It sounds like a climate solution everyone should be able to support: Let’s make it easier and cheaper for farmers with dwindling water supplies to convert their lands from crop production to solar energy generation, if that’s what those farmers want.So what’s stopping such a bill from sailing through the California Legislature?“Change can be difficult,” […]

Proposed state legislation to modify California’s longstanding farmland conservation law could pave the way for large swaths of farm acreage to be repurposed as sites for renewable energy projects. The California Land Conservation Act of 1965, commonly known as the Williamson Act, preserves farmland by assessing property taxes based on the land’s agricultural value rather […]

Stuart Woolf, president and CEO of Woolf Farming, stands next to land the company leases for solar-power generation. The farm is near Huron on Fresno County’s west side. / Contributed Some Bee colleagues and I recently took a tour of Westlands Water District — the nation’s largest agricultural water district, located on the western edges […]

The sun was shining and blue skies reigned over the 57th World Ag Expo in Tulare County Tuesday. But inside seminar trailer No. 2, the mood was gloomy to dismal as panelists discussed the San Joaquin Valley’s water outlook. The upshot is that, with surface supplies from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta shrinking and increased groundwater […]

For all the opposition to wind turbines and solar farms bubbling up across California, most Golden State voters would have no objection to a renewable energy project in their backyard. That’s according to a new poll co-sponsored by the L.A. Times and conducted by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies. Read More

The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) requires groundwater users to bring their basinsinto balance over the next two decades. In the San Joaquin Valley, this will likely mean taking more than 500,000 acres of agricultural land out of intensive irrigated production. Local and regional economies could be stressed as a result, with some regular employment […]

New research indicates that in California's San Joaquin Valley, the increased demand for water by crops is notably exacerbated by climate change. This further compounds the already pressing water issues confronting one of the globe's foremost agricultural areas. Read article here