By JIM DOWNING, Sacramento Bee

A local academic has emerged as the leading source of dark forecasts in a recession-fueled debate over whether California's war on global warming will hurt or help its economy.

Sanjay Varshney, dean of the business school at California State University, Sacramento, predicts dire consequences if the state moves forward with plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

California has been churning out Campbell's tomato soup for 62 years, and through all that time, the goal has remained the same: Keep the iconic soup tasting the same way it has since 1897.

That just got a lot harder.

Consumers have been enjoying the lowest supermarket prices for milk in years, but dairy farmers are so frustrated that some have urged their colleagues to pour out millions of gallons of their product.

Phil Lempert, "The Supermarket Guru," is an expert on consumer behavior and food-industry trends. He appears frequently on national television, and his Web site supermarketguru.com for 15 years has offered shopping tips, product reviews, food news and nutrition advice. He hits a grocery store 10 to 15 times a week.

Drink up - milk prices are expected to stay low through summer as the dairy business struggles with a glut.
Milk is still selling for far less than it costs to produce. As production outpaces demand, analysts and farmers expect the market to stay weak for the next few months.

After an extraordinary jump in tomato exports in 2008, California canneries are paying record prices and asking farmers to deliver a record crop.
But drought is squeezing planting in key parts of the Central Valley, and it's not clear the state will be able to deliver on the 26.6 billion-pound request.

With the bad global economy choking off exports and warehouses full with a record harvest, California's almond business is swimming in nuts -- and the industry's long boom has finally run out of steam.

After a years-long wine glut, grapes are scarce again in California.
So even as the national economy sheds jobs by the tens of thousands, wine-grape growers are looking cautiously to expand.
Nobody's talking yet about the sort of planting frenzy that swept California in the late 1990s, which boosted vineyard acreage by 50 percent but ultimately flooded the market.

After a years-long wine glut, grapes are scarce again in California.
So even as the national economy sheds jobs by the tens of thousands, wine-grape growers are looking cautiously to expand.
Nobody's talking yet about the sort of planting frenzy that swept California in the late 1990s, which boosted vineyard acreage by 50 percent but ultimately flooded the market.

The price farmers get for their milk is plummeting -- and some of the difference may show up in your pocketbook soon.