- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Maurice Pitesky, UC Cooperative Extension poultry specialist at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, is providing free egg testing for California backyard chicken owners. Pitesky's staff is testing eggs for different types of contaminants, depending on the county the eggs are from.
He asks ANR colleagues to encourage backyard poultry owners to submit their eggs for the study.
For eggs from counties recently affected by wildfires, Pitesky will test for fire retardants. He is also looking for lead and PCBs in eggs from certain regions of the state.
“Our goal is to better understand the connection between the environment and our food with respect to exposure to various inorganic chemicals,” said Pitesky.
Results will be shared individually with each owner, and cumulative results will be summarized and made available to the general public.
For more information about the study and how to package and ship eggs, visit http://ucanr.edu/sites/poultry/Egg_Contaminant_Testing.
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
UC has opened the employee comment period for the Draft Revised Presidential Policy on Supplement to Military Pay. The university also announced that two new policies have been published regarding unmanned aircraft systems, also known as drones, and independent contractor guidelines for tax purposes.
Employee comments sought
The university invites comments on the Draft Revised Presidential Policy on Supplement to Military Pay – Four-Year Renewal, as described below:
The proposal provides eligible employees with supplemental payments equal to the difference between the employees' University pay and their active military duty pay for a period not to exceed the employee's tour of active military duty, until June 30, 2022, or until the separation date of an employee's University appointment, whichever comes first. Benefits provided under the Policy are subject to a two-year lifetime limit. The proposed revisions renew the current Policy for a four-year period, effective July 1, 2018, through June 30, 2022. The Presidential Policy on Supplement to Military Pay applies to all university academic and staff employees.
The Policy proposal is posted under the “Systemwide Review” tab at: http://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/academic-personnel-policy/policies-under-review/index.html.
If you have any questions or if you wish to comment, please contact Robin Sanchez at rgsanchez@ucanr.edu, no later than Monday, May 7, 2018.
Unmanned Aircraft System (Drone) Policy http://policy.ucop.edu/doc/3500671
Independent contractor guidelines for tax purposes http://policy.ucop.edu/doc/3600670
Nominations are being accepted for the ANR Staff Appreciation and Recognition (STAR) program for the fiscal year 2017-18. Nominations are due March 29, 2018.
The STAR program is your opportunity to celebrate and reward the great contributions of ANR's people.
The program provides cash awards to eligible staff in recognition of outstanding achievement. Managers may nominate individuals and teams demonstrating exceptional performance, creativity, organizational abilities, work success and teamwork.
ANR staff in PSS and MSP titles, as well as members of the Clerical Unit (CX), are eligible to be nominated for cash awards. Nomination forms and program guidelines are attached. We've streamlined the nomination form this year to simplify the process.
STAR Awards will be celebrated during an ANR recognition event at the Second Street building in Davis on June 6, 2018.
Send your nominations to jlazulai@ucanr.edu.
The purpose of the STAR program is to recognize and reward outstanding staff individual and team performance within Agriculture and Natural Resources. Recipients receive cash awards as well as recognition.
Under the STAR plan, managers can recognize, acknowledge and reward staff employees for exceptional performance or significant contributions related to and supportive of individual, departmental, divisional or organizational goals and objectives.
The nomination form, STAR award guidelines & restrictions and local plan are linked to this text.
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
UC VP Glenda Humiston, 4-H member Melina Granados of Riverside County and UC Merced Chancellor Dorothy Leland gave the UC regents a presentation about UC ANR's community outreach and impact. The Public Engagement & Development Committee meeting was held at the UCSF–Mission Bay Conference Center on Jan. 24, 2018, in San Francisco.
Opening the discussion, Humiston gave an overview of ANR, explaining that for 150 years ANR has been bringing the power of UC directly to the people in all California counties. Melina, who was born in Mexico, talked about her role as president of the Eastside Eagles 4-H club and what she has learned. Leland described joint projects between UC Merced and ANR in climate adaptation, nutrition and drone technology research.
Watch the 25-minute recording of the UC ANR presentation to the regents below, or visit https://youtu.be/ptFS8HwlsjE.
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Artificial intelligence, or AI, can improve precision agriculture by using sensed environmental data to “learn” and continually adapt, VP Glenda Humiston told the Little Hoover Commission at a hearing in Sacramento on Jan. 25.
The Little Hoover Commission is reviewing the impacts of artificial intelligence. While there is no singular definition, artificial intelligence encompasses a broad range of technologies that seek to approximate some aspect of human intelligence or behavior.
Throughout its study, the commission will consider the potential policy role of California state government in areas such as regulation, workforce development and retraining.
Humiston was asked to give a statement on the impacts of artificial intelligence in the agricultural sector.
“California's working landscapes face some critical challenges; among those are drought, climate change, air quality, soil health, pests, pathogens and invasive species,” she said. “Additionally, rural/urban conflicts and urban sprawl continue to reduce available farm land and make viability of food production more difficult.
“Of importance to today's hearing, California's labor-intensive crops are facing increasing difficulty accessing necessary labor – both skilled and unskilled. This situation has led growers and universities to seek solutions through mechanization, automation and other new technologies.”
She sees opportunities in precision agriculture for growers and ranchers to more precisely manage their operations by using site- and crop-specific data gathered by new technologies.
“Artificial intelligence improves this further by using the sensed environmental data to ‘learn' and continually adapt to ever-changing conditions as it receives data that strengthens the computer's ‘intelligence,'” she said.
Humiston also outlined some of the challenges to harnessing the power of AI for agriculture.
“Artificial intelligence is extremely difficult in agriculture because of the huge amount of variability in environmental conditions across a single field,” she said. “This requires many sensors, complex algorithms, and large real-time data processing – all integrated and working together to inform decisions and actions.”
In a 2014 Pew Research Center survey, the vast majority of the 1,896 experts anticipated that robotics and artificial intelligence will “permeate wide segments of daily life by 2025.” The commission's artificial intelligence project will investigate the shape and speed of these changes in California and in society.
Through its public process, the commission intends to study the key challenges of artificial intelligence in California, its economic implications and how it can be used to solve societal ills. The commission will review issues such as justice, equity, safety and privacy. The project will consider recent studies on workforce impacts, which could include both job creation and job displacement. Possible mitigations and worker protections will be discussed as will examples of efforts to plan and prepare for innovations and labor transformations.
To read Humiston's full testimony to the Little Hoover Commission, visit http://www.lhc.ca.gov/sites/lhc.ca.gov/files/CurrentStudies/ArtificialIntelligence/WrittenTestimony/HumistonJan2018.pdf.
