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In the July-September issue of UC ANR’s
California Agriculture
magazine,
UC President Janet Napolitano says
“The will and the ingenuity to think big and take bold action has always been the hallmark of California agriculture and . . . the connection between the industry and the University of California runs deep.”
That connection is brought home in this issue of
California Agriculture
, which features 96 pages of research and other articles related to the
UC Global Food Initiative
. The
issue
was guided by
Nutrition Policy Institute
Director Lorrene Ritchie and Global Food Initiative Program Manager Gale Sheean-Remotto, and includes an editorial by President Napolitano, six stories on the GFI’s accomplishments and 10 research papers. Among GFI’s accomplishments are efforts to build community-university connections to increase food access, increasing hands-on learning opportunities for students in food and agriculture, moving toward zero-waste dining, ensuring basic access to food for UC students, extending agricultural knowledge globally and connecting small farms with big buyers through food hubs.
California Agriculture
is an open-access peer-reviewed research journal and has been published by UC ANR since 1946. It’s available both online and in print. Executive Editor Jim Downing reports that “
California Agriculture
still has a sizable print circulation of 10,000, primarily in California, and it has a unique audience for an academic journal. Print subscribers include researchers in a variety of fields, but also many legislative and agency offices in Sacramento, local officials around the state, as well as farmers, ranchers, land managers, teachers and more.”
If you don’t already subscribe, we encourage you to
sign up to receive
California Agriculture
— subscriptions are free for U.S. residents and are available for a small fee for international residents. A subscription is a great way to keep up with all of the bold action that California agriculture fosters.
As always, we invite you to read more about the important work that UC ANR does, and to collaborate with us. Please share
Connected
with colleagues who would be interested in receiving it, and please encourage them to subscribe.
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Glenda Humiston
Vice President
UC Agriculture and Natural Resources
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To accelerate the development and adoption of technologies that advance food, agriculture and natural resources in California, UC ANR and
AgStart
will receive a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to cultivate the
Verde Innovation Network for Entrepreneurship (the VINE)
. Like a grapevine, the VINE will connect existing clusters of innovation across California.
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More recent news articles from UC ANR
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Los Angeles Times
November is wild mushroom season in Northern California’s Mendocino County. A word of warning: Don’t go foraging on your own. There are thousands of varieties that grow in the area, but only about 500 types are edible. Best to go with a pro. Go out with experts in search of mushrooms on the 5,300-acre campus of the
UC Hopland Research and Extension Center
.
Sacramento Business Journal
A team of researchers from UC ANR, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, UC Riverside, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and University of Florida received a $6.3 million grant from the federal government and the California Strawberry Commission to fund research to improve disease resistance in strawberries. Disease resistance is a looming concern for growers as the fumigant methyl bromide is banned for use this year.
The New Yorker
Driscoll’s most forbidding competition has come from UC Davis, where for a nominal royalty fee, any grower wishing to can use its plants. UC also shares crucial information about horticulture derived from its research. Every farm the university supplies was another acre not given over to Driscoll’s.
East Bay Express
Join in to celebrate the launch of Just Food, a new 6-part podcast series about cultivating justice and health, produced by the Berkeley Food Institute in partnership with the UC Berkeley Advanced Media Institute at the Graduate School of Journalism. The event will feature a preview of the upcoming episode, “Leveling the Playing Field.” It will cover the story of the nation’s first sugar-sweetened beverage tax here in Berkeley—from how the measure came into law in 2014 to how the tax a and its revenue are shaping the health of Berkeley residents now.
Merced Sun-Star
Merced County UC Cooperative Extension marked its 100th anniversary Aug. 20. As part of the centennial celebration, UCCE and the Merced County Farm Bureau created an exhibit for the Courthouse Museum to show how farming has changed over the past 100 years. The two organizations also hosted a celebration in Courthouse Park, with food, activities and information booths.
Riverside Press-Enterprise
Riverside residents are being enlisted in the battle against huanglongbing disease of citrus. The best defense is controlling the Asian citrus psyllid, which spreads the disease. UCCE subtropical horticulture specialist
Peggy Mauk
said nonchemical treatments aren’t effective enough. “One individual that’s (infected) can infect many trees,” Mauk said. In killing the psyllid, “You need to get as close to 100 percent as possible.”
KXTV ABC Channel 10
“Nine of 10 California farmworkers are immigrants. At least five in 10 are undocumented,” said Dianne Feinstein when discussing a bill that would give farmworkers a path to citizenship. However, Egan Reich, a Department of Labor spokesman, said the NAWS statistics do not track “farm workers." While it may be a matter of semantics, it’s an important distinction. Philip Martin, a professor emeritus of agricultural and resource economics at UC Davis, highlighted the difference, pointing out that livestock workers could also fall under the broad definition of “farm worker.”
Western Farm Press
Pest control advisors and UC IPM specialists often advocate the use of softer materials and new strategies including mating disruption for crop protection, but note there are specific instances where this restricted use material cannot be matched in effectiveness against invasive pests and endemic pest outbreaks and as a resistance management tool. Entomologist
Lori Berger
of the UC Statewide IPM Program said a UC critical use study helped the EPA understand how and why chlorpyrifos is used in agriculture.
The Conversation
Under a new trade deal, cooked poultry meat can be imported to the U.S. from China. UC Cooperative Extension poultry advisor
Maurice Pitesky
wrote that this is no food safety risk from viruses or bacteria if the meat is cooked properly. However, poultry meat can also contain contaminants, such as heavy metals, and antibiotic residues if birds are treated with antibiotics in an inappropriate fashion. “These risks are probably greater for poultry raised and processed in China than for poultry raised and processed in the United States,” he wrote.
AgWeb.com
California is one of 22 states in the nation where a new Google career education program was launched. The internet search giant has donated $1.5 million to the National 4‑H Council to build skills youth will need for the future, like computer science, computational thinking, communication and collaboration.
CBS News Sacramento
There is concern among Republicans and Democrats that President Donald Trump’s immigration plan will cut into California’s shrinking supply of low skilled farm labor. But UC ANR researcher
Philip Martin
, who specializes in immigration, says it won’t. Contrary to what critics believe, promoting high-skilled workers won’t hurt low-skilled immigrants.
San Jose Mercury-News
Santa Clara 4-H member April Alger, 17, raises market goats at the Emma Prusch Farm Park in San Jose. She’s been raising animals since she received a chicken for her tenth birthday. This year she’ll be selling two goats at the Santa Clara County fair, which she said is a little sad for her. “They’re not pets, but they’re a little like pets,” she said.
Capital Public Radio
It seems that every year a different weed launches an attack on lawns. This year's intruder is pervasive and invasive. According to
Whitney Brim Deforest
of the UC Davis Cooperative Extension, the uninvited guest is euphorbia maculata, which sounds nice, but which is anything but euphorious for lawns. It is commonly known as "spotted spurge," which, coincidentally or not, rhymes with scourge. It's spindly, with small flowers and leaves that are somewhat oval-shaped. And it spreads really fast.
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Master Gardener Program
Ongoing
Various California locations
Since 1981, the
UC Master Gardener Program
has been extending UC research-based information about home horticulture and pest management to the public. The UC Master Gardener Program is a public service and outreach program of UC ANR, administered locally by participating UC Cooperative Extension county offices.
Find your local program
.
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Master Food Preserver Program
Ongoing
Various California locations
The
UC Master Food Preserver Program
extends UC research-based information about home food safety and preservation to the public. The UC Master Food Preserver Program is a public service and outreach program of UC ANR, administered locally by participating UC Cooperative Extension county offices.
Find your local program
.
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Spotlight on Practical Resources
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The University of California
Small Farm Program
focuses on the
challenges and opportunities
of California's small-scale farm operators.
We develop field and marketing research aimed at the needs of small- and moderate-scale farmers, and provide that information to farmers who are often not reached by traditional extension programs. Our clients include farmers of many different cultures who operate a wide variety of farming operations, often with limited resources. We are a program of UC ANR, and were created in 1979 by an act of the California legislature.
Meet us at the California Small Farm Conference
October 29-30, 2017, at the Robert Cabral Agricultural Center in Stockton.
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The UC ANR Calendar lists events hosted by our programs throughout California. Find an event in a community near you!
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University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources
2801 Second Street
Davis, CA 95618
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