- Author: Roberta Barton
How are you celebrating American agriculture in your life? In advance of National Ag Week, March 19-25, and National Ag Day, March 21, Central Valley third-grade students were “learning with lettuce” how to bring more agriculture into their lives last week. The UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center offers the free lettuce plantings every year at Farm and Nutrition Day in Fresno County and Kings County, typically around the time of National Ag Week.
Students with the help of volunteers learned how to plant tiny lettuce seedlings into a pot of healthy soil to take home for transplanting later. In addition to helping the...
- Author: Roberta Barton
Schools across the country are celebrating local connections to local food producers in October during National Farm to School Month. Education and outreach activities such as school gardens, cooking lessons and field trips are teaching students about healthy, local foods and food's journey from the farm to their forks.
There are plenty of opportunities for teachers and schools to celebrate and get involved in National Farm to School Month with the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR). Here are a few ideas to get you started.
4-H youth development
Launch a 4-H Club...
- Author: Roberta Barton
Grocery shopping can be the most anticipated or the most dreaded necessity of daily life. A trip to the market can end with a smile over the thrill of victory from finding great bargains or end with a frown from the agony of defeat over budget anxieties. For most of us, budget is the primary factor in our food experiences. Low budget or no budget is often the culprit that leads to unhealthy food choices.
Armed with nutrition knowledge acquired through the University of California 4-H Food Smart Families program with the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center, teens from Parlier High School in Fresno County are teaching Parlier youth ages 8-12...
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...
Will edible natives plants be a new food trend, the ultimate in eating locally? Antonio Sanchez at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont hopes so. Among California native plants are many overlooked food sources, some with gourmet potential, according to Sanchez, production manager at the garden. As an added bonus, edible natives are often low-water users that look great in landscapes. He recently gave UC Master Gardeners in Los Angeles County an overview of edible natives, and had them taste some of his favorites, including his recipe for