Monthly news roundup: August 2017

Grants to fund development of disease resistance in strawberries
Mark Anderson, Sacramento Business Journal, Aug. 25, 2017
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 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.

How Driscolls reinvented the strawberry
Dana Goodyear, The New Yorker, Aug. 21, 2017
Driscoll's most forbidding competition has come from UC Davis, where for a nominal royalty fee, any grower wishing to 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.

Merced County farmers organized 100 years ago
Sarah Lim, Merced Sun-Star, Aug. 19, 2017
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 residents asked to help save state's citrus industry from deadly disease
Mark Muckenfuss, Riverside Press-Enterprise, Aug. 27, 2017
Riverside residents are being enlisted in the battle against huanlongbing 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.”

Verify: Are half of California farmworkers undocumented?
Barbara Harvey, KXTV ABC Channel 10, Aug. 16, 2017
“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.”

Agriculture's careful use of chlorpyrifos pivotal in EPA decision
Cecelia Parsons, Western Farm Press, Aug. 16, 2017
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.

How safe is chicken imported from China? 5 questions answered
Maurice Pitesky, The Conversation, Aug. 13, 2017
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.

4-H and Google team up to bring tech to America's youth
Christopher Walljasper, AgWeb.com, Aug. 11, 2017
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,

How will President Trump's immigration plan affect California farm labor?
Lemor Abrams, CBS News Sacramento, Aug. 3, 2017
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 Phillip 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 teen prepares for Santa Clara County Fair
Gillian Brassil, San Jose Mercury-News, Aug. 2, 2017
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 10^th 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.

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