- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Rachael Freeman Long wove her scientific knowledge into a book series for children, reported the San Francisco Book Review in conjunction with the release of the second book in the trilogy. Valley of Fire details protagonist Jack's adventures in the Black Rock Desert with his animal friends, Sonny the coyote and Pinta the bat.
The Book Review's Susan Roberts conducted an interview with Long, exploring her inspiration for the series, writing challenges, research and more.
Long said her young son inspired her to create the characters in...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Signs of summer - high temperatures, school terms ending, well-stocked farmers markets - abound this time of year. Another sign of the times is abundant stories about Californians dealing with the historic 2014 drought.
Timm Herdt, a Ventura County Star columnist, wrote that farmers' close attention to the weather has given them keen awareness about climate change.
"Anybody who's paying attention knows the climate has already changed," said Daniel Sumner, director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center at UC Davis....
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Mother Jones website posted a detailed info-graphic to compare the water footprint of milk, other dairy products and dairy alternatives, like soy milk and almond milk.
Reporters Julia Lurie and Alex Park gleaned data for the story from, among other sources, a post in the UC Alfalfa & Forage News Blog titled Alfalfa benefits wildlife and the environment, in addition to its economic value, written in May 2013 by Rachael Freeman Long, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Yolo County, and
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A feature story about UC Cooperative Extension advisor Rachael Long graced the front page of the David Enterprise this week in an article about her newly published children's chapter book, "Gold Fever."
The Enterprise story, written by Brett Johnson, noted that Long has a personal interest in bats and wrote several scientific articles about the flying mammals before picking a bat to be one of two animals in her book that helps save a nine-year-old boy who fell in a cave in the Black Mountains of Nevada.
“I’ve been studying bats and their benefits to agriculture for more than 20 years now,” Long said....
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The 2008 Farm Bill gave organic agriculture a significant boost by increasing funding for organic research from $2 million a year to $20 million, according to an article in the New York Times.
Reporter Jim Robbins outlined some of the research that is underway across the country, opening with work at the UC Davis student farm, where native sunflowers provide a "bed-and-breakfast" for beneficial insects, according to farm director Mark van Horn.
Robbins also described the work of UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Rachael Long, who has studied bats' role in...
