ANR news blog

UC ANR news popping up in many places

To close out this short Thanksgiving week, there are a number of UC Ag and Natural Resources hits in the media:

Capitol Press covered an agritourism seminar held recently in Stockton and developed a detailed article with much information drawn from a presentation by Holly George, UCCE's Sierra and Plumas county livestock and natural resources advisor.

Besides the more conventional agritourism ventures - pumpkin patches, corn mazes, wineries and U-pick operations - "serious" farms can benefit from the trend by opening their farms to the public for activities such as hunting, bird watching and hiking, he said.

TradingMarkets.com picked up a Lake County Record Bee story about a contentious meeting of the county board of supervisors. The board is planning to form a committee to hammer out the details of an ordinance concerning genetically engineered agricultural crops.

According to the story, the farm bureau recommended that UCCE farm advisor Greg Giusti be appointed to the committee, but local organic farmer Phil Murphy was opposed, calling Giusti "extremely biased" for having written papers against regulation of GE agriculture.

The Produce News reported that the Center for Produce Safety received $500,000 in new research funding aimed to help the produce industry gain a better understanding of ways to prevent contamination during production.

According to the story, the center was launched in response to the 2006 E. coli outbreak and funded with $2 million from the Produce Marketing Association and another $2 million from Taylor Farms. CDFA and UC also pledged financial resources for the center, which is housed at UC Davis.

Worldwatch Institute ran a story about the downside of drip irrigation. Drip irrigation has been touted for its water-saving efficiency. In traditional flood or sprinkler irrigation, the water not absorbed by crops seeps into the ground and recharges aquifers. As drip irrigation becomes more common, recharge of groundwater may be less frequent, according to a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Blake Sandon was one of many experts across the nation interviewed for the story.

He said California has become the world's No. 1 producer of almonds over the past 30 years, due in part to the increased use of drip irrigation. Almond farmers have required some 15 to 20 percent more water, but average yields nearly doubled.

"You cannot produce high-yield crops without a fairly significant input of water," Sanden was quoted. "In the end of the day, hungry people will win the game."

 

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Happy Thanksgiving! The ANR News Blog will be back with more about ANR appearances in the news media on Dec. 1.

Wireless company announces contract from UCCE

WPCS, a publicly traded company that provides wireless infrastructure and communications systems, issued a press release this week announcing $9 million in new contracts, including one for UC Cooperative Extension. According to the release, which was picked up by numerous business Web sites, including the International Business Times, UCCE selected WPCS to deploy a wireless data collection network.

"The project entails the deployment of wireless devices powered by solar energy located at certain watersheds throughout the state," the release says. "These wireless devices will obtain data on the volume and chemical composition of the water collected through natural rainfall and will transmit the data via a wireless connection back to the science center for analysis."

The new system means scientists will no longer need to undertake the time consuming task of visiting each watershed to collect data from manual recording devices.

"The project with the University of California Cooperative Extension is another example of how wireless technology saves time and money while increasing productivity," the company's executive vice president was quoted in the release.

If you know who in the UCCE system is working on this project, please leave a comment. This might be a good topic for a news release of our own that gives more details on the implications of what seems to be a fascinating use of high technology for natural resources research.

 

 

Western Farm Press covers Dooley speech

Long-time ag reporter for Western Farm Press, Harry Cline, wrote a lengthy article about UC ANR vice president Dan Dooley's recent speech to the California Association of Pest Control Advisers.

Cline wrote that blending Dooley, the Division's first non-academic leader, with academicians and scientists could be like mixing gasoline and fire or it could go together like peanut butter and jelly, opposites that combine well.

The article, published online today, said Dooley has set firm deadlines for the work he wants done in his department.

“The joke around the system is that people are drinking from the Dooley fire hose," the article quoted Dooley, because he sets unreasonable lines. However, to his surprise, his deadlines are being met.

Other telling tidbits from Dooley reported in the article:

• Regarding the fact that 80 percent of county directors will retire within 10 years . . . “Maintaining consistency within the division will be a real challenge moving forward.”
• “We have to look closely at how to optimize our resources. Hanging on to the historic structure is eating us alive. We cannot continue that."
• Dooley says the research community is too focused on finding out the causes for climate change. It should be focused on the consequences of the changes and its interaction with the ecological system of pests, weeds and other factors affecting agriculture.
• Maneuvering within the UC system is like trying to steer a battleship with a canoe, but years as a legal advocate have given him “sharp elbows” to muscle UC administrators into acknowledging the importance of his division and why it is relevant.
• “Some people say I am the best thing since sliced bread. Others say I am exactly what they thought I was when I showed up.”

Dan Dooley

Half Moon Bay paper uses UC experts for two stories

Two Half Moon Bay Review reporters featured ANR experts in unrelated news stories on the same day this week. Mark Noack opened his article about growing public acceptance of "recycled" water with an anecdote from UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Paul Vossen.

Vossen told the reporter that, years ago, participants on a research plot tour willingly munched on fresh vegetables that had been irrigated with treated sewage water.

“Our conclusion at the end of our survey was that 95 percent of people have no problem with using recycled water,” Vossen was quoted. “There was only one really concerned person out of all the people we interviewed — ‘Oh my gosh!’ he said. ‘You can’t use this water! You’ll poison everybody!’”

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Reporter Greg Thomas talked with UC Berkeley forestry pathologist Matteo Garbelotto for a Sudden Oak Death overview. The story contained information about the disease's introduction and spread, and concluded with a ray of hope for its eventual control.

Thomas wrote that Garbelotto has discovered a handful of tanoaks unaffected by the disease. Acorns from those trees were collected and are being studied at UC Berkeley.

Organic and sustainable ag coordinator informs media

The only sustainable and organic agriculture coordinator in the UC Cooperative Extension system, Steven Quirt of the Marin County office, is an informative source for media covering local agriculture. That proved true again this week when Quirt was quoted extensively in a Marin Independent Journal story that opened seasonably with a vignette about organic turkey.

By the second paragraph, the story became more of a trend piece on the growth of organic agriculture in the swanky, yet earthy Northern California locale. According to the article, the amount of Marin County land in organic production has increased 6,000 percent since 1999 to 24,176 acres. (Doing the math, that means organic acreage in 1999 was about 400.)

Regardless of the exponential growth, organic farming in Marin remains less a big business than a way for the county's small farmers to compete with the state's industrialized agriculture industry, according to the story.

"In the Central Valley, the big guys with 2,000 to 10,000 cows can produce milk a lot cheaper," the article quoted Quirt. "On a small farm - the average herd size in Marin and Sonoma is 350 (cows) - it makes sense to look at organic options."

Interest in organic farming rose dramatically among Marin's dairies in 2005, Quirt told reporter Rob Rogers, when the price of conventional milk plummeted while organic milk prices remained stable.

"Dairies were being paid $11 to $12 per hundredweight for milk that would cost them $16 to produce," Quirt was quoted. "The price for organic milk was around $26 a hundredweight, and it stayed up there. A lot of dairies made the switch first on economic grounds, and came on board philosophically after that."

However, the story concluded with a somber note about the high value of organic products. The organic premium helps sustain farmers, but is often too pricey for lower income consumers.

"Local, responsible organic food production is expensive, and what it's causing nationally is a dual food system," Quirt was quoted. "Those of us who can afford to be careful about what we buy and eat will pay more. I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but it's creating an elitist food system."

Steven Quirt

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