- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Reporter Tim Holt wrote a cute feature story about 4-H for today's San Francisco Chronicle. The article focuses on a club in Oakland's "upscale" Montclair neighborhood, where a group of 4-H'ers are raising chickens, goats and pigs.
The story provides lots of details about this aspect of the 4-H Youth Development program, but unfortunately doesn't mention its connection to University of California Cooperative Extension.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UC Berkeley Cooperative Extension biotechnology specialist Peggy Lemaux spoke at a workshop in Lake County this week, where the board of supervisors have been asked again to consider banning genetically modified crops, according to a story in the Lake County Record-Bee. The board narrowly rejected such an ordinance in 2004.
"Since this is such a controversial issue, I thought it would be wiser to have a discussion in the format of a workshop to talk about these things and decide if we want to pursue an ordinance or some other process," board chair Ed Robey was quoted in the story.
Lemaux told the board that creating a crossbreed was like...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
More than a year ago, I began blogging about the coverage of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources in the news media. Yesterday, to my surprise, a newspaper pulled from the blog.
On Monday I posted a blog entry about an op-ed piece written by two UC ANR academics that ran in the Ventura County Star. The blog entry was printed verbatim in yesterday's Fresno Bee. Here's a picture of the post in the Bee's "Blogging Across America" column, from the opinion page of its print edition. The editors included a link to all the ANR blogs.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The San Diego County UC Cooperative Extension office is now extending vital wildfire information to local residents from a computerized kiosk. Not exactly the robotic assistant envisioned in the classic cartoon The Jetsons, these stand-alone touch screen computers automatically provide customized information to residents about how to protect their families and property from wildfire, according to an article in the
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Los Angeles Times today ran a story about hidden-camera video footage of a Turlock poultry farm. The story was picked up by the Associated Press and has now appeared in at least 40 newspaper and broadcast media outlets.
According to the Times story, the video was shot by an undercover investigator with the group Mercy for Animals and shows workers mistreating chickens at Gemperle Enterprises.
"What I saw on that video is not what our company does," owner Steve Gemperle was quoted in the article. "We do not accept any abuse of farm animals. It's against our values and morals."
According to...