The seventh annual Taste of the Valley event, set for Thursday evening in Turlock, will benefit the scholarship fund at California State University, Stanislaus, agricultural studies department. It will run from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Assyrian-American Civic Club, 2618 N. Golden State Blvd. The event will feature wine, cheese, hors d'oeuvres, and live and silent auctions. Tickets can be bought in advance or at the door. For more infor- mation, including how to donate auction items, contact Wendy Olmstead at 664-6648 or wolmstead@csustan.edu.

With a hand-held video camera, a computer and 800 cows, Barbara Martin of Lemoore is letting the world into her life as a dairy operator. Dairy operators have become especially skilled at launching Facebook pages, blog posting and using Twitter, a microblogging site.

TURLOCK — The state's top water official said Thursday night that he is bracing for another year of drought and for even bigger challenges from climate change in the years ahead.

CHICAGO — A recall of nuts that could be contaminated with listeria has been traced to a Gustine plant, and a small number of those nuts made their way to consumers, John B. Sanfilippo & Son Inc. said Wednesday in a filing with federal securities regulators.

San Joaquin Valley lawmakers failed Wednesday in efforts to turn a Bay Area water recycling bill toward the valley's advantage. Following heated debate and some political gamesmanship, a key House committee blocked valley representatives from trying to add irrigation delivery provisions to the Bay Area bill. The unadorned bill comes to the House floor today.

Joe Mullinax kept watch last week over olives about to change color on his farm near Turlock.

Phillip Benjamin Malik, a visionary who left his native Iraq in the early 1950s and helped hundreds of Assyrian Christians to find the American dream in Stanislaus County, died Thursday. The Modesto man was 94.

Dairy farmers suffering from low milk prices would benefit from emergency funding approved by the Senate on Thursday as it cleared a $121 billion agriculture spending bill for President Barack Obama's signature.

Cloyd F. Angle had a plan to avoid paying taxes. Unfortunately for the family of the late Hughson almond farmer, it didn't work out too well. Now, Angle's estate owes more than $2 million in unpaid taxes as well as several hundred thousand dollars in penalties. Family members also must face an unflattering portrait of the one-time Cal-Almond patriarch in a federal judge's ruling.

Gross farm income hit a record $2.13 billion in San Joaquin County last year, according to a report presented Tuesday.

Fifteen years after his death, Carlo Rossi carries on, hawking Modesto-made wines with his same old homespun humor.

Students in home economics classes will get cooking with ingredients donated by several processors. About 900 pounds of ground beef, eggs, almonds and canned goods were donated to help teachers deal with budget cuts at 14 schools in Stanislaus County.

Despite a gray sky Tuesday, the rain held off and allowed almond farmers to continue bringing in the crop.

Admirers of Floyd Zaiger's work in fruit breeding often visit to taste the latest from his test plots west of Modesto.

From the fields of Idaho to tasting rooms in suburban Chicago, potato farmers, researchers and industry representatives are in the midst of a hunt for an elusive prey: a new spud for McDonald's french fries.