the one who spent the previous day harvesting melons and laying irrigation tape at his farm on the Central Coast, then got up at 3:30 a.m. to drive 200 miles to sell to you. Nauta is defiantly old school.

Dolores Huerta runs on righteous ferocity the way cars run on gasoline. The woman who co-founded the United Farm Workers union 50 years ago with Cesar Chavez has harried, prodded, hectored, rallied and protested. She's been arrested more than a score of times, and once, picketing in San Francisco, she was beaten so badly by a police officer that her spleen was ruptured. You'd be hard-pressed to tell, the way she bounces around the Central Valley, a woman on many missions. So, can she stand still next week in Washington long enough for President Obama to present her with the Medal of Freedom, along with honorees such as Toni Morrison, John Glenn and Bob Dylan?

1910: Born the third of six children to Joshua and Roxie Wooden on Oct. 14, in Hall, Ind. His father, a rural mail carrier, takes care of the family farm, which has no running water or electricity. Like many farm families, the Woodens go bankrupt and lose their farm, shortly after moving to Martinsville, Ind. 1924-28: Wooden is a star athlete at Martinsville High. A four-year letterwinner, he leads his team to the state championship in 1927 and is runner-up twice (1926 and 1928)

American Express has created a card that rewards FarmVille users with virtual cash for their real-world purchases. Users of the hit social media game can begin signing up for the FarmVille card starting Tuesday. The card is part of American Express' prepaid Serve platform. But this card is not like your typical credit card. Signing up for the thing is a game in and of itself.

Frank Woodruff Buckles, a onetime Missouri farm boy who was the last known living American veteran of World War I, has died. He was 110. Buckles, who later spent more than three years in a Japanese internment camp in the Philippines during World War II, died Sunday of natural causes at his home in Charles Town, W.Va., family spokesman David DeJonge said. A total of 4,734,991 Americans served in the military during World War I, from 1914 to 1918. "I always knew I'd be one of the last because I was one of the youngest when I joined," Buckles told the New York Daily News in 2008, when he was 107. "But I never thought I'd be the last one. " Earning that distinction resulted in numerous honors for Buckles.

Central California is home to nearly 1.6 million dairy cows and their manure -- up to 192 million pounds per day. It's a mountain of waste and a potential environmental hazard. But for dairyman John Fiscalini, the dung on his farm is renewable gold: He's converting it into electricity. At his farm outside Modesto, a torrent of water washes across the barn's concrete floor several times a day, flushing tons of manure away from his herd of fuzzy-faced Holsteins and into nearby tanks.

What do the former city officials of Bell consider themselves today? Pigs or hogs? Those aren't our words. They're the words of Angela Spaccia, the former assistant city administrator, who claimed to be quoting her boss, former City Administrator Robert Rizzo, according to e-mails made public this week that offer the first evidence of just how comfortable and confident Bell's leaders were as they lined their own pockets. "I am looking forward to seeing you and taking all of Bell's money?

The road to reforming financial regulations winds through the cornfields, hog farms and cattle ranches of America's heartland, and that complicates the Obama administration's already arduous effort to revamp oversight of Wall Street. Lawmakers from Iowa, Minnesota, Oklahoma and other farm-belt states who sit on the congressional agriculture committees have a surprisingly influential role in the administration's proposed overhaul, which Congress resumes debating Tuesday after its summer recess.

Brava to The Times for its new columnist, Meghan Daum. Her piece on Heidi's Stud Farm (Opinion, Nov. 19) was a delight to both sides of our breakfast table. DAVID EGGENSCHWILER Los Angeles

It's not even 11 a.m., and Jordan Whaley's dashboard radio has been crackling all morning with crimes newly committed: crops pilfered, gas siphoned, copper wire stolen. This latest call is one of the strangest so far. Thieves have taken 54 brass valves from the irrigation system on Ryan Hopper's orange farm. They've also stolen scrap metal from his tool shed and siphoned hundreds of gallons of fuel from a diesel tank on his field. The crime infuriates Hopper, costing him time and money just before the orange harvest.

Americans eat too damn much. And we all pay a rising cost for this gluttony in the form of higher insurance premiums and lost productivity. A study last year by the Society of Actuaries calculated the total economic cost of an overweight and obese population in the United States and Canada at about $300 billion a year (with 90% of that figure attributable to America's dietary issues). Now comes word from the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that, if current trends continue, about 42% of the U.S. population will be obese by 2030.

WASHINGTON - It's a deal that most businesses would relish: Buy an insurance policy to cover losses or falling prices, and the government will foot most of the bill. Such an arrangement has been enjoyed for more than a decade by the farmers who grow crops such as corn and soybeans, and the companies that insure them. And it's about to get even better. The farm bill now before Congress includes a provision - estimated to cost about $3 billion a year - that would help cover the losses farmers suffer before their crop insurance policies kick in. Those losses, termed deductibles, can run in the tens of thousands of dollars for a typical mid-size farm.

Rain Dragon A Novel Jon Raymond Bloomsbury: 272 pp., $16 paper FADE IN: A car idles in the foggy pre-dawn, pointed at the end of a cul-de-sac. Inside, an attractive 30-ish couple, DAMON and AMY, are worn from travel. She is dark-haired, pale-skinned and tense, and she leans against the passenger window. Behind the wheel, he carefully watches her mood as they evaluate the appearance of an owl in front of them. Good omen or bad? They can't decide, and continue on, lost.

Google Inc., with its free meals, high monthly pay and relaxed work environment, was rated by interns as the best place to work in a report released just ahead of the peak summer internship season. A software engineering intern at the search engine giant can expect an average monthly pay of $6,463, according to career website Glassdoor. Google interns, who voted the company as the most satisfying place to work, also reported additional perks such as face time with managers and opportunities to sit in on meetings.

State bullet train officials Thursday approved the environmental impact studies for an initial section of high-speed track to be built from Merced to Fresno, a decision that sets the stage for possible legal challenges from powerful Central Valley farming interests. Certification of the final state and federal environmental reports is a critical step before the California High-Speed Rail Authority can begin to secure government permits and award construction contracts for the first phase of the $68-billion project that would link Los Angeles and San Francisco with 200 mph trains.

Many growers proudly advertise their local origins, but when David Rosenstein of Evo Farm sells his produce on Sunday for the first time at the Mar Vista farmers market, he says he will be talking "not about food miles, but food feet. " Rosenstein has built an innovative prototype aquaponics farm, combining aquaculture and hydroponic (soilless) vegetable cultivation, in a neighbor's backyard. Each of these systems by itself generates copious waste, but when they are synergized, the fish provide the fertilizer for the plants and the plants filter the water for the fish.

The Calabasas Historical Society strongly urges the preservation of the Pierce College farm as a most valuable and significant historical landmark. Creative approaches which can be implemented immediately will result in increasing prosperity for the college. The preservation of the farm will benefit the entire community. Its citizens do feel they have a vested interest in seeing that the farm is maintained and improved as a living green area. Oxygen and food are essential for human life.

Re "Pierce Farm a Growing Dilemma for College, Community," July 6. I fully agree with Marla Scripter that Pierce farm is a crucial opportunity for the San Fernando Valley to establish leadership in education, high technology and sustainable development for the 21st century. The farm provides a vital link to the history of the Valley and a valuable resource for future integration of new forms of agriculture and urbanism. M. Stephen Sheldon observes that Pierce has strengths in nursing and computer science, yet fails to see that these disciplines in conjunction with agriculture may provide the impetus for the future development of Pierce farm.

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...

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.