Focus on Agriculture

MONTEREY COUNTY — Wild pigs in the Monterey County area were exposed to pesticide bait containing the anticoagulant rodenticide diphacinone, according to findings by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (CDFW) Wildlife Health Lab (WHL) and the California Animal Health and Food Safety...

KING CITY — King City High School FFA Chapter swept last week’s competition at Rancho San Juan High School in Salinas, taking home several first-place awards. The Jan. 19 contests in Cooperative Marketing Tests (CMT), Best Informed Greenhand (BIG) for freshman and Job Interview...

As we all manage the implementation of our groundwater management sustainability plans in the next 15 years, there will be some hard choices that communities will need to make. Most of these will include financing various water supply solutions, such as resource projects, land...

The 2016 Monterey County Crop Report reflects a decrease of 9.5 percent from the previous year, with the crop production valued at $4.25 billion for 2016.

In recent weeks, dangerous heat has killed hundreds of people in Oregon and Washington, endangered workers across the region and strained California’s power grid. It has also exacerbated the slow-moving natural disaster already punishing the West: the drought. Late last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom formally urged...

SALINAS VALLEY — Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner Henry Gonzales has released the county’s 2019 Crop Report, which included an evaluation of cannabis production for the first time. “This report reflects a production value of $4,409,992,000, which is an increase of 3.5 percent from 2018,” Gonzales...

KING CITY — Monterey County Judge Rafael Vasquez has sentenced King City residents and farm labor contractors Elias Perez Jr., 43, and Alejandra Perez, 40, to three years in prison for insurance fraud committed between 2013 and 2017. Vasquez also suspended those prison sentences, placing...

GREENFIELD — For the second time, thousands of freshly prepared meals were distributed to farmworker families suffering during the Covid-19 crisis on May 26 at Patriot Park in Greenfield. The food distribution is the latest effort by the United Farm Workers and World Central Kitchen...

KING CITY — Jeremiah Casey arrived in San Lucas, Calif., in 1861 as a young Irish immigrant. He started homesteading and ranching, raising beef, finishing them on grass and marketing them as best he could, given the limited resources at hand.  Back then, ranchers didn't...

SALINAS VALLEY — After two years of lower levels of impatiens necrotic spot virus in the Salinas Valley, researchers have recorded a higher number of cases during the 2025 season, though they say INSV did not reach the widespread levels seen in 2022, when...