Safe, healthy and happy Thanksgiving
UC generates climate change news
Coincidentally, two news releases were distributed yesterday with information from UC Ag and Natural Resources about climate change.
One news release announces the current issue of California Agriculture journal, which is devoted to news and research on climate change and how it will alter California’s environment and landscape, agriculture and food quality. The cover of the magazine says climate change is "unequivocal," a word pulled from the 2007 report the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level," the IPCC report says.
Articles in the journal -
- Summarize the predicted changes to California’s climate, weather, growing conditions, pollution, sea level and other factors
- Explain why initial increases in crop production due to “CO2 fertilization” decline rapidly, a finding with important implications for hunger and nutrition worldwide
- Predict that the numbers and kinds of invasive insect pests will increase because of rising temperatures
- Demonstrate how alternative agricultural practices such as cover cropping can have a significant impact on the amounts of greenhouse gases emitted from fields
The second climate change news release was generated by the UC Berkeley news service. It says climate change will bring about major shifts in worldwide fire patterns, and that those changes are coming fast, according to an analysis led by researchers at UC Berkeley and Texas Tech University.
"This is the first attempt to quantitatively model why we see fire where we see it across the entire planet," the news release quotes study author Max Moritz, assistant cooperative extension specialist in wildland fire at UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources and co-director of the UC Center for Fire Research & Outreach. "What is startling in these findings is the relatively rapid rate at which we're likely to see very broad-scale changes in fire activity for large parts of the planet."
Media mark the passing of ag giant J.G. Boswell
J.G. Boswell, the founder and head of the enormous family-owned farming concern J.G. Boswell Co., passed away last week at the age of 86. As an innovative cotton farmer in the San Joaquin Valley and influential advocate in land and water resource policy, Boswell's path often intersected with UC Cooperative Extension.
Boswell inherited the company when he was 29 from his uncle, also named J.G. Boswell, according to an obituary published today in the Los Angeles Times. His farm spans 150,000 acres near the San Joaquin Valley town of Corcoran. In addition to farming, the company conducted an innovative research and development program, producing more productive seeds and making technological improvements to his gins that boosted their capacity to 400 bales of cotton a day.
UC Davis agricultural economist Richard Howitt told the Times that Boswell was also an innovative water user, one of the first to employ lasers to level fields so that water flowed evenly and efficiently. Careful water management, including employing agronomists to determine when and how to water, allowed Boswell's farms to produce more cotton with less water than competitors, Howitt told Times reporter Jerry Hirsch. Many of Boswell's techniques were later adopted by other farms.
J.G. Boswell was a friend to UC Cooperative Extension. His company's foundation is listed as a major contributor to the 4-H program and it provided land for UC research projects, such as a study underway in the late 1990s to determine whether agricultural drainage water can be cleaned using flow-through wetlands, as described in this UC Cooperative Extension news release. These weren't his only philanthropic endeavors. In fact, the former country director for UC Cooperative Extension in Kings County, Bruce Roberts, is now an agronomy professor in the J.G. Boswell-endowed chair in plant science at California State University, Fresno.
Google News lists 51 media outlets including a news obituary about J.G. Boswell's death, including:
- Fresno Bee: Titan of Valley agriculture Boswell dead at age 86
- Visalia Times-Delta: Local grower J.G Boswell II dies
- San Jose Mercury-News: JG Boswell II, king of Calif. cotton, dies at 86
Media cover UCCE budget issues
An article in the Martinez News-Gazette said "vocal lobbying by the Contra Costa 4-H members and their parents" influenced the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors to maintain its funding support for UC Cooperative Extension until June 30.
Indicators had been that funding would end immediately. The board's decision gives the program time to seek “other funding mechanisms," wrote reporter Greta Mark, attributing the comment to "4-H officials."
Mark wrote that supervisor Gayle Uilkema told the newspaper the board planned to discontinue its "$352,000 in annual funding to the 4-H in an attempt to close the county’s $50 million budget deficit." (It seems the writer confuses the umbrella UC Cooperative Extension organization with 4-H, perhaps because it is UCCE's most visible component in this urban county.)
“The Supervisors provided us a window of opportunity,” the article quoted farm advisor Janet Caprile. “We’re hopeful, but at the same time we know it’s very serious, we don’t know if we can find funding.”
Uilkema said the county would maintain a minimal contract with UCCE and provide services in kind, such as gas and buildings, the article said.
“We’re trying to keep 4-H on life support,” Uilkema was quoted. “So that as opportunities evolve with time, we have not abandoned youth-oriented county programs and we can resuscitate it and bring it to a ramped-up level when things change.”
An article in the Hanford Sentinel had better news for UC Cooperative Extension. This story focused on state funding for the program. Reporter Seth Nidever spoke to the vice president of UC ANR, Dan Dooley, who grew up in the area served by the Hanford Sentinel and attended Hanford High School.
Dooley told the reporter that the current state budget looks better for UCCE than it did during the 2003 state budget crisis.
"We're not expecting major reductions," Dooley was quoted.
However, the story noted that UCCE hasn't quite recovered from earlier slashed budget allocations, which cut the number of advisors to 230, down from nearly 400 that were employed at its peak in 1990.
Reporters descend on San Joaquin Experimental Range
On Friday, two reporters joined ranchers and UC, Fresno State and US Forest Service academics at the San Joaquin Experimental Range for a field day, presentations and barbecue marking the centennial of the Forest Service's research program. At the event, officials signed a new memorandum of understanding outlining the research goals and administrative arrangements for the 4,500-acre facility.
As part of the agreement, UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor and county director for Madera County, Neil McDougald, takes on the role of site manager for the sprawling oak woodland research facility 26 miles north of Fresno.
Dennis Pollock, a freelance reporter for AgAlert, took a guided tour of riparian areas on the station, and Ramona Frances, the ag reporter for the Madera Tribune, visited anthropological sites. The facility was inhabited by Native Americans in the distant past, evidenced by mortar cups ground into bedrock and a faint red pictograph on a rock outcropping. Remants of the station's gold mining history include tunnels dug into hillsides, piles of tailings indicative of placer mining and long-abandoned arastras, circular rock structures used by miners to break up gold ore.
In the photo, Frances (foreground) takes notes during one of the anthropological presentations, while McDougald (red jacket) listens.
San Joaquin Experimental Range
Salmonella scares roil consumers
Even though Salmonella scares are reverberating in the news media, UC Davis Cooperative Extension food safety specialist Linda Harris says that, overall, the nation's food supply is safe.
Comments from Harris, a food-safety microbiologist at the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security at UC Davis, appeared in a story by Barbara Anderson in today's Fresno Bee.
"I would hate for consumers to approach the grocery store with trepidation," Harris was quoted in a story published today. Most of the food in grocery stores, she told the reporter, has been processed in some way that reduces or eliminates Salmonella, she said.
However, the story outlined how easily Salmonella bacteria can makes their way into the food chain. The bacteria flourish in soil and water and can survive in a dry environment. They can be on almost any food, and just a few bacteria can make someone ill. Salmonella is the most common cause of foodborne illnesses nationwide, but it is still relatively rare.
It is now easier for health investigators to recognize a salmonella outbreak because of advances in DNA technology.
"We have better methods to tease out outbreaks that previously would have gone unrecognized," Harris was quoted.