For the rest of the school year, families can get farm-fresh fruit and vegetables at Vang Pao Elementary School in southeast Fresno on Thursdays when they pick up children or stop by after school. The site hosts a weekly farm market until June 4 plus free educational resources from a UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) partner.
“This is a perfect example of what can happen when multiple levels of government and community organizations work together,” said Luis Chavez, a member of the Fresno County School Board. “This is a model that we hope to expand across the city.”
UC CalFresh, part of UC ANR Cooperative Extension, provides regular produce sampling and...
Farm advisors: They're the local hand on the long arm of the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR). They apply cutting-edge research to problems facing their farming neighbors, often adapting practices and research results to local conditions. UC ANR Cooperative Extension advisors provide locally adapted science to local farmers.
So it might come as a surprise that some farm advisors got their start in agriculture nowhere near their backyards or their neighbor's fields. In fact, more than a few farm advisors fell in love with helping farmers while they were overseas.
Take
- Author: Pat Bailey
As the global demand for seafood booms, major food retailers are promising that soon all of the fresh, frozen, farmed and wild seafood that they sell will come from sustainable sources. However, finding such sustainable sources to satisfy the global appetite for seafood is easier said than done.
While many of the sustainability standards have been met by commercial fisheries in the developed world, a major challenge exists in fisheries overseen by developing nations, which account for about half of all seafood entering the international market. Unfortunately, only 7 percent of the fisheries that have been fully certified by the Marine Stewardship Council for meeting...
- Author: Brad Hooker
On a Friday evening in a San Francisco conference room, food and technology leaders – including nutrition expert Carl Keen, a UC Davis professor affiliated with the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources Ag Experiment Station – spoke to a mixed audience on the need for innovation in adapting populations across the world to changing food systems.
In the crowd, one inspired undergraduate student from UC Davis thumbed together some notes on his phone. The next day he stood in front of everyone at the event – more than 250 in all – and pitched his newly formed idea for a nutrition...
- Author: Rose Hayden-Smith
Recently, the UC Food Observer caught up with one of California's foremost experts on water: Doug Parker of the University of California. Parker is the director of the University of California's Institute for Water Resources. The mission of the institute is to integrate California's research, extension and education programs to develop research-based solutions to water resource challenges. The institute has recently launched a blog, The Confluence.
As director, Parker works with federal, state and local agencies to guide...