Safe, healthy and happy Thanksgiving
UC event documented in photos, but not in spirit
The beautiful strawberry stand photos that graced a New York Times story yesterday about the locavore movement were shot at a UC event last Friday designed to remind Sacramento residents about the beginning of their local strawberry season and promote two UC initiatives to help local growers.
It was great that Time's photographer Max Whitaker showed up, but it would've been nice to have credited UC for the purpose of the gathering. UC researchers received a half-million-dollar grant from USDA to work closely with Southeast Asian farmers in Sacramento and Fresno counties on improving production practices, ensuring food safety and expanding their markets.
Not that the Times story wasn't interesting. It focused on a new advertising campaign for Lays Potato Chips that extols their connection to farmers and local communities. The story, written by Kim Severson, said food producers and large-scale farming concerns are embracing a broad interpretation of what eating locally means.
"This mission creep has the original locavores choking on their yerba mate," Severson wrote.
In fairness, the article did touch on the second program promoted at last week's strawberry stand event, but without mentioning UC. The "Grow Local and Buy Local" initiative - a collaborative effort with UC and the Sacramento Farm Bureau that is funded with a $50,000 grant from the Sacramento Board of Supervisors - is designed to take advantage of the close proximity of Sacramento's farms and consumers.
Part of the money is being used to encourage 3,000 area farmers to grow acres of what the Severson calls "grocery store crops," like strawberries and artichokes instead of "commodity crops," like safflower and alfalfa, or to sell more fruit fresh, rather than sending it to canners.
The fresh produce can then be marketed as "local" and sold to nearby hospitals, schools, jails and other institutions that want to buy food grown nearby, and sold direct to consumers at local farmers markets, flea markets and road side stands.
The New York Times wasn't the only media outlet to come to the strawberry stand. Sacramento County UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Jenny Broome said representatives from the ag publication Capital Press, KCRA Channel 3 News, and the Elk Grove Citizen covered the event.
Sacramento strawberry stand.
Thinking inside the blog
At the recent ANR Statewide Conference, historian James McWilliams gave UC Ag and Natural Resources staff and academics a new mantra to consider. For years we've been trying to "think outside the box." McWilliams shared the revelation, "There is no box." That gave UCCE Ventura County director Rose Hayden-Smith something to ponder in her blog, posted today on the Web site Civil Eats.
McWilliams probably jarred most of the people in the ANR audience with his comments.
- He said it is simplistic to think of food in terms of chemicals vs. no chemicals.
- He asserted that meat should be eaten in small amounts and not very often, if at all.
- He believes the "genie is out of the bottle" on genetically modified organisms, which he said have the potential to feed more people with less land using less pesticides.
- He said the the Locavore movement seeks to “banish to the dustbin” other food system models
- He suggests any new food system framework will be formed by evolution, not revolution.
In her online post, Hayden-Smith said she sometimes agrees with McWilliams, but made her own points about the future of American food systems:
- She is a strong believer in the value of strong local and regional food systems, and actively promotes them.
- She believes that multiple food systems exist – and probably always will – and that most people participate in several kinds of food systems simultaneously.
- She said there is room and opportunity to develop alternatives for the places and situations in our country where the predominant, or meta, food system is not working effectively.
Hayden-Smith commented in the blog on another presenter she had heard speak recently, MacArthur genius grant recipient Will Allen.
Allen advocates for the creation of a public-private institution called the Centers for Urban Agriculture that would combine all of the elements of a functioning community food system scaled to the needs of a large city. The elements would include a training and outreach center, a large working urban farmstead, a research and development center, a policy institute and a state-of-the-future urban agriculture demonstration center.
Hayden-Smith points out that Allen's vision is not only a new food system model, but suggests a new kind of extension model. In conclusion, she wrote, "McWilliams’ ideas actually retain the box - or framework - of the existing national and largely industrialized food system. Allen’s work assumes no box."
UC researchers discuss Sudden Oak Death on Quest
The continuing efforts of UC scientists to battle Sudden Oak Death were featured today on Quest, KQED's radio program about Northern California science and environment.
The story opens with UC Davis plant pathologist David Rizzo describing why the term "Sudden Oak Death" is a misnomer.
The disease, he said, "is not particularly sudden, it doesn’t just infect oaks and it doesn’t result in death of all plants."
The six-minute radio story includes interviews with Matteo Garbelotto, an extension specialist in forest pathology at UC Berkeley. He told reporter David Garn that bay laurel trees are harboring the pathogen in oak woodlands.
UC to work with new Placer County youth commission
UC Cooperative Extension may join with Placer County Health and Human Services to provide guidance to a new youth commission being considered by the Placer County Board of Supervisors, according to a story in the Auburn Journal.
The project aims to give a voice to youth in Placer County government. Fifteen young people aged 14 to 21 will be enlisted to identify issues facing local youth and bring ideas to the Board of Supervisors, all of whom are 40 or older.
Supervisor Jim Holmes will be asking the board to approve the commission at their meeting tomorrow.
“This is an opportunity for us to get a better sense of the issues,” Holmes is quoted. “We see the negative in the papers but there’s also a lot of good being done.”
Holmes wishes to have the youth commission, which would receive federal and state funds, in place at the beginning of the next school year.
Early-season Santa Barbara fire unexpected
UC Berkeley Cooperative Extension fire ecology specialist Max Moritz told a Bloomberg.com reporter that the wildfire raging in Santa Barbara County caught forest experts by surprise.
“It is very early, the plants still appear to be quite full of moisture, and when you look at the ferocity of this wind condition, that’s when you say it is surprising,” he was quoted in the story.
Moritz said overzealous fire suppression cannot be blamed for the devastating inferno that has already burned 75 homes and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents.
“There isn’t any such thing as a low-severity fire in the shrub lands,” Moritz said. “The hot, dry wind event has opened the door to what looks like a catastrophe.”