Posts Tagged: Butte

Amid climate change, a question: What’s the future of California rice?

A harvester in a drought-stricken field of northern California. (Photo: TFoxFoto, via Shutterstock)

by AARON GILBREATH posted 12.20.2022

Planted in spring, farmers drain their fields in August, and they drive big, loud harvesters into them in September, gently separating the rice stalks from the grain, and blowing the harvest into bankout wagons that they tow beside them. On average, each acre produces 8,000 pounds of rice, which is a greater yield than most of the world’s rice growing regions. But this September, 300,000 of California’s 550,000 acres of rice lay barren—over half the state’s rice crop.

FEMA and California wildfires: A report card

The sun appears red through a haze of wildfire smoke in California. (Photo: Neil Lockhart)

by SCOTT SORIANO posted 09.27.2018

Nearly a year after the 2017 California wildfires hit the north and south state, the report card on FEMA—the Federal Emergency Management Agency—is in. The Sept. 4 analysis by the U.S. Government Accountability Office detailing FEMA’s performance credited FEMA with fulfilling its own disaster readiness goals, but says that wasn’t enough for the agency to be sufficiently prepared to deal with the horrific fires that engulfed parts of the state.