Agriculture

"Acequias, the fabled irrigation ditches that are a cornerstone of New Mexican culture, have endured centuries of challenges. Can they survive the Southwest’s megadrought?"

"Before his corpse was dumped in a shallow grave 50 miles north of Los Angeles, Mauricio Ismael Gonzalez-Ramirez was held prisoner at one of the hundreds of black-market pot farms that have exploded across California’s high desert in the last several years, authorities say."

"The Gila was once a vibrant desert river, providing a lifeline for the riparian habitat and wildlife that depended on it in the U.S. Southwest. But population growth, agricultural withdrawals, and, increasingly, climate change have badly diminished the river and threaten its future."

"A long-term drought that has hit two-thirds of Mexico looks set to worsen in coming weeks, with forecasts warning of high temperatures, crop damage and water supply shortages on the horizon, including in the populous capital."

"In Madagascar, hunger has already left people eating raw red cactus fruits, wild leaves, even the very locusts that helped decimate crops. The southern part of the country is experiencing its worst drought in decades, with the World Food Program warning that 1.14 million people are food-insecure and 400,000 people are headed toward starvation."

"For thousands of years, an Arizona tribe relied on the Colorado River's natural flooding patterns to farm. Later, it hand-dug ditches and canals to route water to fields."

"The Biden administration announced Tuesday it will issue new rules for defining when meat can be labeled a "product of USA" in an effort to boost American farmers."

"The United States and Mexico are tussling over their dwindling shared water supplies after years of unprecedented heat and insufficient rainfall."

"Maine’s beloved wild blueberry fields are home to one of the most important fruit crops in New England, and scientists have found they are warming at a faster rate than the rest of the state."