- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
As Californians wait patiently today for the state budget vote, scheduled for 4 o'clock this afternoon, it's a good time to review the value of agriculture and agricultural research as it has been reported in the press in recent days.
Last Wednesday, Western Farm Press ran an Almond Board press release about a symposium that took place earlier this summer in Sacramento. At the symposium, UC ANR associate vice president Rick Standiford noted that there has been a 24 percent reduction in UC Agricultural Experiment Station researchers and Cooperative Extension staff since 1990.
The story said UC's academic staff is expected to shrink...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
In the first paragraph of his blog entry on the Huffington Post, Michael Markarian accuses "big agribusiness" of:
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Duping the public
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Harming animals
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Polluting the environment
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Exploiting Latino workers
Ouch. The article actually focuses on Proposition 2, an initiative on California's November ballot known as the "Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act." The story mercilessly takes aim at anyone who opposes its passage.
One of the new...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Two nationally recognized news outlets featured UC experts in recent stories - National Public Radio and the MSN Web site.
Agricultural Issues Center director Dan Sumner provided comment on the NPR story about a trend at Walmart stores to stock "locally grown" food. The story pointed out that the megastore's definition of locally grown -- grown within the state's boundaries -- is different from that of many locavores -- which generally define local as within 100 miles of home.
On the radio program, Sumner said the...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A story in the Sacramento Bee paints a lovely picture of local food production in a story under the title "Think globally, eat locally."
"The sun is coming up. Geese fly overhead. Wild turkeys meander amid the fruit trees, as (farmer Lisa) Tollefson picks sunflowers in the golden glow of dawn," goes the story, written by Stuart Leavenworth.
The article's vision of local farming wasn't entirely rose-colored. Indeed, it mentioned that Tollefson's partner, Steve Pilz, disrupted a yellow jacket nest while clearing brush and had to set traps for voracious gophers with his eye swollen by insect stings.
But the real juxtaposition comes in...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The cyclical nature of blogs is intriguing. A story in the Freakonomics blog that featured UC Agricultural Issues Center director Dan Sumner’s expertise, and reported on in this ANR news blog entry, takes another turn in the media and technology blog of Alternet.org.
Eating Liberally writer Kerry Trueman asks what the New York Times has against local food and green living in a post focused...
