- Author: UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Land use change in agricultural frontiers can have far-reaching social and environmental implications, such as habitat loss, water contamination, or worker demographic shifts — particularly when it involves the rapid expansion of a new industry such as cannabis production. A recent study published in Landscape and Urban Planning offers an interdisciplinary perspective on the drivers of cannabis production in rural areas, using interviews with farmers and spatial modeling to uncover key factors.
Led by researchers from UC Berkeley's Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM) and the...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
UC Cooperative Extension will host its first industrial hemp field day at UC Davis on Thursday, Sept. 22. The meeting will be held at the UC Davis Agronomy Field Headquarters on Hutchison Drive in Davis.
Industrial hemp is defined as Cannabis sativa L. and required not to exceed 0.3% THC, the intoxicating substance in marijuana.
University of California research on industrial hemp – which can be grown for oil, seed and fiber – began after the...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Wildfires are an increasing threat to people's lives, property and livelihoods, especially in rural California communities. Cannabis, one of California's newer and more lucrative commercial crops, may be at a higher risk of loss from wildfire because it is mostly confined to being grown in rural areas, according to new research by scientists in the Department of Environmental Science Policy and Management at UC Berkeley.
"Our findings affirm that cannabis agriculture is geographically more threatened by wildfire than any other agricultural crop in California,” said Christopher Dillis, lead author of the
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
The legalization of marijuana for recreational use in California has encouraged growers to expand plantings of the lucrative crop. Like any plant, cannabis requires water to grow. A new study from the Cannabis Research Center at UC Berkeley examined where cannabis growers in California are getting water for their crops, highlighting significant gaps in cannabis cultivation policy.
Environmental advocates have expressed concern that cannabis farms are diverting water from rivers and streams, which could harm fish and other wildlife.
The researchers studied water use in 11 of the state's top cannabis-producing counties – Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino, Monterey,...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Several scientists affiliated with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources have received grants from the California Bureau of Cannabis Control. The BCC awarded on Nov. 13 a total of $29,950,494 in public university research grants across California for research projects related to the implementation and effect of Proposition 64.
Research proposals had to fall within one of the several specified categories, including public health, criminal justice and public safety, economics, environmental impacts and the cannabis...