- Jennifer McDougle: Veterinarian, Animal Health Branch, Tulare District Office
Virulent Newcastle disease is a highly contagious and deadly virus in birds; the virus is found in respiratory discharges and feces. Clinical signs in birds include:
- Sneezing, coughing, nasal discharge, green watery diarrhea, depression
- neck twisting, circling, muscle tremors, paralysis, decreased egg production
- swelling around eyes and neck, sudden death.
It is essential that all poultry owners follow good biosecurity practices to help protect their birds from infectious diseases such as virulent Newcastle. These include simple steps like washing hands and scrubbing boots before and after entering a poultry area; cleaning and disinfecting tires and equipment before and after moving them on/off the property; and isolating any sick birds. New or returning birds from shows should be isolated for 30 days before placing them with the rest of the flock.
For backyard flock owners, biosecurity measures include using dedicated shoes and clothes when caring for birds and not to use/wear those clothes/shoes in other areas.
In addition to practicing good biosecurity, all bird owners should report sick birds or unusual bird deaths through California's Sick Bird Hotline at 866-922-BIRD (2473). Additional information on VND and biosecurity for backyard flocks can be found at https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/ahfss/Animal_Health/Newcastle_Disease_Info.html
Click here for more information regarding vaccination of backyard birds.
Sick or dead backyard birds can be submitted to CAHFS laboratories for post-mortem examination ($20 plus shipping and handling). Information on this program can be found at:
https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/ahfss/Animal_Health/pdfs/CAHFS_NecropsyFactsheet.pdf
For additional information on who to contact for issues regarding backyard poultry, see:
http://ucanr.edu/sites/poultry/contact/
Virulent Newcastle disease is NOT a food safety concern. No human cases of Newcastle disease have ever occurred from eating poultry products. Properly cooked poultry products are safe to eat. In very rare instances people working directly with sick birds can become infected. Symptoms are usually very mild, and limited to conjunctivitis and/or influenza-like symptoms. Infection is easily prevented by using standard personal protective equipment.
- Author: Mary V Redlin
When you arrive at Wild Willow Farm & Education Center (WWF) it's hard to believe that you are merely miles from one metropolis – San Diego – to the north, and even closer to the bustle of Tijuana, Mexico to the south. The farm, operated by the non-profit organization, San Diego Roots Sustainable Food Project, calls 5.5 acres home in the Tijuana River Valley Regional Park, with about two acres currently under production.
The farm grows a variety of seasonal produce, herbs, flowers, and fruit, which they mostly sell through their “Farmshare CSA,” and a few wholesale restaurant accounts. A Saturday farm stand onsite is also in the works. However, ask founder and program manager Mel Lions what they really grow, and he'll tell you, “Farmers!”
The mission of the farm goes beyond growing food. WWF is a working educational farm that teaches and trains the next generation of farmers to be stewards of the land. They operate southern California's only soil-based farm school, with regenerative agriculture at the cornerstone. WWF offers weekly classes and workshops in food, community, and health-related topics, and four times a year they offer their signature six-week course, Farming 101: Introduction to Regenerative Farming. The course introduces students to basic principles and practices that focuses on transforming farms and food production into ecologically restorative, bio-diverse living landscapes best suited for small-scale production.
While much income for the farm is revenue generated by programs, funding always remains a challenge. The team at WWF depends on volunteer administrators, and part-time paid staff. In addition, lease restrictions inside the County Park prohibit traditional farm amenities, such as housing for staff and students. The County Park also only provides a five-year lease term, which limits long-term planning and investment in infrastructure upgrades.
In its eighth year of existence, WWF has weathered storms, which literally flooded the farm (as it sits in flood plain,) but they wouldn't want it any other way. WWF is a guaranteed breath of fresh air, and embraces all who are willing to make the trip off the beaten path.
Wild Willows Farm can be found at 2550 Sunset Avenue, San Diego, California 92154, or online at http://sandiegoroots.org/farm/farm-school.php. The farm's social media links are https://www.instagram.com/wildwillowfarm/ and https://www.facebook.com/wildwillowfarm.
Cathryn Henning is WWF's Farm Manager. You can email WWF at wildwillowfarm@sandiegoroots.org.
Flowering insectaries also provide food for bees and other pollinators. There are both greater numbers and more kinds of native bees in fields with an insectary consisting of a row of native shrubs planted along the field edge (called a hedgerow). Native bees also stay in fields with these shrubs longer than they do in fields without them. Therefore, not only do insectaries attract natural enemies, but they can also boost crop pollination and help keep bees healthy.
Sources:
- Flower flies (Syrphidae) and other biological control agents for aphids in vegetable crops. (PDF)
- Good news for hedgerows: no effects on food safety in the field.
- Hedgerow benefits align with food production and sustainability goals.
- Habitat restoration promotes pollinator persistence and colonization in intensively managed agriculture. (PDF)
- Reducing the abundance of leafhoppers and thrips in a northern California organic vineyard through maintenance of full season floral diversity with summer cover crops.
- Author: Penny Leff
A UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE) team recently assessed the needs of urban farmers around the state, and found that they struggle with production, business, and marketing challenges, many of which are specific to the urban context of their farms. Additionally, many urban farmers are unaware of agricultural regulations, city zoning and permitting rules, food safety, soil quality issues, and pest quarantines.
To help new urban farmers get started effectively, and to help more experienced urban farmers improve their skills and profitability, the UCCE team is offering a series of four urban agriculture workshops in each of the Sacramento and San Diego regions. These communities have recently put policies in place to encourage urban farming, and many residents are getting involved. The workshops will be held at urban farm sites and will include farm tours and discussions with local urban farmers sharing challenges and success stories. The 2018 workshop series starts March 16 in the Sacramento area and March 23 in the San Diego area.
Workshop #1 will cover the legal basics of urban farming, including types of urban farm enterprises, zoning issues, soil testing, required permits and licenses, and an introduction to key local resources such as the Agricultural Commissioner and UCCE staff.
Workshop #2 will cover Marketing and Business Management for Urban Farms, including business planning, record keeping, market channel options, and an introduction to labor laws and risk management.
Workshop #3 will be about production considerations for urban farmers, focusing on water management, integrated pest management (IPM), and soil contamination/soil improvement.
Workshop #4 will cover pre and post-harvest food safety practices, using CDFA's Small Farm Food Safety Guidelines.
Farmers and potential farmers can take one or take all four of these workshops; each is $20 for a full day of expert speakers, participatory exercises, lunch and refreshments. Each workshop will be a one-day event.
Registration is open. Space is limited, so please sign up early.
Learn more about the workshops, as well as the 2017 workshop series' held in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Area regions, and register here:
ucanr.edu/sites/UrbanAg/Urban_Ag_Workshops/
More UC urban farming resources: ucanr.edu/sites/UrbanAg/
Questions?
San Diego Series: Mary Redlin, Southern California Coordinator, mvredlin@ucanr.edu, 562-900-3041
Sacramento Series:Penny Leff, Northern California Coordinator, paleff@ucdavis.edu, 530-752-5208
- Author: N. Claire Napawan, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture
- Author: Ellen Burke, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture California Polytechnic Institute, San Luis Obispo
While the provision of clean water, removal of wastes, and infrastructure for other basic human necessities are considered in the planning of modern development in the United States, the provision of food is rarely a consideration. More often, transportation infrastructure, including roads, ports, and rails, is considered synonymous with food infrastructure, and little attention is paid to distances from the development to food retail, distribution hubs, ports, or food sources. In modern development it is assumed where there is a road, there will be food. This was not the case in pre-Industrial development; limited means of high-speed transportation, and the absence of technologies such as refrigeration, required carefully planned development to maximize efficiencies of transportation and proximities of food sources.As communities strive for increasingly sustainable means of development, an important consideration is planning for food resilience, of the ability to secure food within one's community in light of outside stressors such as natural disasters or limited fuel resources. Food resiliency requires balancing several considerations related to the locality of food, and contains a greater degree of complexity than the popularized 100 mile ‘local food' radius. While greater densities of development receiving efficient modes of food distribution offer one facet of food resilience, lower densities that offer opportunities for in-situ production provide yet another.
This research investigates relative food system resiliency by evaluating opportunities for adapting food systems within existing community patterns. The San Francisco Bay Area provides a relevant case study of both pre- and post-industrial development at a range of densities and networked with multiple transportation infrastructures. The evaluation of communities within this region reveals important considerations for environmental designers aiming to increase food system resilience in new and existing communities. This includes examining multiple scales of adaptation to production and distribution networks, and challenges the popularized 100 mile ‘local food' radius for achieving regional food resilience.
The study examines a convenience sample of four communities on a rough east-west transect within the San Francisco Bay Area and along Interstate 580: San Francisco, Oakland, Dublin and Mountain House. See Figure 1. The communities represent a range of densities, area coverage, and populations which correspond roughly to their location along the transect, with the larger and denser communities (San Francisco and Oakland) at the western end, and the smaller and less-dense communities at the eastern end of the transect. The transect is important in both geographic and historical terms, as the western end also corresponds to the oldest community with development occurring in an east-ward expansion.
At the scale of the neighborhood, the study identified travel distance to a full-service retail grocery store as the most significant criterion for assessing community food resilience. Using aerial photography and GIS data, a maximum one-way travel distance within each community to a full-service retail grocery store was established. For this study, a full-service retail grocery store was defined as a supermarket carrying fresh produce, such as Safeway, Andronico's or Lucky's. Convenience stores which sell primarily soft drinks, alcoholic beverages and snacks, were not included, as they do not typically provide access to fruits and vegetables (or other whole foods). The study calculated the average distance to a full-service retail grocery store within the community.
The study also defined the ‘productive potential' of each community, a measure of a typical back yard's ability to meet the fruit and vegetable diet for a family of four, based on average home lot size and coverage, USDA consumption figures and typical home-garden yields. A combination of aerial photographs, zoning maps and real-estate data for each community was analyzed to determine a typical lot configuration for each community, illustrating the average lot size, average home size and coverage. Although individuals may choose to use open space areas on their lots in a variety of ways, including ornamental landscaping, xeriscaping, recreational features such as basketball courts, lawn and hardscaping, in addition to food gardening, the productive potential of any lot is pre-determined by open space provided. Raised bed gardening, a typical home-garden approach to growing food, yields an average 1.24 pounds per square foot. In the U.S. an average of 1.5 pounds of fruits and vegetables is consumed per person per day. The productive potential of each community was derived from applying the raised bed average yield to 90% of the typical lot open space in each community, and then calculating what percentage of the full-year fruit and vegetable diet for a family of four would be met by that yield.
Flexibility is key to resilience. While San Francisco might not be able to produce all its fruit and vegetable needs via urban agriculture, access to multiple neighborhood grocery stores and to efficient modes of food distribution offer alternative means of adopting alternative food systems. Oakland, shares many of the same advantages as San Francisco, but with greater lots sizes (and generally a better microclimate), opportunities for urban agriculture are far greater. Dublin, while not sharing the same access to efficient modes of food distribution as San Francisco and Oakland, offers the greatest opportunities for residential urban agriculture with a productive potential of 190%. With minimal opportunities for home production, great distances between home and local grocery retail, and removed location from efficient distribution centers, the community of Mountain House appears to be the least capable of adaptations to the existing food system.
The results of this research exemplify the need for environmental designers to balance considerations of density and geographic location in new development. While density provides opportunities for limiting personal automobile commute times, it can also interfere with opportunities to promote UA as an alternative food source. Recognizing the geographic location of new development, the impacts to food distribution networks, and the proximity of local food retail outlets should also be an important consideration for environmental designers. In essence, the infrastructure of a community's food system (including global, regional, and local sources and distribution networks) should be an equal consideration to new development in the San Francisco Bay Area, and beyond, if community's are to be designed as resilient food systems.
