UC Food and Agriculture Blogs

Asian Citrus Psyllid found in Stanislaus County

The following press release was distributed by Stanislaus County's Agricultural Commissioner's Office on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015. Modesto, October 29, 2015 – The Stanislaus County Agricultural Commissioner, in cooperation with the California...

Halloween, Bats and Myths

Halloween is the perfect time to talk about bats, since many people hang spooky bat decorations depicting them as black, blood-sucking, mysterious creatures flying over a haunted house. But did you know that bats are actually beneficial and eat insects?...

A Sticky Situation on Hackberry Trees

If your neighborhood has Chinese hackberry trees, chances are you've noticed a sticky substance on cars, parking lots and sidewalks. The sticky substance is called honeydew, and might be caused by a pest called the hackberry woolly aphid. Hackberry...

Building a better salad to outsmart climate change

A team of researchers representing diverse fields of study and fortified by a $4.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture is setting out to build the salad of the future.

The researchers are located at UC Davis; UC Agriculture and Natural Resources Research and Extension Centers; USDA research facilities in Salinas and Beltsville; California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; and the University of Arizona, Tucson.

The UC Davis-led team aims to leverage new technologies to sustain the lettuce supply, despite the challenges posed by climate change.

“We will be exploiting genomic technology to address the needs in all areas up and down the lettuce production chain,” said project leader Richard Michelmore, a plant geneticist and director of the UC Davis Genome Center.

The team's five-year renewable grant, announced recently by USDA's Specialty Crop Research Initiative funding program, was made available through the 2014 Farm Bill.

Research will range from identifying genes that are key to developing important stress-resistance traits in lettuce to fine-tuning imaging technologies that will allow growers to remotely assess the status of their crops in the field. Although grounded in plant genetics and genomics, the project also will delve into a variety of fields that are vital for ensuring sustainable production of lettuce and related leafy greens. Collaborating team members run the gamut in terms of expertise, including plant genetics and breeding, food technology, and agricultural economics.

One of the project's strengths, Michelmore said, is its longstanding collaborative relationship with large and small plant-breeding companies as well as with the California Leafy Greens Research Board, which represents growers of lettuce, spinach and other related crops.

USDA's Specialty Crop Research Initiative, which provided the project's new grant, this year awarded $50 million in grants nationwide for projects ranging from plant genetics research to new product innovation and development of new methods for responding to food safety hazards.

How will you celebrate World Food Day?

Each year on Oct. 16, the world takes a moment to raise global awareness of agriculture, hunger, and food issues. World Food Day officially marks the anniversary of the creation of the UN's Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1945, and nowadays it aligns with other global events such as this week's World Food Prize activities in Iowa.

Food and agriculture are central to what UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) professionals deal with every day. We're elbows-deep in solving specific problems like pest identification, childhood nutrition in schools, drought-tolerant plant breeding and spreading sustainable agricultural practices.

World Food Day is a day for all of us to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Here are some ways that UC ANR faculty are raising awareness on World Food Day this year. How will you join them?

If you're near UC Davis, two free events invite the public to mark World Food Day:

America's Farm-to-Fork Capital Speakers Series offers participants lunch and an in-depth discussion of the connections between soil health, farm health, healthy foods, and the gut microbiome. These themes are particularly pertinent this World Food Day, as it is also the International Year of Soils. Author Daphne Miller will speak about her book "Farmacology" and then join a panel of academics from UC ANR's Agricultural Experiment Station, specifically Kate Scow and Bruce German, moderated by Tom Tomich. The event will be 11 a.m. – 1:30 p.m., Friday, at the Buehler Alumni Center on the UC Davis campus. Event details and registration

The Grand Opening of the Horticulture Innovation Lab Demonstration Center will send participants home with a souvenir vegetable seedling and a closer look at some of the technologies and crops that UC academics work with in developing countries. UC ANR Cooperative Extension specialist and pomologist Elizabeth Mitcham is also the director of the Horticulture Innovation Lab and will be joined by Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA), UC Davis CA&ES Dean Helene Dillard, and others to discuss the work that UC Davis and its international partners do to help small-scale farmers in developing countries. This event is particularly pertinent as this year's theme for World Food Day focuses on how agriculture can break the cycle of rural poverty. The event will be at 2 – 3:30 p.m., Friday, on Solano Field, near Nelson Hall on the UC Davis campus. Event details and information about the new demonstration center

Online this week, you can hear UC ANR academics Dan Sumner and Christine Stewart speaking on a panel at the World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue, broadcast online via a live stream. They will be speaking 1:30 p.m. PDT, Wednesday, on a panel with UC Davis' Roger Beachy about the UC Davis World Food Center, “Launching a New Initiative - Food for a Healthy World.”

More information about World Food Day can also be found on the FAO website or by browsing #WFD2015 in social media.

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