- (Focus Area) Economic Development
- Author: Saoimanu Sope
UCCE scientists study feasibility of specialty crops for small urban growers
The vacant lots around your neighborhood could be growing fruits and vegetables and making local produce more accessible – while reducing energy needed to transport and distribute the food. Could turning those empty lots into small farms also become opportunities for economic development?
To answer this question, a team of researchers from University of California Cooperative Extension in San Diego County are investigating the economic feasibility of growing high-value specialty crops in urban settings like vacant lots. The project – led by
/h4>- Author: Pamela S Kan-Rice
- Author: Mike Hsu
- Author: Saoimanu Sope
From Siskiyou County through Riverside County, University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources has hired UC Cooperative Extension experts to help Californians address challenging issues.
The eight recently hired UC Cooperative Extension specialists, advisors and coordinators bring expertise in urban pest management, healthy families, regenerative agriculture, plant science, small farms and food safety to their communities.
Since 1914, UC Cooperative Extension researchers have been working directly with community members to improve their lives and livelihoods.
To see a list of UC Cooperative Extension experts who have joined in the past few months, visit
- Author: Lauren Biron, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Author: Pamela S Kan-Rice
UC ANR to help create database, support technology for sustainable bioproducts and biofuels
In California's Northern San Joaquin Valley, crop leftovers such as almond shells, fruit peels and orchard trimmings can potentially be converted into sustainable bioproducts and biofuels – with the right technology. The philanthropy Schmidt Sciences' Virtual Institute on Feedstocks of the Future, which supports replacing fossil feedstocks with renewable biomass sources, has awarded new funding to a...
/h3>- Author: Ria DeBiase, UC Giannini Foundation
How policies affect emissions, land use, and the prices of fuel and vegetable oils
Over the last two decades, both the federal government and state governments have enacted policies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the transportation sector. In a new Special Issue of ARE Update, University of California agricultural economists explore how these federal and state renewable fuel policies have affected biofuel production for motor and aviation fuels and consider how these policies have affected land use and food prices. Their research shows that as U.S. demand for...
/h3>- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Ettamarie Peterson, fondly known as "The Queen Bee of Sonoma County," will be displaying a bee observation hive at the Vacaville Museum's Children's Party on Thursday, Aug. 8 but the life of a queen bee is not for her.
"I have decided I do not want to be the queen bee because she never ever gets to smell the flowers!" the Petaluma resident said. "I would much rather be a worker bee! The queen bee has a short life which I have already avoided, of course, and plan on many more years in the garden."
Ettamarie, in her eighth decade, is a retired teacher who taught school for 37 years, has kept bees for 30 years, and has volunteered as the leader of a 4-H beekeeping project for the past 25...