Farmers Contracts

Farmers' Land Contracts Extended: China's governing State Council has approved a 30-year extension of land contracts for millions of farmers, reaffirming a key agricultural reform introduced after Deng Xiaoping came to power in the late 1970s, government officials said.

Farmers' Land Contracts Extended: China's governing State Council has approved a 30-year extension of land contracts for millions of farmers, reaffirming a key agricultural reform introduced after Deng Xiaoping came to power in the late 1970s, government officials said.

Reality is beginning to sink in for farmer Joe Cicero, as the end nears for his family's more-than-40-year farming dynasty in the San Fernando Valley. For the last decade, Cicero's produce stand and farm at Pierce College has been his pride and joy, his second home. But now that he has lost his lease to a competitor, the place symbolizes his broken dreams. "I've been here 10 years trying to make money," Cicero said. "It takes a long time to make a business. It's just not fair."

Reality is beginning to sink in for farmer Joe Cicero, as the end nears for his family's more-than-40-year farming dynasty in the San Fernando Valley. For the last decade, Cicero's produce stand and farm at Pierce College has been his pride and joy, his second home. But now that he has lost his lease to a competitor, the place symbolizes his broken dreams. "I've been here 10 years trying to make money," Cicero said. "It takes a long time to make a business. It's just not fair."

Joe Cicero, the operator of a produce stand and farm at Pierce College, has lost his bid to renew his lease, ending a 10-year era marked by controversy. Cicero, whose last three-year lease expires April 30, bid lower than John T. Dullam, owner of Dullam Nursery in Oxnard, Pierce College President Mary Lee said Monday. Dullam could not be reached for comment. Dullam offered $30,000 for the first year and $35,000 and $40,000 for the second and third years of the contract, Lee said.

Capping off a string of successful organizing efforts after years of setbacks, the once-powerful United Farm Workers of America on Friday signed its biggest labor contract in recent years--with Bear Creek Production Co., the nation's largest rose grower. The union has won seven other, smaller contracts in the past year. But adding the 1,400 workers at Bear Creek, formerly known as Jackson & Perkins, is on the scale of the good old days of its organizing efforts.

The State Water Project is as controversial today as it was in 1960, when it was passed by voters after one the most acrimonious campaigns in California history. Environmentalists say pumping so much freshwater out of the Sacramento Delta to meet state and federal water project demands has seriously damaged the estuary and endangered fish populations. They say the ecological problems could worsen if the project is expanded.

The board of the Metropolitan Water District on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a plan to pay farmers in eastern Riverside County and northeast Imperial County to stop planting on a portion of their land so irrigation water can be diverted to urban users.

After discussing California water issues with Bush Administration and congressional figures, Valley business leaders expressed concern Wednesday that no one here is representing the interests of Los Angeles water consumers, including businesses. "Everyone seems to have a hidden agenda, everyone seems to represent a particular interest group," said Benjamin Reznik, chairman of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn.

For Tang Yulan and his neighbors, China's communist revolution seems to be moving in reverse. "That once was a very nice house; now look at it," said Tang, a farmer until most of his village of Hongqiao, a suburb of the lakeside eastern Chinese city of Wuxi, was reduced to rubble to make way for urban sprawl. "This land was inherited from our ancestors, generation after generation," said Tang, a robust, soft-spoken 68-year-old. "But they just auctioned it off without even notifying us.

Joe Cicero, the operator of a produce stand and farm at Pierce College, has lost his bid to renew his lease, ending a 10-year era marked by controversy. Cicero, whose last three-year lease expires April 30, bid lower than John T. Dullam, owner of Dullam Nursery in Oxnard, Pierce College President Mary Lee said Monday. Dullam could not be reached for comment. Dullam offered $30,000 for the first year and $35,000 and $40,000 for the second and third years of the contract, Lee said.

Capping off a string of successful organizing efforts after years of setbacks, the once-powerful United Farm Workers of America on Friday signed its biggest labor contract in recent years--with Bear Creek Production Co., the nation's largest rose grower. The union has won seven other, smaller contracts in the past year. But adding the 1,400 workers at Bear Creek, formerly known as Jackson & Perkins, is on the scale of the good old days of its organizing efforts.

A $2-million state contract to train Ventura County farm workers to pick crops was moved from 335th place on a waiting list to first when approved in August amid criticism that it is a subsidy for local farmers, state documents show. The contract with the Ventura County Agricultural Assn.

Thirty years ago, acid runoff from West Virginia mines, raw sewage from Maryland and garbage from everywhere had turned the Potomac River, the nation's river, into the nation's sewer. President Lyndon B. Johnson declared it a national disgrace. Over the next 20 years, $1 billion in government spending and tireless work repaired half a century or more of abuse. Swimming is still not advised.