The systemwide UCPath Steering Committee has decided the new launch date for UCPath at UC ANR, UC Davis and UC Davis Health will be Oct. 1, with cutover activities happening in September.
The decision for UC ANR to launch UCPath on Oct. 1 comes on the heels of a smooth transition to UCPath at UC Berkeley over the last month. UC ANR's project team continues to work closely with their counterparts at UC Berkeley and other UC locations to collect lessons learned and best practices to prepare for our transition.
“I would like to express my gratitude to our UC ANR colleagues across the state who continue to maintain UC ANR's readiness to cut over to UCPath,” said Tu M. Tran, associate vice president, business operations.
The UC ANR team is using the extra time to review our readiness and focus on training and transition activities. We will continue to share information as we approach the new target go-live date.
- Author: Dave Jones, Dateline UC Davis editor
Helene Dillard, who studied for her advanced degrees in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, or CA&ES, during Hess' time as dean, is now the dean herself — fully cognizant of Hess' role in the college's status as a global leader in agriculture.
“We would not be where we are today without Charley's vision and leadership,” said Dillard, a plant pathologist who was appointed dean in January 2014 a few months before Hess received the UC Davis Medal, the campus's highest honor. “Charley was a wonderful colleague, an inspirational teacher, a tremendous mentor and a dear friend to our college and the people we serve.”
Hess earned a Bachelor of Science degree in plant science at Rutgers University, a Master of Science degree in horticulture and plant pathology at Cornell, and a Ph.D. in horticulture, plant physiology and plant pathology, also at Cornell. He joined the Purdue faculty in 1958, then returned to Rutgers in 1966 as chair of the Department of Horticulture and Forestry. He advanced to acting dean of Rutgers' College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 1971 and two years later became the founding dean of Rutgers' Cook College (today known as the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences).
He became the dean at UC Davis in 1975 and held the post until 1989. His faculty appointment was in the Department of Environmental Horticulture (now part of the Department of Plant Sciences).
Born into agriculture
He was a natural in the plant world, born Dec. 20, 1931, in New Jersey, into a family with a nursery business in Wayne. He could have joined the business after college, but the science bug bit him. Still, as an academic and administrator, he developed strong relationships in agriculture at all levels, from small businesses like his family's, to industry giants — and, of course, with student farmers, too, having been an enthusiastic supporter of the UC Davis Student Farm since its inception in 1977 in his second year as CA&ES dean.
The farm eventually became part of the Sustainable Agriculture Research Education Program that was established later during his tenure as dean. He also participated in the development and funding of California's Integrated Pest Management Program and the UC Davis Biotechnology Program, and he facilitated the move of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Western Human Nutrition Center from San Francisco to UC Davis.
He stepped down as dean, after 14 years, to accept an appointment by President George H.W. Bush to be the assistant secretary for science and education in the USDA, serving from 1989 to 1991. Prior to that, Hess had two presidential appointments to the National Science Board, the governing board of the National Science Foundation.
Hess accepts the UC Davis Medal
He was one of the principle architects of the National Research Initiative, which evolved into the competitive grants program of the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Yolo County farmer Richard Rominger '49, former deputy secretary at the USDA and director of the state Department of Food and Agriculture, said: "Charley was a much loved and respected leader at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and at UC Davis, recognized for his accomplishments and contributions to the greater world of agriculture, education and science.”
Back on campus, he took an appointment as UC Davis' first director of international programs in 1992. He officially “retired” in 1994 but kept right on working in international programs until 1998. He would go on to serve as special assistant to the provost and chancellor, 2003-04; and subsequently held temporary positions as chair of the Department of Nutrition and vice chancellor of research.
He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society for Horticultural Science, and had been inducted into the society's Horticulture Hall of Fame. The College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the USDA also had honored him for distinguished service.
Hess is survived by his wife of 38 years, Eva, and their son, Peter Hess, and four children from his earlier marriage to Marie C. Lilliedoll: Mary Foster (and husband Mike Foster), Carol Hess Allan, Nancy Hess (and husband Garry Buchko) and John Hess. Other survivors include daughter-in-law Akiko Ogura; and five grandchildren, Julie (Foster) Mecca, Brian Foster, Alex Buchko, Jules Buchko and Emma Hess.
His family is planning a memorial celebration for late May. Dateline UC Davis will post an announcement when the arrangements are final.
Other contributors to this report: Diane Nelson, senior writer in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; Maril Stratton, associate chancellor emerita; and Pat Bailey, retired senior public information representative.
Read the full story at https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/dean-emeritus-charley-hess-dies-87.
A major factor in job satisfaction is the extent to which people feel part of a wider supportive community. Such connections have historically been offered in UC ANR through various means, including our structural units (i.e., our 81 workgroups, 21 program teams and 5 strategic initiatives).
Healthy organizations should regularly look at their structure. Important elements of structure include how the pieces fit together and how people may better connect to more effectively implement their work. In the summer of 2018, we began a series of discussions and surveys to revisit aspects of our structure.
Thank you to the 120-plus people who provided input on our structure and suggestions regarding how we may connect.
Findings
1. Clarity of purpose:
The seeming fuzziness of the roles and goals of our workgroups (WGs), program teams (PTs) and strategic initiatives (SIs) is not as great as people may think. Many consistent findings arose across the different structural groups. A summary of our findings follows.
Workgroups (our oldest unit of structure) are the most readily understood. They represent active “communities of practice” (that can come and go) and are the primary place where people plan and implement (noting that such groups are both formal and informal).
One point of interest is that people didn't realize they could close or start workgroups as needed.
Program teams bring together people (typically from different workgroups) who are working on related but distinctly different topics to network, share and learn.
One clear observation is that PTs vary considerably in terms of the diversity of WG representation (e.g., 1 PT has 12 WGs and a few PTs have just 1 WG).
SIs are our highest form of aggregation (and currently the one that enjoys the least clarity). They function to unify, communicate and advocate as the umbrellas for the work we do. The recent addition for the SIs is the development of the focal areas and grand challenges, providing the opportunity to see the unifying focus in our efforts.
For more information about how workgroups, program teams and strategic initiatives fit together, see https://ucanr.edu/sites/StrategicInitiatives/files/295191.pdf.
2. Workgroups – Don't fix it if it ain't broken:
Of the 81 workgroups, 21 are considered very active and effective - while another 29 are somewhat active and 3 are new in 2019. The remaining 28 WGs have been inactive, as reflected by personnel or goal changes and will be officially closed (see list below). These can be easily reopened if demand arises.
The goal is for WGs to align with a single PT, which likely means realigning the PTs - see point No. 3 below. Currently some workgroups have no PT, whereas other WGs have aligned with many PTs.
3. Reformulate the topic areas for program teams:
The next step is to collect input and look at reformulating/reaffirming the PT themes. Currently, we have 21 PT themes. Some have no WGs under them. Others have many WGs under them. Some workgroups have aligned under many PTs, which creates uneven structure and at times uneven activity.
As we go forward, we encourage people to identify PT themes to 1) better represent the collective work of UC ANR, 2) create or show clearer paths for people to connect at the WG, PT and SI levels, and 3) help us refine the SI focal areas and grand challenges – providing greater clarity of our efforts and clearer SI alignment with the reformulated PT themes and WG efforts.
Opportunity for more input on PT themes
The PT discussions will include a webinar and county visits over summer.
Thank you all for your efforts and we welcome input.
Sincerely,
Mark Bell (Vice Provost Strategic Initiatives and Statewide Programs)
Strategic Initiative Leaders
HFC: Lynn Schmitt-McQuitty
SFS: Deanne Meyer and Neil McRoberts
Water: David Lewis
SNE: David Lile
Pests: Jim Farrar
—————————————
Workgroups to close. Note: If there is interest and leadership, workgroups can be readily opened by this simple new workgroup request.
1. Air Quality
2. Animals in Educational Settings
3. Bioenergy
4. Body Weight and Health
5. Building Food Security
6. Conservation Biology
7. Dairy Goats
8. Ecological Restoration
9. Economics and Management in Food, Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment
10. Environmental Observation Network
11. European Pear
12. Exotic Fruit Fly
13. Garden-based Learning
14. Health Promotion & Disease Prevention
15. Mosquito Research and Extension
16. Pest Management in ANR
17. Postharvest Integrated Pest Management
18. Rangeland Watershed Program
19. Turfgrass
20. Urban Horticulture
21. Water Quality
22. Woody Biomass Utilization
23. Families with Young Children
24. Food Safety Horticultural Crops
25. Land Use
26. Linking Research & Education in Agricultural & Environmental Biotechnology
27. Peppers
28. Spray Application Technology
Information collected by USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) directly from farmers and ranchers shows both farm numbers and land in farms have ongoing small percentage declines since the last Census in 2012. At the same time, there continue to be more of the largest and smallest operations and fewer middle-sized farms. The average age of all farmers and ranchers continues to rise.
“We are pleased to deliver Census of Agriculture results to America, and especially to the farmers and ranchers who participated,” said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue. “We can all use the Census to tell the tremendous story of U.S. agriculture and how it is changing. As a data-driven organization, we are eager to dig in to this wealth of information to advance our goals of supporting farmers and ranchers, facilitating rural prosperity, and strengthening stewardship of private lands efficiently, effectively, and with integrity.”
“The Census shows new data that can be compared to previous censuses for insights into agricultural trends and changes down to the county level,” said NASS Administrator Hubert Hamer. “While the current picture shows a consistent trend in the structure of U.S. agriculture, there are some ups and downs since the last Census as well as first-time data on topics such as military status and on-farm decisionmaking. To make it easier to delve into the data, we are pleased to make the results available in many online formats including a new data query interface, as well as traditional data tables.”
Census data provide valuable insights into demographics, economics, land and activities on U.S. farms and ranches. Some key highlights include:
- There are 2.04 million farms and ranches (down 3.2% from 2012) with an average size of 441 acres (up 1.6%) on 900 million acres (down 1.6%).
- The 273,000 smallest (1-9 acres) farms make up 0.1% of all farmland while the 85,127 largest (2,000 or more acres) farms make up 58% of farmland.
- Just 105,453 farms produced 75% of all sales in 2017, down from 119,908 in 2012.
- Of the 2.04 million farms and ranches, the 76,865 making $1 million or more in 2017 represent just over two-thirds of the $389 billion in total value of production while the 1.56 million operations making under $50,000 represent just 2.9%.
- Farm expenses are $326 billion with feed, livestock purchased, hired labor, fertilizer and cash rents topping the list of farm expenses in 2017.
- Average farm income is $43,053. A total of 43.6% of farms had positive net cash farm income in 2017.
- Ninety-six percent of farms and ranches are family owned.
- Farms with Internet access rose from 69.6% in 2012 to 75.4% in 2017.
- A total of 133,176 farms and ranches use renewable energy producing systems, more than double the 57,299 in 2012.
- In 2017, 130,056 farms sold directly to consumers, with sales of $2.8 billion.
- Sales to retail outlets, institutions and food hubs by 28,958 operations are valued at $9 billion.
For the 2017 Census of Agriculture, NASS changed the demographic questions to better represent the roles of all persons involved in on-farm decision making. As a result, in 2017 the number of producers is up by nearly 7% to 3.4 million, because more farms reported multiple producers. Most of the newly identified producers are female. While the number of male producers fell 1.7% to 2.17 million from 2012 to 2017, the number of female producers increased by nearly 27% to 1.23 million.
Other demographic highlights include:
- The average age of all producers is 57.5, up 1.2 years from 2012.
- The number of producers who have served in the military is 370,619, or 11% of all. They are older than the average at 67.9.
- There are 321,261 young producers age 35 or less on 240,141 farms. Farms with young producers making decisions tend to be larger than average in both acres and sales.
- More than any other age group, young producers make decisions regarding livestock, though the difference is slight.
- One in four producers is a beginning farmer with 10 or fewer years of experience and an average age of 46.3 years. Farms with new or beginning producers making decisions tend to be smaller than average in both acres and value of production.
- Thirty-six percent of all producers are female and 56% of all farms have at least one female decisionmaker. Farms with female producers making decisions tend to be smaller than average in both acres and value of production.
- Female producers are most heavily engaged in the day-to-day decisions along with record keeping and financial management.
Results are available in many online formats including video presentations, a new data query interface, maps, and traditional data tables. All information is available at www.nass.usda.gov/AgCensus.
NASS sends questionnaires to nearly 3 million potential U.S. farms and ranches. Nearly 25 percent of those who responded did so online.
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
The Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC) is soliciting proposals for new research and extension projects for the period July 1, 2019, through June 30, 2020. The center provides research project access to 5,358 acres of Northern California Coast Range landscape which, unlike the UC Natural Reserve System, can be manipulated to provide field conditions matching research needs. This setting provides a rich, diversified opportunity for natural resources and agricultural research and extension programs, especially on topics pertinent to oak woodlands and rangelands of the central and northern coast of California.
Research proposals must be submitted through http://hrec.ucanr.edu/Research/Submitting_a_Proposal. The deadline to submit a research proposal is May 17, 2019. 2019-2020 Research Rates can be found at http://hrec.ucanr.edu/Research/Current_Research_Rates.
Among the highlights of HREC are:
- A wide variety of elevations from 600 feet to 3000 feet with four principle vegetation types (grass, woodland-grass, dense woodland, and chaparral) interspersed with riparian corridors around natural springs and ponds and seasonal vernal pools. HREC also has 25 acres of irrigated pasture.
- A rich flora and fauna including more than 600 plant and 300 animal species. HREC also has one of the most intensively studied resident herds of Columbian black-tailed deer on the West Coast.
- A variety of land management regimes across a mosaic of pastures, from heavily grazed by our sheep flock to biological reserves not grazed since the 1950s, from areas which have not seen fire in decades to a wide swath burned by wildfire in July/August of 2018.
- A staff skilled in a wide variety of agricultural techniques and methods, from animal husbandry and wildlife management to irrigation and equipment fabrication, all available to assist with project tasks.
- A rich vault of previous research to reference for past data, particularly in the fields of plant and animal science, ecology, hydrology, entomology, fire science, and natural resource management.
- An extensive, well maintained road network which provides easy access to most of the center lands.
- A conference hall for larger group events, a field lab, a newly renovated lab, a greenhouse, a large lysimeter, fully equipped shops for fabricating or repairing equipment, a fleet of vehicles and agricultural equipment to use at the center, and various warehouses available for equipment and sample storage.
- Accommodations for longer visits, ranging from dormitory-style bunkhouse to private houses. Hopland REC also has fiber optic high-speed internet and wifi service throughout its headquarters area.
Potential researchers should direct questions to John Bailey, Hopland REC director, at jtbailey@ucanr.edu.