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Posts Tagged: education
UC SAREP offers small grants for sustainable agriculture, food systems projects
The UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program is accepting proposals for its 2025-2026 Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Small Grants Program. The program funds research, education and outreach, and planning projects that support the development of sustainable farming and food systems.
Proposals are due Tuesday, Jan. 14, 5 p.m.
Program Priority Areas
UC SAREP is interested in projects that build the capacity of farming and food systems businesses and organizations to become reflective, adaptive learning organizations that can respond effectively to ecological, economic and social change and disruption.
UC SAREP will fund projects that fall within two priority areas:
Priority Area 1: Support California's farmers, ranchers and tribal and non-tribal land stewards of all scales in piloting, evaluating and transitioning to:
- environmentally regenerative approaches to producing crops and livestock (including but not limited to soil health, organic and agroecological practices, integrated pest management, crop diversification);
- pathways for realizing economic return from ecologically-sound crop management practices and fair labor practices;
- marketing and distribution strategies that support diversified, decentralized and locally based supply chains;
- strategies that promote producer-to-producer networking and/or producer-to-supply chain networking.
Priority Area 2: Support California's rural, urban and tribal communities in identifying, implementing and evaluating strategies to:
- expand access to healthy, sustainably produced, culturally appropriate foods;
- ensure worker well-being across the food chain;
- minimize the community and environmental costs of food production and distribution;
- strengthen connections between consumers and producers;
- establish and strengthen producer-to-producer connections and producer-to-supply chain connections.
Who may apply
Eligible applicants include:
- farm or food system businesses operating in California (business applicants must demonstrate benefit beyond the immediate recipients),
- nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations operating in California,
- state and local government agencies, Tribal governments, and
- California public and private institutions of higher education.
Funding availability & proposal categories
Individual grants will be limited to a maximum of $10,000, with one Applied Research Grant awarded up to $20,000. Proposals are requested for three types of projects:
- Planning Grants
- Education and Outreach Grants
- Applied Research Grants
Please visit the UC SAREP Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems Small Grants Program 2025-2026 webpage for more information and to download the RFP.
CDFA funds UC SAREP agritourism project to connect farmers, consumers
To promote specialty crops and strengthen the industry through agritourism, California Department of Food and Agriculture has awarded nearly $450,000 from its Specialty Crop Block Grant Program for the California Open Farm Passport project. Rachael Callahan, statewide agritourism coordinator for the University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, is leading the project, working with regional partners throughout the state to promote farmers through Open Farm events.
The California Open Farm Passport will invite the public to explore the bounty of local farms during regionally coordinated events throughout the year. Farm guests will have opportunities to learn about, taste and buy a diversity of crops from participating specialty crop farmers around the state.
California produces more than 400 commodities.
Starting in 2025, project partners will host 20 Open Farm events, featuring over 130 farms in nine counties, anticipated to reach over 10,000 consumers. Through these events, the public can visit farms to participate in activities such as farm tours, demonstrations and workshops that will increase their awareness of the diversity of California agricultural products and producers. Events will be posted athttps://calagtour.org/California_Open_Farm_Passport.
Locally based groups throughout the state that support agritourism in their region have come together to collaborate on this project. Partners include Community Alliance with Family Farmers, FARMstead ED/SLO County Farm Trails, Open Farm Tours, Pleasants Valley Agricultural Association, Sierra Oro Farm Trail, Sonoma County Farm Trail, and UC Cooperative Extension advisors in Lassen, Modoc and Siskiyou counties.
“Partners on this project have been supporting agriculture in their regions through promoting agritourism and hosting Open Farm events for years, if not decades,” said Callahan. “This project provides the opportunity to enhance their work, create a space for them to learn from each other, and expand their reach by collaboratively marketing events as the California Open Farm Passport.”
This project will also build capacity by fostering a statewide network of agritourism groups to support local farmers and bolster the agritourism industry. Agritourism groups will receive trainings and learn from one another as they share best practices for hosting Open Farm events and other marketing strategies to promote agricultural producers to the public.
Importantly, the project will also document the benefits of Open Farm events for producers and visitors. The project will track product sales during and after the events to assess the impact of visiting a farm on purchasing behavior as well as measure any increase in visitor knowledge about California specialty crops.
“This project holds the potential to provide great benefits to specialty crop producers and the California agritourism industry,” Callahan said. “Producers will have opportunities for direct product sales and increased name recognition through marketing activities. At the same time, project partners will develop a statewide network to support their work and build towards a strong agritourism industry in California.”
For more information about the 2024 Specialty Block Grant Program funding, read the CDFA press release: California agriculture leads the nation in funding for specialty crops.
To learn more about agritourism in California, visit UC SAREP's California Agritourism website.
Moving the needle on racial equity in Extension
A recently published series of blog posts on the Connect Extension website shares insights on developing authentic, meaningful relationships with racially and culturally diverse groups.
Written by Sonja Brodt, associate director of the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program and Gail Feenstra, emeritus SAREP director, the posts are based on what they learned during UC SAREP's "Racial Equity in Extension" webinar series.
The series, comprising six 90-minute webinars held in 2021, covered topics ranging from building relationships with agricultural communities of color, to respecting different knowledge systems, to rectifying racial inequities in land access.
“As extension professionals, especially for those of us in the public sector, it is incumbent upon us to work with all segments of our state's agricultural and natural resources clientele,” said Brodt. “And to do so effectively, we need to understand their worldviews and what's the knowledge base that shapes their decisions. This is especially important when those people are from cultures or segments of society that have a history of being marginalized or oppressed by our larger society, and whose significant knowledge has often been made invisible.”
UC SAREP calls for small grants proposals
UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program is now accepting grant proposals for its 2024-25 Small Grants Program.
The program funds research projects, education and demonstration programs of research-based technologies and systems, and projects that support the development of sustainable community food systems. Proposals are due Jan. 9, 2024, at noon PST
UC SAREP will fund projects that fall within two priority areas:
Priority Area 1: Support California's farmers, ranchers and land stewards of all scales in piloting and transitioning to:
- environmentally regenerative approaches to producing crops and livestock (including but not limited to soil health, organic and agroecological practices, integrated pest management and crop diversification);
- pathways for realizing economic return from ecologically-sound crop management practices and fair labor practices;
- marketing and distribution strategies that support diversified, decentralized and locally based supply chains;
- strategies that promote producer-to-producer networking and/or producer-to-supply chain networking.
Priority Area 2: Support California's rural, urban and tribal communities in identifying and implementing strategies to:
- expand access to healthy, sustainably produced, culturally appropriate foods;
- ensure worker well-being across the food chain;
- minimize the community and environmental costs of food production and distribution;
- strengthen connections between consumers and producers;
- establish and strengthen producer-to-producer connections and producer-to-supply chain connections.
Eligible applicants include:
- farm or food system businesses operating in California;
- nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations operating in California;
- state and local government agencies, tribal governments;
- California public and private institutions of higher education.
Individual grants will be limited to a maximum of $10,000, with one applied research grant awarded up to $20,000. Proposals are requested for three types of projects:
- Planning grants
- Education and outreach grants
- Applied research grants
For more information and to apply, visit https://sarep.ucdavis.edu/grantsFY24-25.
Kathleen Patrocinio retires after 32 years of UC service
Patrocinio started her university career in 1990 as assistant to the director and manager of administrative support services in hospital administration at the UC Davis Health System. In this role, she managed the chief executive officer's correspondence and a team responsible for writing and maintaining hospital policies and procedures. She later held business administration positions in the UC Davis Health System's Design & Construction department and the Cancer Center.
At UC Davis, Patrocinio managed proposals and grants at the Office of Research and worked as assistant director and business manager in University Relations. Continuing to provide high-level financial administration, she served as budget and finance director at the School of Education and Financial Services Unit head at the UC Davis Library. In her work in the Physics and Astronomy Department, she managed multimillion-dollar research proposals, grants and special projects.
“I've had the unique and fulfilling experience of serving in acting assistant dean and executive director positions on several occasions,” Patrocinio said.
Patrocinio also served on campus committees to develop and implement financial system transitions from historical systems to the Kuali Financial System. She was also involved with personnel and payroll system transitions as well as creating and presenting user training.
Working for the university, she has enjoyed “the opportunity to meet and work with such a diverse group of many talented people over 32 years at UC and getting to know the organization from so many different perspectives. You might say that this vantage point was from a 360-degree perspective, having worked in academic, professional degree, administrative and centralized support departments on both executive and departmental staffs.”
“Most significantly fulfilling has been the privilege of mentoring others, seeing them grow professionally and achieve some amazing career successes,” Patrocinio said.
As UC SAREP finance and business manager, Patrocinio was recently awarded a Staff Appreciation and Recognition (STAR) Award for her sustained, exceptional performance and organizational success. “Kathleen has been the glue that has held our program together for the last three years as we have experienced disruptions in our operations due to the pandemic, an administrative and physical move, and multiple personnel changes,” said Sonja Brodt, UC SAREP associate director. “Her utmost professionalism, extensive UC network and knowledge base from over 30 years of working at the university and her own very high standards for her work have all made a big difference in helping SAREP navigate through numerous uncertainties.”
In retirement, Patrocinio is looking forward to traveling to a large three-day family reunion in Hawaii later this year, volunteering and spending time on some long-overdue home and garden projects.
