- Author: Brenda Dawson
What is the role of trust in our food system? Here in the United States, our trust in food is often implicit. We can generally trust that the fruits and vegetables we buy at a grocery store or farmers market are safe to eat — and we are often free to shop without even thinking about that trust.
Between farmers and agricultural scientists too, trust often plays an important role. If you're a farmer, you need to be able to trust that investing your time or money in a new technique or in attending a workshop will indeed improve your business.
But it can be easy to forget that trust is a critical first step in many of these agricultural relationships.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Honey, they say, is the "soul of a field of flowers."
It's more than that if you're a beekeeper. It's your pride and joy.
Whether beekeeping is your livelihood, your leisure activity, or something you do to help the declining bee population, that byproduct of your bees--honey--can also be an opportunity for bragging rights.
Entries are now being accepted for the nationwide honey competition sponsored by Good Food Awards.
If you're one of the nation's beekeepers, there's still time to enter your honey, says contest coordinator Amina Harris, director of the UC...
- Author: Brenda Dawson
Each year on Oct. 16, the world takes a moment to raise global awareness of agriculture, hunger, and food issues. World Food Day officially marks the anniversary of the creation of the UN's Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1945, and nowadays it aligns with other global events such as this week's World Food Prize activities in Iowa.
Food and agriculture are central to what UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) professionals deal with every day. We're elbows-deep in solving specific problems like pest identification, childhood nutrition in schools, drought-tolerant plant breeding and spreading sustainable agricultural practices.
World Food Day is a day for all of us to...
- Author: Diane Nelson
Ten large, shiny tanks stand near the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science at UC Davis, holding more than a year of rainwater and the key to processing food and drink during a drought. The water tanks, and the teaching-and-research winery they support, are showing students and winemakers throughout the world how to reduce processing costs, improve wine quality, and protect the planet's dwindling natural resources.
“It's about self-sufficiency,” says Roger Boulton, UC Davis professor of enology and chemical engineering. “We're demonstrating how you can operate a winery, brewery, or any food processing plant with the water that falls and the sun that...
Farm advisors: They're the local hand on the long arm of the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR). They apply cutting-edge research to problems facing their farming neighbors, often adapting practices and research results to local conditions. UC ANR Cooperative Extension advisors provide locally adapted science to local farmers.
So it might come as a surprise that some farm advisors got their start in agriculture nowhere near their backyards or their neighbor's fields. In fact, more than a few farm advisors fell in love with helping farmers while they were overseas.
Take
