ANR news blog

Sarah Palin gets dinged for comments on fruit fly research

As the 2008 presidential election reaches its crescendo, even ANR experts get into the action. Salon.com today posted a mocking commentary on what it calls "Sarah Palin's latest swat at science" that included comments from UC Cooperative Extension's Paul Vossen.

In a speech in which Palin ridiculed earmark money, she noted sarcastically that one such allocation was made for "... fruit fly research in Paris, France," Salon writer Kevin Berger reported.

But, of course, there is more to the story. Berger surmised that Palin was referring to money secured by Mike Thompson (D-Napa) for olive fruit fly research.

The olive fruit fly has infested thousands of California olive groves since it was introduced to the state in the 1990s. The USDA will use a portion of the $750,000 award at a USDA research facility in France because Mediterranean countries have dealt with the olive fruit fly for decades, the Salon article says.

For the story, Berger spoke to Vossen, a Marin and Sonoma county farm advisor who is ANR's resident olive oil expert. He said eradicating or controlling olive fruit fly is important to California's significant olive oil industry.

"If each gallon of olive oil sells for $22.50 in the bulk market," Vossen is quoted, "that would be a value of almost $17 million and quite similar to winter pears, kiwi and figs."

In terms of retail sales, Vossen said, the value of the California olive oil industry would be nearly $85 million.

The article was linked to and quoted the UC IPM Pest Note on olive fruit fly, noting that "the olive fruit fly occurs in at least 41 counties in California," and adding that, in other areas of the world where the olive fruit fly has flourished, the pest has wiped out 100 percent of some olive varieties.

"You might imagine that a conservative vice president candidate would be on board with a burgeoning American industry showing signs of beating Europe at its own game," Berger wrote disdainfully in the commentary. "But then you would not be thinking of Palin."

Olive fruit fly.

The human side of UC Cooperative Extension

Two newspaper accounts this week touched on the human side of UC Cooperative Extension. Food shopping savvy was the focus of an article in the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, in which the daughter of a veteran UCCE nutrition educator created a blueprint for people trying make ends meet in the new economy, the story said.

Gerardo and Briana Fernandez shared their personal financial trouble with reporter Jeremy Hay. Gerardo, a general contractor, saw his income slashed in half in the weak economy. The couple realized that, between eating out and grocery shopping, food was gulping $600 from their monthly budget. 

Sound shopping skills learned from Biana's mother, Wanda Tapia, the assistant interim county director for Sonoma County UC Cooperative Extension, helped the couple slice their monthly food costs down to about $300, and at the same time eat a more healthful diet.

For example, Tapia taught her daughter and son-in-law how to create a "reality-based" shopping list.

"You know what's in your cupboard, so you're not going to the store and buying something you already have, that's wasting money," Tapia was quoted. "You want to know what you have in your cupboard now, and your shopping list should only be those items that you need to complete your menu."

Other money-saving suggestions included:

• Watch store sales and clipping coupons
• Select nutritious fruits and vegetables
• Resist the seduction of buying in bulk
• Don't shop hungry

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Two 4-H members were featured prominently in a Santa Paula Times story about their participation in a coastal cleanup program. Selena Hurtado and Rayanna Rodriguez, with leader Carole Butler, picked up three large bags of trash totaling over 30 pounds at Oil Piers beach in Ventura. According to the story, the Mupu 4-H team collected more than 150 cigarette butts, 45 glass beer bottles, clothes, a pillow, towels, toys, food wrappers and aluminum cans.

Green laws creating jobs in California

California efforts to reduce the state's carbon footprint is creating jobs, according to a study by Next 10, a nonprofit organization that promotes environmental innovation in California. The report, featured in a story by the Los Angeles Times, was written by UC Berkeley agriculture and resource economics adjunct professor David Roland-Holst.

The Next 10 report said California laws requiring businesses and residents to cut their carbon output and use local energy sources will create more than 400,000 jobs, help consumers save on their lighting bills and boost the state's economy by $76 billion by 2020, according to the story.

"This is the breakout growth sector of the next generation," the article quoted Roland-Holst. "We cannot afford to miss this market opportunity."

LA Times staff writer Marla Dickerson reported that California's per-capita electricity use is about 40 percent less than the national average mainly because of government-mandated energy efficiency standards for utilities, buildings and appliances put into effect over the last 40 years.

Lower energy use has saved Californians $56 billion since 1972, according to Roland-Holst. That money was spent in the local economy instead of on imported oil, out-of-state electricity or building new power plants.

Slow food on a budget

Fast food is cheap, but an Associated Press story that moved on the wire yesterday offered help for eating "slower food" on a budget. AP reporter Michelle Locke Ho opened her story by making examples of two slow-food products: $20 handcrafted cheese and $100 free-range turkey. She talked to UC Davis food systems analyst Gail Feenstra about what appears to be a pricy trend.

"It's been sort of touted as being an upper-income thing, which is unfortunate because that is not the bottom line," Feenstra was quoted. "The slow food movement needs to be about everybody having access to good quality food."

The story was organized into five sections, each with suggestions for cutting the cost of "slow food."

• Do the math and think big
• Organize to localize
• Be a bargain hunter, gatherer
• Get green at the grocery
• Timing is everything

For the "organize to localize" section, Locke Ho spoke to UC Cooperative Extension nutrition, family and consumer sciences advisor Cathi Lamp of Tulare County. Lamp said a lack of large grocery stores and farmers markets in rural areas can be overcome with community organization.

"In one community too small to support a full market, parents are helping run a vegetable stand once a week at an elementary school," Lamp was paraphrased.

Farms not suffering like banks during economic crisis

The country is facing economic crisis, but experts say farms won't have trouble securing loans, according to a story published today in the California Farm Bureau's AgAlert newspaper.

"Unlike financial institutions that have been devastated by subprime mortgages, the agricultural lending sector has remained on solid financial footing because of its strict lending practices," reporter Ching Lee wrote.

For the story, Lee spoke to UC Davis agricultural economist Steven Blank. He said the tighter lending standards for farmers have their roots in the agricultural recession of the 1980s. Inflation in the '70s had pushed farmland values so high that many producers borrowed against their equity to buy more acreage to expand their operations. When farmland values dropped as much as 60 percent in a couple of years, many growers had gone so far into debt that their farm incomes were no longer sufficient to meet their loan payments.

"It was just like the foreclosure problems we have now, except it was in farms," Blank was quoted.

The resulting lending practices -- requiring farmers to answer questions about their assets, production costs and crop plans, provide the financial details of their operations and show proof that they can pay off their debts -- have insulated the farm credit market from the Wall Street woes that have tightened the nation's credit market, the story said.

Blank told the reporter that, despite the gloomy overall economic forecast, he is optimistic that, in a couple of years, "we'll be right back to normal."

"Being in agriculture is a great place to be in down times because people are going to eat," Blank was quoted. "Even if the economy is a little soft, we're all going to keep getting hungry. I think agriculture in many ways is a bit more of a safe harbor than other parts of the economy in that regard."

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