- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UC Cooperative Extension takes the adage "Think Globally, Act Locally" to heart. With 52 county offices all around the state, the organization is poised for local action. Such efforts were covered by a number of local news outlets in recent days.
The Pine Tree, with "Celebrated News of Calaveras County and Beyond," ran an article on local agritourism with information from UCCE farm advisor for Plumas and Sierra counties, Holly George.
“If you eat food or wear clothes, you’re already involved in agriculture,” George was quoted. “An important part of agritourism is to...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Capital Public Radio program "Insight" ran a segment this week on successful efforts in Davis to put fresh, healthful fruits and vegetables in school cafeterias. On the program, UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program food systems analyst Gail Feenstra answered the questions of guest host David Watts Barton.
Feenstra said that the ability to offer local produce in Davis schools is linked to last year's passage of Measure Q, a parcel tax which allocates $70,000 per year to improve children's nutrition by providing farm fresh food for school lunches, according to a summary on
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Twenty years ago, UC Cooperative Extension 4-H advisor Carla Sousa, working with retired kindergarten teacher Denise Nelson, launched the first teen survival conference in Visalia.
Even as its first participants are pushing middle age, the program continues to gather local teenagers to face the challenges of youth in the rural San Joaquin Valley community, according to a story in today's Visalia Times-Delta. The 2008 event takes place Oct. 14.
"When we started off, we had no idea," Sousa was quoted. "Was this going to last one year? Two years? Five years? Because of the reception, it makes you want to...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The UC Riverside faculty and staff newsletter Inside UCR includes a feature in the current issue about a long-standing ANR program housed at the Southern California campus, News and Information Outreach in Spanish (NOS).
The article traces the program's journey from its inception in 1981, when radio news stories were sent to California radio stations on gigantic reel-to-reel tapes, through a 27-year-long uninturrupted stream of information from the University to the Spanish-speaking public. The stories are still mailed directly to radio stations, but are also available for
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Fresno Bee food writer Joan Obra doesn't stop with klatch in the kitchen, but scours research fields and neighborhood shops for her comprehensive culinary news. Her story this week focuses on a Sichuan pepper, a spice so hot it numbs the tongue. The pepper is part of an observational trial conducted by UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Richard Molinar at the UC Kearney Research and Education Center near Parlier.
Typically, Sichuan pepper is imported from China. Molinar sees it as a potential crop for Valley small-scale farmers.
Nine years ago, he planted two Zanthoxylum armatum trees, a species of Sichuan pepper grown in...
