California Water-Efficient Infrastructure and African Swine Fever Returns to China
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with your Agribusiness Update.**Over the past two decades, California farmers in the Imperial Valley Irrigation District have spent over $500 million in on-farm conservation projects as growers steadily added water-efficient infrastructure.
Those efforts are now accelerating in hopes of reducing stress on the Colorado River while keeping farmland in production.
The federal Inflation Reduction Act includes $4 billion for drought relief, including water conservation infrastructure as well as paying farmers to fallow fields due to water shortages.
**Research from the latest Power of Meat Study showed consumers’ meat usage, attitudes, and trends, with 2022 meat sales climbing 5.7% over 2021, and almost 87% of all home-prepared dinners featured meat or poultry.
Also, more than 98% of shoppers make meat purchases, but inflation is becoming an issue for the entire meat industry.
Consumers spent at least 25% more on food in 2022 than in 2019.
**African Swine Fever is making a resurgence in China and will potentially push prices higher for the most popular protein in the country.
Bloomberg says multiple outbreaks have shown up in different parts of the country throughout the winter.
Rabobank expects the most recent wave of ASF to significantly lower production capacity and push prices higher during the second quarter of 2023.
The outbreak was most severe in the northern regions of the country.