Posts Tagged: agriculture
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.
Virtual GROW Urban Agriculture Conference begins Nov. 1
The GROW (Generating Research Opportunities Workshop) Urban Agriculture Conference strives to enhance urban agriculture and food systems through developing collaborative proposals that tackle critical issues.
The GROW Urban Agriculture virtual conference is designed to engage researchers, Cooperative Extension professionals, educators, industry representatives and community collaborators in the development of integrated urban agriculture funding proposals.
During this conference, interdisciplinary teams will collaborate to produce creative and effective proposals rather than spend resources competing against one another.
This conference will occur in three phases:
Phase I: Nov. 1-3, will focus on developing teams.
Phase II: Nov. 4 to Jan. 16, 2024, will be a time for teams to work together on proposals at their own pace.
Phase III: Jan. 17-19, 2024, will include an opportunity for teams to present their proposals to a mock grant review panel and have time to incorporate and refine their proposals.
Registration is required, but there is no cost to participate. This conference is supported by a USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant.
For more information, visit https://sites.google.com/msu.edu/grow-uaconf/home.
Explore the Climate Smart Agriculture story map
The Climate Smart Agriculture Program published an interactive online story map highlighting the program's focus areas and team of experts.
Esther Mosase, Climate Smart Agriculture community education specialist for San Diego and Riverside counties, used ArcGIS to create a story map for people to explore the program and personnel.
Climate smart agriculture promotes activities that address the risks that climate change poses to agriculture. It encompasses management practices to
- Increase soil carbon
- Reduce greenhouse gas emissions
- Improve on-farm efficiencies
- Promote sustainable land practices
“The story map was developed as a way to summarize and visualize the history, activities, and staff involved in the Climate Smart Agriculture Program,” said Hope Zabronsky, academic coordinator for UC ANR's Climate Smart Agriculture Program. “Each staff member's bio is included along with the regions and counties they serve. This is useful to both growers and stakeholders who support our programs.”
In 2019, the California Department of Food and Agriculture partnered with UC ANR to place community educators throughout the state to provide technical assistance and outreach with the goal of increasing adoption of climate-smart farming and ranching practices.
The community education specialists help growers find appropriate resources, educate them about financial incentive programs, assist them in applying for grants, implement climate smart farming practices and more.
The program recently released an impact report that shows the community education specialists have served clientele in six languages across 25 counties in California, through 100 workshops attended by more than 2,300 participants. Technical assistance and grants support a wide range of projects – from cover cropping to water efficiency upgrades – that have saved an estimated 8.3 billion gallons of water and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by an amount equivalent to taking 68,000 gas-powered vehicles off the road for a year, based on impact modeling.
To explore the Climate Smart Agriculture story map, visit https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/db4de0f145574ed5b7fac4a51e14125c.
Norma De la Vega retires as broadcast communications specialist after 13 years
After 13 years of telling the UC ANR story through written articles and video production, Norma De la Vega retired on June 29. De la Vega joined UC ANR's News and Information Outreach in Spanish team in 2009 as a senior writer.
NOS fulfilled UC ANR's vision of developing educational and informational programs in Spanish to serve the Latino community. For more than 40 years, NOS has been producing information formatted for radio, television, and online audiences, and De la Vega has played an instrumental role in helping NOS expand its reach and diversify its creative approach to storytelling.
When she started, most of her writing focused on nutrition, highlighting groups like the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program and the Nutrition Policy Institute. “Norma's contributions were spot on,” said NOS Program Manager Ricardo Vela. “Her impact has been bringing the importance of nutrition into the stories that we bring to the community.”
De la Vega earned a bachelor's degree in science communications from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in her hometown of Mexico City. “Learning how to produce videos when I went to school was very different than now,” said De la Vega. “We didn't have the kind of cameras we do today.”
Following college, De la Vega worked as a television reporter in Tijuana before moving to San Diego County where she started focusing on writing. Prior to UC ANR, De La Vega worked as a writer for the Enlace Union-Tribune's Spanish newspaper in San Diego for nearly a decade.
Before it became NOS' primary medium for storytelling, De la Vega helped lead the team's video production effort despite her limited experience. “We weren't experts, but we realized the importance of video production to get our information out. It was a team effort,” she said.
In 2010, De la Vega wrote a story and produced a video on the importance of planning for old age. In many cases, adult children had to manage their parent's care without guidance, and most caregivers of the elderly spoke Spanish as their first language and needed more resources to do a better job.
De la Vega's story relied on research conducted by Patti Wooten Swanson, UCCE nutrition, family and consumer science advisor in San Diego. Not only was Swanson honored at the 2013 Galaxy Awards for her contribution to the story, but De la Vega, a member of the NOS team at the time, won first place at the Western Region Television/Video Communications Award Ceremony despite the lack of a Spanish language category.
In 2016, De la Vega produced a video of the first bilingual 4-H club, the result of a partnership with the Community Settlement Association in Riverside County. “A lot of good things were happening at that time and are happening now because ANR is evolving with more bilingual experts on different topics,” De la Vega said.
Although she started as a senior writer, De La Vega evolved and became a broadcast communications specialist. Her success in the role allowed her to become well-connected to other communicators and community leaders. “Norma always had a contact we needed for a story that we were working on,” said Miguel Sanchez, another broadcast communications specialist on the NOS team.
Lisa Rawleigh, NOS administrative assistant, established a personal and professional relationship with De la Vega. “Norma ensured that our Spanish articles were written properly and that we did not miss any accents or typos. I can always count on her to proofread my posts on social media,” said Rawleigh.
De la Vega said that she feels “enormously satisfied” to have worked with a team of fellow pioneers. “Although we were not experts, we learned so much every day and together,” De la Vega said. “Today, there are several experts in the production of community videos, and we helped enrich the graphic archive for UC ANR's community programs. I think our contribution was to lead the way in that direction.”
Looking ahead, De la Vega will be spending her retirement traveling and exploring other countries and cultures. Since she was a girl, De la Vega enjoyed swimming and can't wait to do more of it. “I love to swim because being in the water always makes me feel young,” she said.
Finally, De la Vega will enjoy quality time with her grandchildren, teaching them Spanish and volunteering at the Spanish immersion school they attend.
To read this story in Spanish, visit https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=57440.
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