06/05/2024 SOURCE: www.publicnewsservice.org

AZ town grapples with drying wells, unregulated water use, large ag ops

Wells in the Willcox Basin in southeastern Arizona are drying up, and many are pointing the finger at massive agriculture and cattle operations. Kristine Uhlman is a retired University of Arizona hydrologist who says the Willcox Playa, a basin a few miles south of the city of Willcox, holds fresh water. But it's also a place where there are no regulations to manage or control extraction. ...

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03/14/2023 SOURCE: www.publicnewsservice.org

Collaboration Grows 'Regenerative Ranching' Program in Northwest

By Caroline Tracey for Civil Eats.Broadcast version by Deborah Van Fleet for Missouri News Service reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration Jack Southworth’s ranch sits at 4,600 feet in elevation outside Seneca, Oregon, near the Strawberry and Blue mountain ranges. Like many ranchers, his cattle graze private, deeded land in the winter and leased National Forest land in the summer, including a high mountain plateau filled with bluebunch wheatgrass and Idaho fescue and surrounded by Ponderosa Pine forest. Since the valley is “good at collecting cold air,” as Southworth put it, it has a short growing season, and if cattle stay too long in any given place, they will eat the grass down to bare ground, creating conditions for soil erosion. ...

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02/28/2023 SOURCE: www.publicnewsservice.org

U.S. Carbon Farming Takes Root, but Do Economics Add Up?

By Carey L. Biron for Context.Broadcast version by Brett Peveto for Maryland News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration The owner of Deep Roots Farm in rural Maryland and her workers finished the fall harvest last month, but some of their most vital plantings are still in the ground - and growing fast. Four species of cover crops - plants such as winter rye and hairy vetch, later removed in the spring - are key to soil resuscitation efforts underway at Deep Roots, 53 acres of rolling hills that used to be part of a tobacco farm. ...

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07/09/2021 SOURCE: www.publicnewsservice.org

Report: Indiana Farmers Planted More Cover Crops than Ever

INDIANAPOLIS -- There's good news for soil conservation efforts in a new survey by the Indiana Conservation Partnership: Farmers in the state planted roughly 1.5 million acres of cover crops this past year. Cover crops, which can be grasses, turnips, brassicas, rye grass, or other plants, can help prevent soil erosion by anchoring roots in place and providing a food source for beneficial organisms. They can also reduce runoff from fields that leads to nutrient pollution in waterways. ...

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12/09/2020 SOURCE: www.publicnewsservice.org

Agriculture Steps Up to Meet Climate Change

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- With farms and ranches on the front lines of climate change, organizations have come together to launch the Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance. Megan Baskerville, agriculture program director for The Nature Conservancy in Illinois, said farmers here already are seeing more frequent rains in the spring and longer dry spells in the summer. ...

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