- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The main focus for the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources in the coming year is beginning to rebuild, according to an article published today in AgAlert, the California Farm Bureau Federation's weekly newspaper.
The article, written by assistant editor Ching Lee, was based on information gathered directly from ANR vice president Dan Dooley.
The story says Dooley expects to be able to hire 20 to 30 new Cooperative Extension advisors and specialists in the coming year. The good news comes in the wake of major restructuring last year due...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to save the local UC Cooperative Extension programs by approving additional funding, according to the Aug. 11 Lompoc Record.
“State cuts to the UC system, combined with local funding reductions, would have reduced the Extension program’s presence in Santa Barbara County to practically nothing without the infusion of cash from the Board of Supervisors,” writes reporter Sam Womack.
In other South Coast news, Ventura County residents have been writing letters to the editors of the Ventura County Star and the Santa Paula Times voicing...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors is tentatively scheduled to review a UC Cooperative Extension funding request at its July 27 meeting, according to an article published yesterday in the Lompoc Record.
The county had approved $111,700 for the programs and staff expertise provided by UCCE, but at its budget hearings in June, $68,000 in additional funding was requested. On June 22, the Board of Supervisors couldn’t get the four votes needed for approval.
For the article, reporter Sam Womack spoke to Don Kingborg of UC ANR...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Relating the economic impact of University of California programs may not be the best way to increase the university's share of the state budget, according to UC Berkeley emeritus professor of Agriculture and Resource Economics George Goldman.
Goldman presented his ideas about public perceptions of UC economic benefits at a recent faculty seminar. The event was covered by UC Berkeley student blogger Tess Townsend at http://caledinsider.org. Underscoring the emerging importance of citizen journalism, Townsend writes that her work has been picked up by the likes of
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Harry Cline, a longtime ag reporter who writes a weekly column for Western Farm Press, devoted space this week to counter a commentary he published last fall lamenting the ANR decision to close the Small Farm Program. In the column that ran yesterday, Cline noted that the program is not dead; rather its administrative services have been merged into another office.
Cline wrote that UC ANR vice president Dan Dooley and others pointed out the mistake. Dooley told Cline that the goal is to limit administrative costs and provide more support for farm advisors and specialists.
"ANR has taken some disproportionate cuts since the mid 1990s, and Dooley stopped that...
