Can you help fight the California drought by consuming only foods and beverages that require minimal water to produce?
Well, as the old saying goes, the devil is in the details. In a recently published paper, Daniel Sumner, director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center at UC Davis, and research assistant Nina M. Anderson mine the details of this issue to help us all better understand just what impact our food choices can have on conserving California's precious water.
To begin with, not all water drops are equal because not all water uses impact California's drought, the researchers explain.
Drought-relevant water
So just what water does...
- Author: Rose Hayden-Smith
Recently, the UC Food Observer caught up with one of California's foremost experts on water: Doug Parker of the University of California. Parker is the director of the University of California's Institute for Water Resources. The mission of the institute is to integrate California's research, extension and education programs to develop research-based solutions to water resource challenges. The institute has recently launched a blog, The Confluence.
As director, Parker works with federal, state and local agencies to guide...
- Author: Iqbal Pittalwala
Driving along California's freeways, it is hard to miss the electronic signs urging people to save water due to the serious drought. Rain, when it comes, is unevenly spread across the state, with the Central Valley — home to California's most productive agricultural areas — being especially vulnerable to this irregularity.
The drought is now so severe that in April Governor Jerry Brown called upon “all Californians, municipal water agencies, and anyone who uses water to do everything possible to...
- Author: Iqbal Pittalwala
Imagine if rice – yes, that semiaquatic species that is typically cultivated under partially flooded conditions – could be both flood- and drought-tolerant. Such a rice variety would benefit rice growers and consumers worldwide and would be less vulnerable to weather extremes that may result from global climate change.
Now UC Riverside experiments demonstrate that such rice is already here. Genetics professor Julia Bailey-Serres’ research group reports in a recent issue of
- Author: Iqbal Pittalwala
At 925 million, the number of hungry people in the world is unacceptably high.
To combat world hunger, many scientists are working on developing crops that can resist disease and withstand the elements, from drought to floods. One such scientist is Sean Cutler at UC Riverside, whose breakthrough discovery last year of pyrabactin has brought drought-tolerant crops closer to becoming reality and spawned new research in several labs around the world.