Agriculture

The Imperial Irrigation District in California announced it will conserve 100,000 acre-feet of water in 2024, less than its initial water conservation goals.

The Bureau of Land Management quietly posted a notice on its website last week that it will no longer use the M-44 ejector devices across the 390,625 square miles it manages nationally.

U.S. sheep ranchers are struggling but domestic lamb consumption is up. As it stands now, the country imports more than 70% of the lamb it consumes.

Last year, Wyoming lost 500,000 acres of farm and ranch land, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In the Mountain West, more than seven million acres have disappeared in the past decade, mostly in Montana, Wyoming and New Mexico.

Utah is making it easier to move water between places that have extra and places that need more.

In 2020, Nikyle Begay started Rainbow Fiber Co-Op, a wool co-op intended to protect ancestral flocks on Navajo Nation and to help other Navajo shepherds get fair prices for their wool.

Raising sheep is a way of life for many people in the Navajo Nation, but historic drought, grazing restrictions and development threaten that livelihood. There are some younger people, though, speaking out and finding ways to pass on the tradition.

The U.S. Department of the Interior is throwing its support behind the proposal from the lower basin states to conserve 3 million acre-feet of water through 2026.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that avian influenza was confirmed in a flock of 47,300 turkeys in Jerauld County of South Dakota on Oct. 4 and at a farm with 141,800 birds in Utah's Sanpete County last Friday.

The next drought is always right around the corner in Utah, even in the middle of an especially wet year.

A new survey of farmers and ranchers found they mainly trust local agencies and have not taken much advantage of state and federal payout programs.

The System Conservation Pilot Program is ready to spend additional millions from the Inflation Reduction Act to save water in the agriculture industry through 2024.