WACD Reading List

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and private landowners have partnered to protect more than 5 million acres of wetlands, grasslands, and prime farmland — an area the size of New Jersey. Since October, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has enrolled 110,000 acres in new conservation easements, bringing USDA to this important conservation milestone.

This winter has been dominated by La Nina. a period of below-normal sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific. The implications of La Nina have been profound for the West Coast, with above-normal snowpack in the Northwest and dry conditions over the southwest U.S.

“Broadband is the new electricity,” said the White House. “It is necessary for Americans to do their jobs, to participate equally in school learning, health care, and to stay connected. Yet, by one definition, more than 30 million Americans live in areas where there is no broadband infrastructure that provides minimally acceptable speeds. Americans in rural areas and on tribal lands particularly lack adequate access.”

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- It appears the extensive precautions Washington residents have taken to fight the COVID-19 pandemic have worked to prevent other illnesses from spreading as well, including the flu.

Residents of rural areas think working from home is temporary and as soon as the threat of the pandemic ends, everyone will return to the office.

DURING HIS CAMPAIGN, BIDEN SAID HE WOULD “EXPAND BROADBAND, OR WIRELESS BROADBAND VIA 5G, TO EVERY AMERICAN.

Producers in southcentral Washington impacted by a wildfire Labor Day weekend near Kahlotus may receive financial assistance from the FSA. The department is implementing the Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) due to damage caused by this wildfire to livestock fence and livestock water troughs. The Monday September 7th fire was exacerbated by high winds and burned a large portion of Washington’s Franklin County.

The number of bald eagles in the lower 48 U.S. states — a population once on the brink of extinction — has quadrupled in the last dozen years to more than 316,000, federal wildlife officials say, despite steep declines in other American bird populations.

The USDA has announced their multi-billion-dollar Pandemic Assistance for Producers, which aims to fill in gaps from CFAP. The new effort puts at least $6 billion into new programs to reach a broader set of producers than earlier efforts, including small and minority, specialty crop and organic producers.

This may mean we should all ask ourselves the question: Am I living a lie to fit in?

Now is not the time to let up. That's the message from a King County health official, who warned Friday about increasing cases and hospitalizations in the county, coupled with the spread of variants of concern and continued limited vaccine supply.

Multiple Counties Eligible for Emergency Loans Following Presidential Disaster Declaration

If you lived in Twisp after the town lost its water rights, irrigated spawning salmon in your farm fields or waited in vain for water to appear at the empty end of the Methow Valley Irrigation District’s ditch, you understand water trouble.

St. Louis, March 23, 2021 – U.S. Farmers & Ranchers in Action (USFRA) is celebrating National Ag Day by announcing the growing list of companies, organizations and individuals who have joined the Decade of Ag, the first sector-wide movement to align to a shared vision for the next decade centered around investing in the next generation of agricultural systems, restoring our environment, regenerating natural resources and in doing so, strengthening the social and economic fabric of America.

SB 5126 passed out of the Senate Ways and Means Committee last night, bringing one of the legislature’s most ambitious pieces of climate legislation ever considered one step closer to enactment. The bill creates a system referred to as “cap and invest” where funds generated from auctioning the rights or licenses to create carbon emissions will be invested into capital infrastructure. In the case of the current bill, this would equal between $272m and $551m per year dedicated to transportation infrastructure starting in FY 2023.

But just having a brain isn’t enough. It’s using the power of this small, mighty organ to do what technology can’t do nearly as well: adapt and create.

A phishing attack last week gave attackers access to email and files at the California State Controller’s Office (SCO), an agency responsible for handling more than $100 billion in public funds each year...“This isn’t even the full extent of the breach,” said the California state employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Soil Health is, simply put, the ability to produce marketable outputs with minimal inputs. It’s very important for people to understand that multi-dimensional property is dynamic, it changes over time and it’s dependent on environmental conditions like temperature, moisture and even the microorganisms and worms and all other life that’s present there.”

On March 17, the Washington State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council released updated revenue forecasts bringing the budget writers very good news – the state is expected to collect an additional $1.3 billion in state revenues for the current two-year budget, and an additional $1.9 billion for the 2021-2023 biennium, leaving the state with a net surplus of nearly $3 billion – including reserves – at the end of the current biennium.

With nearly two-thirds of the United States abnormally dry or worse, the government’s spring forecast offers little hope for relief, especially in the West where a devastating megadrought has taken root and worsened.

The media is full of stories suggesting that global warming has greatly reduced the mountain snowpack in the Pacific Northwest...Yes, there are some random, low snow-depth years (like 2015), but no trend is apparent during the period when global warming has been greatest.

As of Monday, all of Washington state has now moved into Phase 3 of reopening, affording restaurants and other indoor spaces more flexibility with looser restrictions.

Water scarcity is baking cropland and ramping up wildfire risk from California to Texas

Did you think DDoS attacks were over? They are not. Actually, recent research has discovered that these attacks attained a record high during the pandemic.

With over 59 million acres of Native-operated farms across over 30 states within the United States, Tribal Nations and Native producers are perhaps the single most underappreciated resource for sustainable, rural economic development in the U.S.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack stressed the need for structural changes to U.S. food distribution systems in order to tackle hunger, strengthen equity, and increase access to school meals during his keynote address Wednesday at the National Anti-Hunger Policy Conference...

While all runs of salmon on the Skagit River experienced declines, Seattle City Light left 20-year-old glowing messages on its website – touting the utility’s stewardship that led to “strong” and “landmark” returns of salmon.

Reliable and affordable high-speed internet e-Connectivity, or electronic connectivity, is fundamental for economic activity throughout the US.