- Author: Diane Nelson
Now there is, thanks to the UC Davis Postharvest Technology Center’s new Produce Professional Certificate Program, the first of its kind in the world. Led by a cadre of the most respected experts in postharvest technology, the certificate program covers everything from safety, new technologies, physiology, harvesting, cooling, transportation, ripening, marketing fresh produce and more.
“It’s fantastic,” said Leo Kelly, a product development specialist with Monsanto Vegetable Seeds who focuses on developing tomatoes, peppers, melon, broccoli and other commodities with improved traits like flavor, nutrition, color and convenience. When the Postharvest Technology Center first started offering the Professional Certificate Program in early 2013, Kelly was among the first in line.
“I had attended some of their other courses and I really admire the instructors’ knowledge and expertise,” Kelly said. “This certificate program gives me a deeper understanding of the science behind postharvest technology, the reason you do the things you do, like store tomatoes at a different temperature than onions.”
Kelly has a Ph.D. in cereal biochemistry, 20 years experience in the food industry, and five years experience with Monsanto. And, he says, there is still so much more to learn.
The program allows participants to customize their curriculum through an a-la-carte menu of classes in addition to three core classes — the Postharvest Technology Short Course, the Produce Safety Course and either the Fruit Ripening and Retail Handling Workshop or the Fresh Cut Products Workshop. Some of the customized classes can be taken online and you have four years to finish.
“That’s very convenient for working people like me,” Kelly said. “You can keep your job and get the education.”
The program is designed for anyone in the fresh produce industry, no matter their specialty or level of experience. Postharvest technology involves people all along the supply chain — growers, shippers, packers, retail and others — and Kelly says participants benefit from that diversity.
“You network with people throughout the industry and from all over the globe,” Kelly said.
The produce professional certificate program will help employers, job-seekers and anyone who wants to expand their postharvest expertise, said Beth Mitcham, director of the Postharvest Technology Center and a postharvest biologist and Cooperative Extension specialist with the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis.
“When produce industry employers are hiring, candidates with a Produce Professional Certificate will have an advantage over other candidates,” Mitcham said. “When you know the candidate has learned and demonstrated knowledge of best practices for produce handling, you’re confident they will be an assist to your company.”
Depending on which courses you chose, the certificate program will cost about $7,500 over four years. For more details, check out the Postharvest Technology Center website at http://postharvest.ucdavis.edu/ or contact the center staff at (530) 752-6941 or postharvest@ucdavis.edu.
Media contacts:
- Diane Nelson, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, (530) 752-1969, denelson@ucdavis.edu
- Beth Mitcham, UC Davis Postharvest Technology Center, (530) 752-7512, ejmitcham@ucdavis.edu
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
After systematically compiling the literature and reviewing a sample of about a third of the articles, the team identified three recurring strategic challenges facing practitioners: (1) an economic challenge of finding prices that balance farmers' incomes with food access for low-income consumers, (2) a social challenge to confront racial and class injustice, and (3) a political challenge of reconciling incremental and systemic change strategies. The authors elaborate on these challenges, giving examples such as the debate surrounding conventionalization of organics, and the issue of cultural privilege, referencing articles from the bibliography to demonstrate the ways they are framed by practitioners and academics.
"Our hope is to foster a conversation about community food systems in which research and practice are mutually reinforcing," says co-author David Campbell, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Human and Community Development at UC Davis. "We started compiling the bibliography to help researchers focus on the most pressing questions for practitioners, but it's also a resource that practitioners can use to find academic work that speaks to the promise and limits of existing strategies. Already we are seeing a significant improvement in the quality and utility of research being done by UC Davis graduate students."
The paper concludes with suggestions for research that responds to the challenges and unites practitioners and academics. Campbell and co-authors Gail Feenstra, food systems analyst for the University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, and graduate student Ildi Carlisle-Cummins, invite others to use and build on the community food systems bibliography to add to the dialog between theory and practice. The bibliographies compiled by the UC Davis researchers are available at http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/sfs/CFSresources.
The Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development article "Community food systems: Strengthening the research-to-practice continuum," can be downloaded for free until Aug. 31, 2013, at http://www.agdevjournal.com/volume-3-issue-3/343-community-food-systems.html?catid=136%3Aopen-access-aug-2013.
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
“Dan is the epitome of a farm advisor,” said Jack Cowley, president of the California Beef Cattle Improvement Association. “He advised us on all kinds of issues.”
Cowley has worked with Drake for nearly 30 years. After 29 years of practice as an ophthalmologist in Sacramento, Cowley pursued his dream of becoming a cattle rancher and has consulted Drake on many occasions.
“He helped us with animal health records, organizing breeding, animal nutrition and water issues,” said Cowley. “He helped everybody with farm issues and never turned us down.”
Back in the 1980s, before computers were in every home, Drake co-authored a UC Cooperative Extension publication on how to use computers.
“He was a computer wiz,” Cowley said. “Most of us older farmers and ranchers didn't know much about computers so he helped us navigate computer issues.”
Drake earned a bachelor's degree in zoology at California State University, Long Beach, in 1974 and a master's in animal science at UC Davis in 1977 before starting his career with UC Cooperative Extension in 1978. He later earned a Ph.D. in animal science from Oregon State University in 1988.
Early in his career, Drake helped introduce to Siskiyou County no-till planting methods, intensive grazing management and triticale forage systems. He identified a new rangeland plant, Monte Frio rose clover, an annual clover suited for cold, mountainous areas such as Siskiyou County.
White muscle disease, a disease cattle get from insufficient selenium in their diet, was well known but he further defined its implications on growth and championed alternative and multiple selenium supplementation methods. He also began testing animal and plant tissue and soil at ranches to identify where adding selenium might pose environmental problems.
“When he started, I was 17 and a 4-H exhibitor at the fair,” said Cliff Munson, now CEO of the Siskiyou Golden Fair.
“He led efforts that improved beef production,” said Munson, who is also president of the Siskiyou County Cattlemen's Association. “Carcass data continues to get better and better. For example, he was instrumental to moving the fair to ultrasound data.”
With Jim Oltjen, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Animal Science at UC Davis, Drake developed procedures for using ultrasound in youth beef carcass contests. The practice is used statewide nowadays. Using an ultrasound device, like those used on pregnant women to view unborn babies, Drake showed ranchers and 4-H youth how to evaluate the quality of meat on a live animal. They can determine the size of the ribeye, fat thickness and marbling.
4-H members dramatically improved their results using ultrasound data. In 2010, 93 percent of the 45 carcasses entered by 4-H members in the Siskiyou Golden Fair were graded Choice minus or better, compared to 36 percent to 68 percent in previous years.
“This aspect is very important as it is part of the transition that has occurred with producers from raising cattle to raising beef,” Drake said. “It ties in with all of the special niche markets as well.”
For further refinement in breeding beef cattle, Drake studied DNA with Alison Van Eenennaam, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Animal Science at UC Davis, testing national DNA prediction equations in local commercial beef ranches.
“In the last few years, he's helped us understand genetics of the animals,” said Cowley. “We can select our animals to improve the production and quality of the product so that it's healthier for humans.”
Cowley explained, “My medical background helped me understand animal genetics. We can modify the genetics to improve the quality of the beef to make it more heart healthy.”
Throughout his career, Drake wrote a monthly newsletter called the Siskiyou Stockman to keep ranchers apprised of the latest research. He served as co-editor of the UC beef publication “Fundamentals of Beef Management.”
Recently Drake and Van Eenennaam finished on a three-year project studying the parentage and animal genetics of Cowley's and two other Siskiyou County ranch animals. With the data, they will evaluate DNA prediction equations and hope to develop economic models to identify which animals are likely to be worth more money based on their genetics.
The American Society of Animal Science honored Drake with their Western Section Extension award in 2007. UC Cooperative Extension recognized his teaching accomplishments with a Distinguished Service Award.
Drake has also volunteered to help producers in other countries. He visited cattle producers in Kazakhstan three times, showing them how to keep records on a computer and update their artificial insemination practices. In Mali, he advised a women's cooperative on accounting and other business practices.
“They used animals as a bank account. When they needed funds they would sell the animals,” Drake said. He advised the women to sell their sheep and goats when they were ready for harvest and to invest their resources in raising another animal for optimal economic return and better use of their scarce natural resources.
In retirement, Drake looks forward to doing more international consulting. “I have particularly enjoyed international volunteer work for animal producers and will do more,” he said.
He also intends to spend time playing baseball (hardball not softball), dog training, duck hunting and traveling for pleasure.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The July ACP find prompted the California Department of Food and Agriculture to quarantine 178 square miles in the Porterville area, placing severe restrictions on the movement of local citrus nursery stock and citrus fruit outside the area. It also prompted several hundred farmers and pest control advisers to gather July 30 at the International Agri-Center in Tulare for an update on the threat.
Like a scene from the film “Scared Straight,” Ken Keck, former executive director of the Florida Department of Citrus and now director of the California Citrus Research Board, admonished the California farmers to learn from the Sunshine State’s mistakes.
“I feel like the ex-con in front of a room of 17-year-olds,” Keck said. “All I can say is, ‘prevent, prevent, prevent.’”
Asian citrus psyllid is established in Southern California. Efforts in the southern part of the state are focused on managing the psyllids to reduce the likelihood they will find a tree infected with huanglongbing. Huanglongbing (HLB) is an incurable and fatal disease of citrus spread by ACP.
By working together and following science-based treatment strategies, UC Cooperative Extension specialist Beth Grafton-Cardwell believes farmers and CDFA can still eliminate ACP in the San Joaquin Valley, where the bulk of the state’s commercial citrus is grown.
At the Tulare meeting, Grafton-Cardwell explained the eradication strategy she developed by studying Asian citrus psyllid and huanglongbing disease management programs in Florida and Texas, another state where the pest is well established.
“We want to slow the spread of psyllid into new areas,” Grafton-Cardwell said. “We want to prevent psyllids from finding HLB infected trees.”
Although it is unlikely the pest and disease can be kept at bay indefinitely, Grafton-Cardwell said the battle will buy time for researchers to discover long-term approaches for maintaining California’s citrus industry in the presence of ACP and HLB.
Developing citrus varieties resistant to HLB through traditional breeding or genetic modification will take too long, she said. Scientists are considering such futuristic solutions as inserting HLB resistance into a mild form of the Tristeza virus and inoculating trees with the virus to fight HLB.
“Everyone is racing to come up with tactics to fight ACP and HLB,” she said. “I believe we will eventually be using multiple approaches, such as a repellent spray to keep ACP off the trees and perhaps breeding ACP that can’t transmit HLB and then flooding the population with these incapacitated psyllids.”
To fight ACP and HLB, growers and homeowners can access detailed information on the pest’s distribution, monitoring methods and treatment options on a new website created by Grafton-Cardwell with funding from UC Agriculture and Natural Resources.
For tap sampling, spray a plastic surface with |
The website advises farmers and homeowners to regularly conduct visual surveys and tap sampling (see video on right) in their orchards. “Yellow sticky card traps are not very attractive to psyllids,” it says.
If psyllids are found, immediate action is required.
Adult psyllids should be placed in a container with 90% alcohol and reported to the county agricultural commissioner’s office so the insect can be tested for HLB. Immature stages of the pest should be left on the tree so the ag commissioner’s office can make an official regulatory collection.
An ACP find should also trigger rapid and wide treatment with the most effective pesticides possible.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
“We want to introduce more farmers to these proven technologies,” said Jeff Mitchell, UCCE specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis and field day coordinator. “We’ve done research here, and there’s a lot of work from other areas showing that these systems work and they save water, reduce dust, store carbon in the soil and save farmers money.”
This year, the event has been expanded to include an afternoon bus tour to three San Joaquin Valley farms where conservation agriculture systems are already being successfully implemented. Registrants will gather at 1 p.m. at the UC Westside Research and Extension Center, 17353 West Oakland Ave., Five Points, to load the buses.
The farm tour visits:
- Johnny and Joann Tacharra Dairy in Burrel. The Tacharras will explain their plans to apply dairy waste water through an overhead irrigation system to grow forage crops.
- Armando Galvan of Five Points Ranch. Galvan will show how he refined his irrigation system to apply water to vegetable and row crops. Galvan installs special nozzles and boom configurations on his overhead irrigation drop lines that are designed to improve water infiltration and avoid ponding and crusting on the soil surface.
- Scott Schmidt of Farming ‘D’ Ranch in Five Points. Schmidt will discuss the new management strategies that must be applied to successfully implement new agricultural systems.
Following the tour, the participants reconvene at 4 p.m. at the UC Westside REC for a workshop on the economic and environmental benefits of conservation agriculture systems. The event continues with a free barbecue dinner, entertainment by the Wheelhouse Country Band and a keynote address by Suat Irmak, director of the Nebraska Water Center and professor of biological systems engineering. The Water Center was established at the University of Nebraska by congressional mandate in 1964. Nebraska farms currently lead the nation in adopting precision irrigation systems.
Following Irmak’s presentation and discussion, Mitchell will name the 2013 Conservation Tillage Farmer Innovator of the Year award winner.
The expanded event coincides with a concerted effort by the Conservation Agricultural Systems Innovation (CASI) Center to grow the conservation agriculture movement in California. CASI is a diverse group of UC researchers, farmers, public and private industry and environmental groups formed to develop and exchange information on sustainable agricultural systems for California row crops.
“In each century, there are just a handful of times when agriculture can transform itself in revolutionary ways,” Mitchell said. “There is growing evidence that today presents one of those rare chances for agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley to reinvent itself.”
The event is free but pre-registration is requested to help with planning for the bus tour and dinner. Please R.S.V.P. by email to Diana Nix at dlnix@ucdavis.edu or by completing the online survey.