Announcements

NIOSH renews funding for Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety

For more than three decades, the Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety at UC Davis has been dedicated to the understanding and prevention of illness and injury in western agriculture. 

WCAHS is pleased to announce the center has received funding from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) for the next five years. The center is one of 12 agricultural health and safety centers in the United States to receive funding this year. It was also one of the first two centers established by NIOSH in 1991. 

Agriculture continues to pose hazardous risks to farmworkers in the U.S. based on occupational fatality rates. In the U.S., roughly 11% of agricultural fatalities and 42.6% of injuries occur in the western region (Arizona, California, Hawai'i and Nevada). Western agriculture is one of the nation's most intensive and productive and employs up to 1 million farmworkers. 

Agriculture in California is characterized by labor-intensive specialty crops (e.g., berries, table grapes, melons), which require pruning, weeding, harvesting and packaging by hand rather than with machines. In addition to repetitive stress and musculoskeletal injuries, and machinery-related accidents and falls, workers may experience exposure to hazards such as heat, wildfire smoke, pesticides and zoonotic pathogens.

“Western agriculture feeds the nation by producing more than 400 commodities with one-third of all U.S. vegetables and two-thirds of U.S. fruits and nuts,” said Kent Pinkerton, director of WCAHS and professor of pediatrics in the School of Medicine. “The unique nature of diverse specialty crops requires greater human labor, which leads to an increased risk in farm-related injuries, along with the growing mechanization of farming practices, especially in California.”

WCAHS is part of the Institute of the Environment, one of the Organized Research Units within the Office of Research. 

Research projects in the new funding cycle

A portion of the NIOSH grant will fund research projects over the five-year cycle with the aim of finding practical solutions to lower health and safety risks. Kent Pinkerton will continue to study the impacts of agricultural and wildfire emissions on California farmworker health. Director of Outreach Christopher Simmons, a professor and the chair in the Department of Food Science and Technology in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, will continue his research on biosolarization as an alternative to soil fumigation.

Farzaneh Khorsandi, an assistant professor of Cooperative Extension in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering joins the center both as a principal investigator and the project lead for the agricultural all-terrain vehicle (ATV) safety research project. She will also lead the pilot/feasibility program, which provides seed funding and mentorship for early-stage investigators on safety and health issues in western agriculture. 

Timothy Beatty, a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, will join the center as a principal investigator studying surveillance of occupational health and injuries in the western region to develop novel machine learning approaches to categorize injury data by cropping system and work.

Fadi Fathallah, a professor and department chair in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, will continue in his role as associate director of WCAHS and as a project investigator on Beatty and Khorsandi's projects.

Upcoming outreach and training projects

The grant renewal will also enable WCAHS to expand outreach activities into Arizona, Hawai'i and Nevada as well as to further develop safety guides for Southeast Asian farmers and tailored print and video resources in English, Spanish, Hmong, Punjabi and Indigenous languages (including Mixteco, Zaptoteco and Triqui). In-person and remote trainings on numerous topics, including heat illness prevention, injury and illness prevention and wildfire smoke exposure will also continue to be offered by the center.

 

UC Merced, UC Santa Cruz named Agricultural Experiment Station campuses

UC President Michael Drake announced during the UC Regents meeting Nov. 16 that UC will  designate UC Santa Cruz and UC Merced as Agricultural Experiment Station campuses.

The Agricultural Experiment Station is a network of campus-based scientists whose mission is to develop knowledge and technologies to address agricultural, natural resources and health issues. UC's AES faculty members conduct land-grant mission research and UC Cooperative Extension puts that knowledge in the hands of people who can apply it to improve their lives and businesses. The Hatch Act of 1887 established Agricultural Experiment Stations at land grant colleges in each state.

The AES, which is a component of UC ANR, currently includes the three agriculture and natural resources colleges at UC Berkeley, UC Davis and UC Riverside, and the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis.

“Both UC Santa Cruz and UC Merced have long conducted research on agricultural issues, so it is appropriate that these campuses also receive this designation and have their work recognized as contributing to the overall UC agricultural research portfolio,” Drake told the regents. “With the AES designation, Santa Cruz and Merced have the potential to receive additional funding from the University's budget for this research, and they will be able to make a stronger case for competitive grants in the larger agricultural research area.”

Vice President Glenda Humiston, who also serves as director of AES in California, congratulated our colleagues at UC Merced and UC Santa Cruz for joining the Agricultural Experiment Station and welcomed their collaboration. 

“The San Joaquin and Salinas valleys are critical agricultural regions in California so UC ANR already has UC Cooperative Extension specialists at both UC Santa Cruz and UC Merced conducting research on agriculture and food-related issues,” Humiston said. “Having these two campuses receive this AES designation expands UC's agricultural research portfolio, which will help us develop the solutions needed for the many challenges Californians face.”

UC Cooperative Extension specialists Tapan Pathak, Karina Diaz Rios, Safeeq Khan and Jackie Atim are based at UC Merced and UC Cooperative Extension specialist Joji Muramoto is based at UC Santa Cruz.

“Our campus has been working toward this designation for some time and I'm so pleased that the hard work of our faculty and staff has paid off,” said UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Cynthia Larive.

Josh Viers, UC Merced professor of watershed science and associate dean for research, wrote on LinkedIn: “Not only does the official Agricultural Experiment Station (AES) designation for UCM and UCSC provide legitimacy among our peers nationwide, but importantly it recognizes our recent efforts to tackle the most difficult challenges we face to feed a planet under a rapidly changing climate. This designation makes us eligible for new opportunities and in so doing make further investments into our research infrastructure including our Experimental Smart Farm.” 

 

 

 

Apply for professional society meeting travel funds by Dec. 8

Academic Assembly Council's call for Professional Society Meeting Travel Funds requests closes Dec. 8, 2022.

These funds support travel to meetings with professional societies which are recognized organizations that hold regularly scheduled meetings primarily for the reporting and exchange of knowledge among members. They publish peer-referred journals and/or edit proceedings of meetings to promote professional growth.

Who can apply?

Cooperative Extension Advisors, Academic Coordinators and Specialists are eligible for one meeting approval per fiscal year (July 1 – June 30).

How does the program work?

The AAC Program Committee approves up to $650 for travel expenses related to the event(s) on awarded applications. Within 30 days of completing your trip you must complete the Travel Reimbursement Form and submit your receipts in AggieExpense.

To apply, complete the Professional Society Meeting Travel Application at https://surveys.ucanr.edu/survey.cfm?surveynumber=39355.

Calls for applications open twice a year and cover a six-month travel period.

For more information, contact Committee Chair Susie Kocher, UCCE Central Sierra forestry/natural resources advisor, at sdkocher@ucanr.edu or (530) 542-2571, or Leslie Lipman, Statewide Programs and RECs, at lalipman@ucanr.edu or (530) 750-1254.

Winter curtailment dates set for 2022

Similar to previous years, UC ANR units – including research and extension centers, UCCE county offices, the Second Street Building in Davis and Franklin Building in Oakland – will be closed from Dec. 23, 2022, through Jan. 2, 2023, except for essential services. UC ANR offices will reopen on Jan. 3, 2023. 

Winter closure schedule: 
Dec. 23, 2022 – Holiday 
Dec. 26, 2022 – Holiday 
Dec. 27, 2022 – Curtailment (closure) 
Dec. 28, 2022 – Curtailment (closure) 
Dec. 29, 2022 – Curtailment (closure) 
Dec. 30, 2022 – Holiday 
Jan. 2, 2023 – Holiday 

Employees have the option of using accrued vacation, compensatory time off (CTO) or leave without pay for the curtailment days. In the event an employee has not accumulated a sufficient amount of vacation time before December to cover the three days, arrangements can be made with direct supervisors to allow those individuals to borrow against future vacation time.  

Some UCCE county offices and research and extension centers may need to adjust the closure schedule to accommodate local needs; this is at the discretion of the director and approval by UC ANR leadership. If you have a question about your local office schedule, please contact your unit director.  

Additional Information:

• Time reporting – TRS has shaded the curtailment dates in yellow for reference only. ANR employees are still able to enter leave or time worked per day as appropriate based on local need. Additionally, if borrowing against future vacation, usage should be entered on the timesheet as it will allow the balance to go into the negative and will be caught up with future accruals. Feel free to contact ANRPayroll@ucanr.edu for more details. 
• Systems access – Some systems access may be impacted during the curtailment dates. If you are approved to work, please contact UCANRIT@ucanr.edu to confirm you'll be able to access UC ANR systems during the closure.

Please contact humanresources@ucanr.edu for additional information or clarification.

UC ANR participates in California Economic Summit

UC ANR was well-represented at the California Economic Summit in Bakersfield on Oct. 27-28 to find new ideas and partners for economic development projects. The annual event is held to identify economic opportunities, improve state and regional competitiveness and generate jobs.

“This year's California Economic Summit really highlighted the need to invest in our working landscapes and harvest the huge opportunities for jobs and economic growth throughout the state if we do,” said Glenda Humiston, vice president. “I'm really excited to see state and regional leaders recognizing the critical role that UC ANR and UC Cooperative Extension can play in supporting those initiatives.”  

Humiston was joined at the event by Anne Megaro, director of government and community relations; Keith Taylor, UC Cooperative Extension community economic development specialist; Julia Van Soelen Kim, UCCE food systems advisor; Olivia Henry, UCCE food systems advisor; Cindy Chen, UCCE woody biomass and forest products advisor; Ashley Hooper, UCCE urban community resiliency advisor; Alec Dompka, UCCE rural community and economic development advisor; and Rita Clemons, director of UCCE for San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties. 

“We have too many people that are working every single day and they're not making it,” said Antonio Villaraigosa, infrastructure advisor to Governor Gavin Newsom, told attendees on the first day.

Another speaker, Dolores Huerta, co-founder of United Farm Workers, called for equitable pay for farmworkers.

On the second day of the summit, Governor Newsom joined the event. He chatted on stage with Ashley Swearengin, former mayor of Fresno, noting that California is now the fourth largest economy in the world, surpassing Germany. He complimented the San Joaquin Valley for its economic development efforts.

The 2023 California Economic Summit Summit will be held in the Coachella and Imperial valleys.

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