Amy Mayer

Five-year-old Caleb Whan is very interested in whales. He asked Bay Curious a bevy of questions about what they eat and where they live, which is how he ended up trudging across a windy Sausalito beach with a veterinary pathologist, his dad and me.

The lives of sea otters — the tool-using marine mammals — were once intertwined with those of the coastal tribes in Oregon. But when fur traders discovered the value of the warm, waterproof pelts, a global trade led to the near extinction of the animals. Now, local Native Americans are hoping to bring them back.

An environmentally concerned fashion company and a fifth-generation rancher are the opposite endpoints on a short line that connects a luxury brand with sustainable agriculture. The Los Angeles-based firm Co recently unveiled its Natural World “capsule” (which is a group of designs that isn’t as robust as a full collection) featuring California-sourced wool mostly spun, woven and sewn by American businesses.

When biology education emerges from the pandemic, some faculty say lasting changes might well occur. These could include expanding the role of peer learning assistants; more flipped classes, where students watch recorded lectures in advance and do collaborative group work during class time; and a renewed recognition that the lecture model, which is how many of today's professors were taught, does not have to be how they lead the next generation into scientific inquiry.

Nearly five years after voters approved legalization of adult cannabis use in California, tensions remain high between advocates for cannabis cultivation and people who fear allowing marijuana, especially in vast rural areas, has increased lawlessness, damaged natural resources and threatened public health.

As the country, including the food and agriculture sector, continues to grapple with racial injustices brought into focus in 2020, the historically Black land-grant colleges and universities are gaining attention. The issues facing HBCUs — and the possible approaches to fix them — are complex, but a pair of lawmakers who themselves are products of the institutions are leading efforts to improve the standing of the colleges and the students they educate.

Jared Fernandes runs a dairy farm with 3,000 dairy cows that generate about 45,000 tons of manure annually. So when the state mandated that he reduce greenhouse gas emissions, like the methane released from all that poop, “you get upset,” he said. California regulations require farms to lower their greenhouse gas emissions. But the state helped pay for on-farm changes, like new technology designed to capture methane.

Fewer acres of California farmland are dedicated to growing stone fruit compared to 10 years ago when growers of freestone peaches and nectarines voted to end the California Tree Fruit Agreement. But apricots, nectarines, peaches, plums, prunes (which USDA distinguishes from plums in its data) and sweet cherries continue to perform well.

The Biden administration’s climate goals are bringing attention to the role of forests in storing carbon and the need to offer incentives to private forest owners to manage their trees sustainably.

As drought grips many of California’s prime agricultural areas, its two top-grossing crops are positioned well to pull through, much as they did during the last prolonged dry spell in the mid-2010s. Grapes and almonds, which since 2004 have been the state’s top sellers, both have some natural drought tolerance thanks to their origins in the Mediterranean climate where recurring aridity is expected. But in California, their success is also tied to irrigation.

Scaled-back field season prioritizes infrastructure, precious climate data.

When schools, restaurants, hotels, and other places abruptly closed their doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic a year ago, children who relied on free meals at school suddenly had none. Many workers immediately lost their incomes. People were thrust into food insecurity, often for the first time. In the early days and weeks, demand at the nation’s food banks swelled. It’s gone down and up over the year, and in many places remains higher today than the baseline before the pandemic.

President Joe Biden has said he wants to pay farmers to grow cover crops and put land into conservation. How will that work? He also has big plans to reduce and capture carbon emissions, which could spell opportunities for farmers. But the science is still tenuous and the math would have to pencil out.

After harsh and frequent criticism from animal rights activists and environmentalists, many farmers and people who work in agriculture launched an effort to tell their stories to the broader public. A decade on, this effort has worked through several themes. With a new president coming, ag messaging may change again.

Balance sheets for farms may look better at the end of 2020 than they have in years. That’s according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest forecast. Some expenses have been lower this year, like diesel to power farm equipment, interest on bank loans and livestock. “We haven’t had a decline in expenses of this magnitude or duration since the farm crisis of the early 1980s,” says USDA economist Carrie Litowski.

Zack Smith pats the snout of a pig that stretches up to greet him from inside the back pen of a mobile barn. On this field, Smith planted alternating sections of corn and pasture, to test an experiment he calls “stock cropping.” “This is our answer for putting diversification and multiple species back on the land,” he says. “And we’re going to have a four-ring circus, was my idea, of animals parading through, grazing and laying their manure down.”

Some of Iowa’s climate records stretch back to the mid-1800s, which is why Iowa’s state climatologist, Justin Glisan, can say August 2020 was the driest in Iowa in 148 years. Glisan told a virtual gathering of the Iowa Farmers Union Thursday that 30 years of weather history create climate information, and that can be used to identify trends. Now, climate models for Iowa indicate extremes such as heavy spring rains and summer droughts are likely to continue. "Our warms are becoming warmer, col

Farmers are wrapping up the harvest in much of the Corn Belt and finally seeing how much they can get out of derecho-damaged fields. The August windstorm slammed 3.6 million acres of corn in Iowa alone, leaving some stalks almost flat on the ground and many others standing with a pronounced tilt. At the time, agronomists said the angle of damage would influence whether the grain could be harvested and they couldn’t predict how much the injured plants would yield. Now many of those farmers have answers, but they vary so much that Ben Hollingshead, an agronomist with Key Cooperative in Kelly, Iowa, says there’s no general takeaway.

A propane tank painted to look like a watermelon sits in front of a produce stand on Highway 150 in Fayette County, Iowa. Its long-time owner, Atrus (Attie) Stepp, who was Black, launched Fayette’s annual Watermelon Days festival in 1976. “Everybody’s got good things to say about Attie,” said Charles Downs, who runs the stand now. Downs, who is white, bought the stand from Stepp’s daughter, ending the family’s long legacy. “Conservatively, I’d say it’s been here 80 years, at least, and it’s probably ... maybe a hundred,” Downs said.

Iowans and drivers across the region will have more ready access to gasoline with a 15 percent ethanol blend as federal dollars flow to ethanol producers and retail gas stations. The United States Department of Agriculture has announced grants totaling $22 million for retail pumps and storage for E15 ethanol. The Trump administration approved year-round sales of E15 last year, but it has not been readily available for most drivers.