Food & Farm News

Audio Actuality

Comments about students creating ads for the "Got Milk?" campaign

Frost threatens higher-elevation winegrapes

Winegrape growers at higher elevations in Lake and Mendocino counties have been taking frost protection measures where they can. Temperatures below freezing were predicted over the weekend. While much of the harvest is complete, there are grapes still on the vines that typically aren't harvested until mid-October. Winegrapes were damaged last spring by a late frost so the crop was already lighter. Some growers in the region don't have frost protection available.

November's on-farm milk price is set

Dairy farmers will earn an average four cents more a gallon for their milk November 1, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. At $1.62 a gallon, it is still four cents less than it was September 1 and 39 cents less than last December, when prices peaked. Farm milk prices are expected to continue to be volatile. This month the price of cheese increased slightly, which caused the price hike. Butter, dry milk and whey either stayed the same or decreased.

Biofuels research: From garbage to gas

Household garbage and after-harvest leftovers from fields, orchards and vineyards may soon be used to make ethanol and other kinds of bioenergy. Research scientists have taken municipal waste and farm waste such as rice straw, almond hulls and the outer leaves of iceberg lettuce and have processed it in a jumbo device that acts like a pressure cooker. The result would be transferred to a fermentation tank and yeasts and enzymes added to make ethanol. The research work is being done at the U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratory in Albany, California.

Teenagers work on 'Got Milk?' campaign

Junior Achievement Students in three high schools, in Northern, Central and Southern California, are being enlisted to help develop advertising for the long-running "Got Milk?" campaign. The contest gives students an opportunity to see what it would be like to work in an advertising agency. The California Milk Processor Board hopes the teenagers will develop ideas that appeal to their peers. Competing with each other, the students can win a cash prize along with statewide bragging rights.

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