- Author: Brenda Dawson
Why do you love fruits and vegetables? Is it their bright colors? Their many shapes and varieties, the way they can makeover your plate with the seasons? The opportunity to taste local terroir in a very fresh bite of fruit or forkful of salad?
Is it more about the juiciness, crunchiness or succulence?
Or do you think more about nutrition? About vitamins, micronutrients and fiber, after decades of being encouraged to eat “5 A Day” to be healthy? Is it about that feeling of righteous virtue when you fill half your plate with fruits and vegetables — and know you're earning a gold star for eating right?
The importance of eating fruits and vegetables has been making headlines again recently, with studies refocusing on the concept of “nutrition security” in a changing climate and pushing for an emphasis on nutrient consumption. The EAT-Lancet commission — while mostly garnering headlines in the United States related to reduced meat consumption — also recommended a diet that would require almost every global region to increase its consumption of fruits and vegetables to meet healthy diet goals.
But there's another reason to love fruits and vegetables that might not be as obvious. Here's a 30-second video clip of what a young farmer in Uganda had to tell me about vegetables, when I had the chance to meet him last year:
“There's no quicker source of getting money in town,” Boaz Otieno explained, when discussing why he chose to farm instead of going to town to find a job. He also talked about the concept that he could grow vegetables like tomatoes on a smaller plot of land and earn as much for those tomatoes as a larger plot of corn or cassava.
"You might even grow (tomatoes) twice while the cassava is not yet harvested, so there's a lot of money in horticulture," he said.
Otieno is a farmer who was also working as a site coordinator for a research project led by Kate Scow in Uganda, which was supported by the Horticulture Innovation Lab, the USAID-funded research program that I work for at UC Davis. Elizabeth Mitcham, director of the Horticulture Innovation Lab and a UC Cooperative Extension specialist, often talks about the “double-duty impacts” of fruits and vegetables, as these crops can be a tool to achieve two major global goals: improving nutrition and reducing poverty.
And it's not just one farmer's opinion that horticultural crops can yield higher incomes. In a white paper about aligning the food system to meet fruit and vegetable dietary needs, the authors pointed out that data from Africa and Asia have shown farmer profits per hectare 3-14 times higher when growing vegetables versus growing rice. The paper also points out that USDA estimates fruits and vegetables account for 23 percent of production value in American agriculture, grown on less than 3 percent of the country's agricultural land. And here in California, fruits and vegetables are a $20 billion industry.
Later this month, the Horticulture Innovation Lab will be hosting a conference in Washington, D.C., focused on making the case for fruits and vegetables with the theme, “Colorful Harvest: From Feeding to Nourishing a Growing World.” The conference will bring together decision makers, international development practitioners, and researchers from universities across the United States, Africa, Asia and Central America to discuss how horticultural innovations can advance global issues of food security, food waste, gender empowerment, youth employment, malnutrition, and poverty reduction.
While the conference speakers and participants will be diverse, we're also working to bring farmers' voices — like Otieno's — into the conference with video clips from our partners in Nepal, Honduras, Rwanda and elsewhere, to explain what exactly it is that makes them love fruits and vegetables.
More information:
- Conference info: Colorful Harvest: From Feeding to Nourishing a Growing World
(Check the conference webpage for more videos and presentation info after the event.) - White paper: Aligning the Food System to Meet Dietary Needs: Fruits and Vegetables
- More about the Horticulture Innovation Lab
- Author: Brenda Dawson
Connecting 9,000 rural households in Guatemala with improved water management and climate-smart agriculture strategies is the goal of a new project led by a team at UC Davis, to ultimately increase food security and reduce poverty in Guatemala's Western Highlands.
“The opportunity to impact so many farmers' lives on this scale is exciting,” said Beth Mitcham, director of the Horticulture Innovation Lab and a UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences. “We're taking lessons learned from our previous research — in Guatemala, Honduras and Cambodia — and building a team to help more small-scale farmers apply our findings and successfully use these innovative practices.”
The new project is part of the U.S. government's global hunger and food security initiative, Feed the Future. The project represents an additional $3.4 million investment in the UC Davis-led Horticulture Innovation Lab by the U.S. Agency for International Development's mission in Guatemala.
The project's international team also includes representatives from Kansas State University; North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University; the Centro de Paz Bárbara Ford in Guatemala; Universidad Rafael Landívar in Guatemala; and the Panamerican Agricultural School, Zamorano, in Honduras.
“The learning shared between these three U.S. universities and the universities in Honduras and Guatemala will be enriching for all of the institutions involved,” said Manuel Reyes, research professor at Kansas State University who is part of the team. “I find it satisfying that these academic institutions will be investing intellectually in marginalized groups in Guatemala's Western Highlands — and in turn, learning from them too.”
Helping youth envision a future in agriculture
By partnering with local youth groups and agricultural schools, the team will better prepare students for jobs in commercial agriculture and agricultural extension with knowledge of climate-resilient conservation and water management practices.
“Our local team is training youth as entrepreneurs, to see agriculture as an economic opportunity instead of just back-breaking work,” said Meagan Terry, UC Davis junior specialist who is managing the project in Guatemala for the Horticulture Innovation Lab. “They can envision a future in agriculture, with innovative ways to create value-added products or grow high-value crops for niche markets.”
As rainfall patterns vary with climate change, farmers in this region are expected to face increased competition for water. Practices such as rainwater harvesting, drip irrigation and conservation agriculture will become more necessary for small-scale farmers.
Climate-smart lessons from conservation agriculture, drip irrigation
In previous research, the Horticulture Innovation Lab has found that combining drip irrigation with conservation agriculture practices can successfully grow vegetables on small plots of land, without significant yield reductions. These practices improve soil structure, moisture retention and soil health.
Additionally, women farmers who participated in the Horticulture Innovation Lab studies in Cambodia, Honduras and Guatemala favored using these practices for another important reason: reduced labor in relation to controlling weeds, vegetable bed preparation and manual watering.
“I dream for many women, youth and their families, that their lives will be better off because of 'MasRiego' and the science behind this work,” Reyes said. “As for the research, we are learning how to improve this suite of practices so they can be tailor fitted globally. I am convinced that if this picks up, steep sloping lands can be farmed with the soil quality not being degraded — but even being enriched.”
These lessons, as well as findings from the program's “Advancing Horticulture” report about horticultural sector growth in Central America, lay the foundation for this new project.
A previous version of this article was published by UC Davis News Service and on the Horticulture Innovation Lab blog.
Curious about partnering with the Horticulture Innovation Lab? The Horticulture Innovation Lab builds partnerships between agricultural researchers in the United States and researchers in developing countries, to conduct fruit and vegetable research that improves livelihoods in developing countries. The program currently has three research grant opportunities for U.S. researchers: one focused on tomatoes, another on apricots, and a third on integrated crop-livestock systems.
- Author: Christine Huang
Once again, the UC Davis Postharvest Technology Center is excited to announce another successful Postharvest Technology of Horticultural Crops Short Course. This year's course marks our 37th anniversary! Our short course comprises two separate weeks of instruction. The first week is spent on intensive lectures, discussions, and hands-on laboratory sessions on the UC Davis campus. The optional second week is an extensive field tour covering a variety of postharvest operations from Sacramento to Bakersfield. We are especially excited by the results of this year's course. Of our nearly 90 participants, many remarked on the value of being a part of such a historic and impactful course!
During the first week, the short course covered maturity and maturity indices, safety factors, harvesting systems, cooling methods, storage management, ethylene treatments, transport systems, and much more. Dr. Beth Mitcham's lecture on the “Quality Factors for Horticultural Crops” was well received this year. Participants described the lecture as “informative” and “relatable to business performances and losses”. Additionally, Dr. Jim Thompson's lecture on “Harvest Systems” was another participant favorite. Those who attended found Dr. Thompson to be an “engaging and articulate presenter” using “lots of examples”, which participants found to be “very current” and “useful”. Tuesday night, we held our annual BBQ Potluck at the beautiful Putah Creek Lodge. This gave participants a chance to network, socialize, and relax while eating delicious BBQ in a scenic environment. On Thursday, participants were invited to attend demonstrations on disease control and water sanitation held by our specialists. These demonstrations are designed to give participants an interactive experience to reinforce lectures.
On the field tour, participants visited and toured world-renowned postharvest facilities such as General Produce, Raley's Distribution Center, Paramount Citrus, Monterey Mushrooms, True Leaf Farms, and much more. Paramount Citrus was a popular stop. Participants described the facility as “state of the art” and “impressive”. The stop allowed participants to gain valuable first-hand knowledge on citrus operations. Another popular stop was Monterey Mushrooms. Participants described the experience as a “rare opportunity” to learn from “knowledgeable hosts” and gain “fascinating insights into the mushroom industry”.
The UC Davis Postharvest Technology Center would like to thank all participants for their engagement and help making this year's course unforgettable. We encourage and invite all those interested in the course to subscribe to our eNewsletter for 2016 registration information. We would love for you to join us next year!
- Author: Mary E. Reed
Dr. Mitcham invited Drs. Mary Lu Arpaia, Jeff Brecht and Jingtair Siriphanich, Adel's first three graduate students, to join her on the stage to accept the award. She said, "Adel inspired and encouraged thousands of people throughout his career, and we still feel his loss keenly. His many students and colleagues around the world are grateful for this opportunity provided by ISHS to bring honor to his memory."
- Author: Pam Devine
The Center received 118 applications and awarded Chiamaka the 2014 Postharvest Technology Short Course scholarship this year as she impressed the reviewing panel with her future plans and showed how much she, and her associates, would benefit from the opportunity.
The scholarship, funded primarily by a trust created by Leonard and Marseille Morris, aims to provide an individual from a developing country the opportunity to learn about managing the postharvest handling of horticultural crops with an intent to take that information back to their home country and utilize it to benefit others in their region.
Chiamaka spent her first week, along with 97 other attendees, listening to lectures on topics as varied as quality factors, maturation, harvest systems, ripening methods, food safety, disease management as well as some commodity-specific talks. The group also participated in laboratory demonstrations of cooling methods, ethylene measurements, sensory evaluation and more. She was impressed with the variety of and clarity of the presentations.
At the end of the first week, Chiamaka conveyed her appreciation. “I thank UC Davis Postharvest Technology Center for this rare opportunity and I promise I will achieve the objective of the scholarship opportunity.”
The second week of the course took Chiamaka and her colleagues on a field tour to witness first-hand how the principles learned the first week are put into action. Throughout the tour of the central valley and central coast of California, the group saw field operations, packinghouses, distribution centers, cold rooms, transportation facilities and more.
Before she left, Chiamaka expressed, “This program has added value to my life and of course the lives of people I will be in contact with, because I will definitely hand the knowledge down.” That's exactly what we like to hear.