- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
UC ANR experts available to comment
California farmers stand to benefit from the addition of more commodities now covered by the USDA Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, say UC Agriculture and Natural Resources experts. Yesterday (Aug. 11) the U.S. Department of Agriculture expanded eligibility and extended the deadline to apply to Sept 11.
Farmers of aquaculture, nursery crops and flowers, sheep and specialty crops such as dates, dragon fruit, nectarines, pomegranates, pumpkins and many other specialty crops grown in California are now eligible for financial assistance to help keep their operations afloat during the business disruption caused by the pandemic.
Below are UC Cooperative Extension advisors and specialists who are available for comment:
Daniel Macon, UC Cooperative Extension livestock and natural resources advisor serving Placer, Nevada, Sutter and Yuba counties, dmacon@ucanr.edu
“Including all sheep will be HUGE for California producers. Most California lambs are born in the fall and marketed in the late spring. The rest of the West has lambs born in the spring and marketed in the fall/winter/early spring. The original CFAP payments provided a maximum payout to lambs that would have been marketed earlier than most California lambs. And provided no payment for what we call running-age ewes (breeding animals).”
Jackson Gross, UC Cooperative Extension aquaculture specialist at UC Davis, jagross@ucdavis.edu
“This is a big distinction for our California freshwater fish producers. While it doesn't cover all of the diversity in California aquaculture, it does cover the majority of our industry as far as freshwater fish producers. A specialty crop distinction is important for our fish farmers, making them eligible for specialty crop funding and numerous other federal and state programs that were previously inaccessible.”
Cheryl Wilen, director of UC Cooperative Extension in San Diego County, cawilen@ucanr.edu
“It is my impression that ornamental nurseries will really have a good opportunity to recover money for unsold crops.”
Ruth Dahlquist-Willard, UC Cooperative Extension small farms and specialty crops farm advisor for Fresno and Tulare counties, rdwillard@ucanr.edu
"The addition of crops such as bok choy, daikon, winter melon, and turmeric expands the program to include more of the specialty produce grown on small-scale Southeast Asian farms in the Central Valley. However, highly diversified farms may find it difficult to apply for small acreages of multiple crops, and with USDA offices operating remotely, additional technical assistance is needed to support farmers with the application process."
Ramiro Lobo, UC Cooperative Extension small farms and agricultural economics advisor in San Diego County, relobo@ucanr.edu
“The specific mention of minor crops can be significant for small-scale growers in the state, and Southern California in particular for growers of crops like dragon fruit, and other minor subtropicals because it legitimizes them as commercial crops.”
Aparna Gazula, UC Cooperative Extension small farms and specialty crops farm advisor for Santa Clara, San Benito, and Santa Cruz counties, agazula@ucanr.edu
“It's great that the USDA Coronavirus Food Assistance Program has been expanded to include more minor crops. I hope the USDA offices have bilingual staff who can work with socially disadvantaged farmers with language barriers that often grow these crops.”
Aliasghar Montazar, UC Cooperative Extension irrigation and water management advisor in Imperial and Riverside counties, amontazar@ucanr.edu
“Maintaining date palms over the season is very labor oriented. During February to May, a lot of activities need to be conducted at a certain time. As you know, we had high pressure from the pandemic in the Coachella Valley during these months. It made labor less available, which created some challenges for growers.”
Mae Culumber, UC Cooperative Extension nut crop advisor in Fresno County, cmculumber@ucanr.edu
“Almonds, pistachios and walnuts commodities all suffered a price decline between mid-January and mid-April as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thirty to 50 percent of the previous season's crop is normally marketed during this time of the year. The CFAP program will provide financial relief for losses due to price decline and spoiled shipments that lost a marketing channel due to the pandemic. Commodity boards are working with the Farm Service Agency to assist producers in applying for the program.”
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
“A group of us are retooling our workshops for online delivery and have seen tremendous interest,” said Yana Valachovic, UC Cooperative Extension forest advisor in Humboldt County. “We have been blown away by the interest in this approach. The April oak health workshop has over 452 people registered after a week of advertising. We probably would have only had 40 people for an in-person event.”
She added, “The prescribed fire for foresters class has 225 people registered after a week of advertising and we probably would have only had 60 people for an in-person event.”
“I am humbled by the interest and hopeful that we'll be able to deliver meaningful content and interaction,” Valachovic said. To accommodate a larger number of participants, she said they are prerecording talks, gathering questions in advance to manage the deluge of questions flowing into the chat box and scheduling live Q and A sessions on Zoom with the speakers and attendees.
For UC Master Food Preservers, nutrition educators and anyone else interested in safe food handling, Erin DiCaprio, UC Cooperative Extension food safety specialist in the Department of Food Science and Technology at UC Davis, partnered with colleagues at North Carolina State University to create coronavirus and food safety materials. There are nine peer-reviewed fact sheets answering COVID-19-related questions about takeout food, food safety, handling groceries and more. The fact sheets can be downloaded free from the COVID-19 section of the ANR catalog: https://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/Items.aspx?hierId=1100.
The UC Master Food Preserver Program is training its volunteers via Zoom https://ucfoodsafety.ucdavis.edu/consumers/food-safety-home/home-food-preservation/uc-master-food-preserver-food-safety-training and will be demonstrating food preservation techniques via YouTube like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeoymcsLWlg.
To help Californians support local farmers, the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education Program created the UC Agritourism Directory at www.calagtour.org. Consumers can look up local farms and ranches and purchase directly from the producer. The new UC SAREP webpage COVID-19 Shelter-in-Place Direct-from-Farm Resources, at http://www.calagtour.org/Shelter-in-Place_Resources, includes information and links to farms and ranches that offer box deliveries, farm stands, online ordering, delivery and pickup services, organized by region.
The UC Master Gardener Program is offering online training for volunteers at http://mg.ucanr.edu/Resources/eXtension_Campus/. Home gardeners trying to grow their own food can find resources at https://ucanr.edu/Coronavirus_and_COVID-19/Gardening/ and ask their local UC Master Gardener volunteers questions. To find local UC Master Gardeners, visit http://mg.ucanr.edu/FindUs/.
California Institute for Water Resources has created a new Water and COVID-19 web page that curates water safety, water use and water supply information. It includes links to information about COVID-19 from the Centers for Disease Control in Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean and from the World Health Organization in Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, and Russian. They plan to update the page at http://ciwr.ucanr.edu/California_Drought_Expertise/Water_COVID19 as the COVID-19 situation evolves.
In response to school closures, the UC Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program, or EFNEP, and CalFresh Healthy Living UC staff members statewide are providing curricula and other resources to teachers and community organizations to continue nutrition education.
“We surveyed the needs of the educators and are exploring ways to continue to offer evidence-based curriculum while building skills for staff in the area of online and distance learning, using Zoom and social media platforms, such as Facebook Live and YouTube, and other learning platforms such as Google Classroom,” said Katie Panarella, director of UC ANR's Nutrition, Family and Consumer Sciences Program.
Parents who are home schooling their children can get curricula and ideas for educational activities from their local UC Cooperative Extension offices.
The following are a few examples of UC Cooperative Extension activities in counties.
In San Luis Obispo County, CalFresh Health Living, UC built a YouTube Channel to provide nutrition, food safety and physical activity lessons that educators share with their students as part of their assigned schoolwork during shelter in place orders https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN8eCNc4m1vCbgFrld42MHw/videos.
“Parents should check out our YouTube station for videos featuring nutrition educators covering topics from nutrition and cooking to fun physical activities that don't require any equipment,” Shannon Klisch, CalFresh Health Living, UC program supervisor in San Luis Obispo County.
“There are great ideas for active learning like the Alphabet scavenger hunt at https://youtu.be/M5wMryJkH7M, she said. “And lessons about the importance of eating a variety of foods using MyPlate, including the “Dairy gives us strong bones lesson” with a yogurt parfait recipe included that children of many different ages can help assemble at https://youtu.be/_OUF1nKMKMM.
For kids in Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado and Tuolumne counties, UCCE 4-H advisor JoLynn Miller has been livestreaming lessons on FaceBook Live at https://www.facebook.com/Tuolumnecounty4h. She recently wore a crazy hairdo for Spirit Week while delivering an embryology lesson featuring hatching chicks https://www.facebook.com/Tuolumnecounty4h/videos/235774560806010/.
In Sonoma County, UC Cooperative Extension created a Food Recovery Coalition webpage https://ucanr.edu/sites/SCRFC/ listing opportunities to volunteer, donate and more.
In San Bernardino County, UC Cooperative Extension is offering online classes twice a week on topics including growing food, sustainable landscaping, composting and pest management. For upcoming events, visit http://mgsb.ucanr.edu/.
In Tulare and Kings counties, Alice Escalante, UC ANR adult nutrition educator, is using WhatsApp to motivate her Walking Club participants to continue striding toward their walking goal of 10,000 steps a day as part of CalFresh Health Living, UC's nutrition and physical activity program.
In Imperial County, 4-H program representative Anita Martinez is leading cooking demonstrations and organizing 4-H All Stars to show their cooking skills via Facebook Live three times per week. “We have done nine cooking demonstrations on Facebook Live with more than 1.5k views for each one,” wrote Yu Meng, UC Cooperative Extension youth, family and community advisor.
In Sutter County, UC nutrition educators distributed "Lunch to Grow" packages to 125 families at a Yuba City Elementary School drive-through lunch pick up. Each package contained one vegetable plant seedling, a small bag of potting soil, a small pot and instructions for planting.
Starting in Napa County on April 11, people can join the SOD Blitz, a sudden oak death disease mapping project. Matteo Garbelotto, UCCE forest pathology specialist and adjunct professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley, redesigned the annual citizen science project to adhere to current coronavirus precautions to ensure the safety of participants. The series of SOD Blitzes will be held in communities between Napa and San Luis Obispo through June. For more information and the latest schedule, visit www.sodblitz.org.
Find a link to UCCE in your county on the map at https://ucanr.edu/About/Locations/.
- Author: Linda Forbes
UC Agriculture and Natural Resources is available to assist Californians across the state during the new coronavirus crisis. We are working differently, but we are still working to help residents improve their lives and businesses with resources on growing food in a garden, preserving food, entertaining kids with educational activities and many other useful topics at ucanr.edu.
We are finding opportunities to make life easier for communities. For example, in Sonoma County, UC Cooperative Extension developed an online Food Distribution Directory with CropMobster. “By changing our relationship to food waste, we can use excess, high quality food to feed people in need,” said Stephanie Larson, UC Cooperative Extension director for Sonoma County. For more information visit https://maps.cropmobster.com/food-distribution-directory/ and https://ucanr.edu/sites/SCRFC.
UC ANR Climate Smart Agriculture Community Education Specialists are assisting growers in applying for cost-share funds from CDFA's Climate Smart Agriculture programs, helping with filing paperwork with CDFA and implementing the cost-shared Climate Smart Agriculture practices. All of our technical assistance providers are currently working remotely and available via email, telephone, Zoom and other virtual communications technologies.
The University of California is vigilantly monitoring and responding to new information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, which has been declared a global health emergency. UC Agriculture and Natural Resources employees are working remotely during their normal business hours and performing essential duties (such as feeding animals), protective measures that align with COVID-19 guidance from public health officials and the UC Office of the President. This status will be in effect through April 7, 2020, and may be extended.
We are also mindful of official guidance concerning social distancing; all in-person events will be canceled, postponed or conducted by Zoom through April 7 or until the guidance is modified. This includes all volunteer-led youth or adult programming, meetings or gatherings. Visit https://ucanr.edu/sites/PSU/ or contact your local UC Cooperative Extension office for information on event status.
Again, we are working and available. UC ANR is maintaining critical research projects and delivering programs online. We are exploring innovative ways to connect with the public using technology and working with our partners. UC ANR employees can be reached as normal through email or Zoom video conferencing.
Useful information is available at the following links.
- 4-H Youth Development Program
- Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program
- UC Master Food Preserver Program
- UC Master Gardener Program
Find your local UC Cooperative Extension office contact information here.
Additional information from our programs may be found at:
- Agricultural Issues Center
- California Institute for Water Resources
- California Naturalist Program
- CalFresh Healthy Living, UC
- Informatics and GIS Program
- Nutrition Policy Institute
- Research and Extension Center System
- Research and Information Centers
- Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (IPM)
- Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SAREP)
We also encourage members of the public to subscribe to our YouTube channels and follow our social media platforms:
- UC ANR (English)
- UC ANR (Spanish)
- Master Gardener Program
- Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (IPM)
We look forward to seeing you online for the present time. What else can we do to help you? Send your suggestions to UC ANR Strategic Communications.