- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
While serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Venezuela, Mark Gaskell got his first experience with thriving coffee plantations. Years later, as a UC Cooperative Extension advisor to small-scale farmers in California, he wondered whether coffee could be a viable specialty crop for Central Coast farmers.
Gaskell established transplants in 2001 and discovered that the sub-tropical plants could thrive in the Golden State, reported Jodi Helmer on Valley Public Radio's The Salt.
Local farmers embraced the idea of California...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The UC system's goal to purchase 20 percent of its food from sustainable sources by 2020, one of the efforts connected to the UC Global Food Initiative, has already been achieved four years early, reported Scott Thill on Civil Eats.
The residence dining halls purchased 22 percent of their food from sustainable sources and five UC medical centers have reached 20 percent.
"I think our challenge going forward is realizing that 20 percent is considered a minimum-level threshold," said Tim Garlarneau, co-chair of the
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
As the California drought wears on, media have reached out this week to UC Agriculture and Natural Resources advisors about consequences in agricultural cropland, urban landscapes and fire-prone wildland.
Agricultural cropland
NPR's Valley Public Radio ran a story about salt buildup in almond orchards. Without rainfall to move salts below almond trees' rootzone, harmful levels of salinity are building up in the soil. “We've been seeing this increasing problem over the past couple years, due to the lack of winter rain, of...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
More than 600 Californians convened in San Diego last week for the annual California Small Farm Conference, which connected farmers, ranchers and farmers market managers as they addressed the drought, farm bill, specialty crops, changing laws and marketing, reported Katie Thisdell in The Daily Transcript.
A host of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources academics took part by offering workshops, presentations and field courses. The conference also included presentations from innovative and entrepreneurial farmers trying to find new avenues to...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Planting coffee shrubs right next to avocado trees is allowing a Central Coast farmer to grow a commercial crop of coffee without using any additional land, water or fertilizer, reported Parma Nagappan in TakePart.com.
The farmer, Jay Ruskey was working with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources advisor Mark Gaskell when they had a "eureka moment," the story said. Coffee bushes can benefit from the environment created by an avocado plantation.
"I went through lots of cycles of plantings looking at options for using unused land," Rusky...
