Family fun for everyone on Sunday, Nov. 5 Looking for something fun to do with the entire family? Think of it as a kind of community barn building with the museum being the barn and the community doing the building. San Diego Children’s Discovery Museum (SDCDM) is hosting a full day of the good stuff, otherwise known as the Seventh Annual Fall Family Festival. For…
Part game, part theater, part team-building exercise, escape rooms are taking off around the world, and that includes Escondido and San Marcos. Growth has been explosive. The number of permanent rooms world-wide has gone from zero at the outset of 2010 to at least 2,800 worldwide today, according to MarketWatch calculations based on rooms registered to escape-room directories. The concept was birthed in Japan, spread…
Across San Diego County and California, farmers and ranchers face chronic problems in finding and hiring qualified and willing people to work in agriculture, according to a survey conducted by the California Farm Bureau Federation. The informal survey of Farm Bureau members showed that more than half of responding farmers had experienced employee shortages during the past year. The figure was higher among farmers who…
New 2016 Temecula Valley Wine Country Impact Report profiles vineyards and wineries as a pillar of the Temecula Valley tourism economy. The Temecula Valley American Viticultural Area (AVA) has an annual economic impact of $78 million to the regional economy, and supports 4,800 jobs, according to Visit Temecula Valley (VTV) The group this week released results of its 2016 Temecula Valley Southern California Wine Country economic impact…
Agriculture values in San Diego County returned to their growing ways in the latest annual County Crop Report, increasing by 2.63 percent to nearly $1.75 billion after two years of decline. The report was released Monday, Oct. 2. Total production values were led, as they have been for the last decade, by ornamental trees and shrubs like crepe myrtles and bottle brushes, indoor plants like…
Not all bananas are created equal. When it comes to organic bananas, Mayra Velazquez de Leon knows that for everyone to understand this, consumers are going to have to strengthen their awareness and education about organic agricultural sustainability, the identifiers of true organic foods and environmental preservation. “Organic really is the whole picture,” she told The Produce News earlier this month. “It is about protecting…
It’s all about supply and demand in the wonderful world of avocados. Despite a large amount of foreign imports, demand has exceeded supply this year. That means higher prices at the grocery check-out for North County consumers raising the price of guacamole, and such, to record levels this season. As more people are drawn to avocados for their flavor and health benefits, consumption of the…
Montado Farms in Santa Ysabel, operated by Kevin Muno and partners, also known as The Land of Milk and Honey, is on the frontier of a new farming technique dedicated to using soil to remove carbon dioxide from the environment and help reverse the effects of climate change. With a grant administered by San Diego Food System Alliance, Montado Farms is the southernmost outpost in this…
Skimming much worse than swimming in the ATM and gas tank pool With summer in full swing and travel on the rise, visits to the ATM and gas pump are increasing, and if you’re like most of us, debit and credit cards are the way to pay. But you want to make sure you don’t fall victim to credit card skimming. That’s one of the…
North County San Diego and Temecula account for one-third of all avocados grown in California. The state produces 95 percent of all avocados grown in the U.S. Over the last 10 years, avocado acreage in the county has dwindled from around 30,000 acres to 18,000 acres. and expected to drop to 15,000 acres in the next two years. Total avocado crop value was nearly $198…