Posts Tagged: Global Food
Two UC students named Global Food Initiative Fellows with UC ANR
University of California students Anna Rios and Conor McCabe have been selected as Global Food Initiative fellows for UC Agriculture and Natural Resources during the 2021-22 school year. Their projects will involve working with campus-based academics, UC Cooperative Extension professionals, and staff to conduct research and communications to improve food security, nutrition and agriculture sustainability for communities across California.
“As a first-generation college student and daughter of immigrants, I'm looking to take the findings of my research work to benefit not one or two individuals, but rather multiple generations through program and policy change and reduce the prevalence of chronic diseases in my hometown and communities across California,” Rios said.
“I'm strongly interested in career opportunities in food and agriculture and its relationship with policy implications,” said McCabe. “This fellowship is sure to serve as a key experience to continue my engagement into positively impacting California communities.”
The Global Food Initiative was founded in 2014 under then UC President Janet Napolitano with the goal of conquering the question of how to sustainably and nutritiously feed a world population that is expected reach 8 billion by 2025. Fellows across the 10 UC campuses and Agriculture and Natural Resources work on projects or internships that focus on food issues. Participants receive professional development, tours of food and agriculture sites throughout California, and a $3,000 annual stipend to support their education experience.
Two Cal students selected as UC ANR Global Food Initiative fellows
Esparza, second-year Masters of Public Health student, will work with UC Nutrition Policy Institute researchers on the CDFA Healthy Stores Refrigeration Grant Program Evaluation to assess the effects of neighborhood stores obtaining refrigeration units on store environments, store owner perceptions, and consumer perceptions. As an undergraduate at UC Davis, Esparza admired the GFI Fellows' work and aspired to be a part of the program for the professional and academic opportunities.
“I hope to grow as a researcher and advocate,” Esparza said. “I hope to branch the two roles – advocacy and research – in my work at NPI. This will be possible through my work in other projects, including creating public-facing materials for policymakers. I want to learn how to frame issues and research appropriately in order to target and educate folks who are in positions of political power.”
“I am deeply invested in making sure every person in the community, from child to senior citizen, has access to healthy and affordable foods and resources that improve their quality of life,” Jacobo said. “I am excited to be a GFI fellow because it will allow me to pursue what I am most passionate about, community and healthy food.”
The UC Global Food Initiative was launched by UC President Janet Napolitano in 2014 with the aim of putting UC, California and the world on a pathway to sustainability. The GFI fellows are part of a group of UC graduate and undergraduate students working on food-related projects at all 10 UC campuses, UC Office of the President, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC ANR. Each participant receives a $3,000 award to help fund student-generated research, projects or internships that support the initiative's efforts to address the issue of how to sustainably and nutritiously feed a world population expected to reach 8 billion by 2025.
In addition to their individual projects, GFI fellows are invited to participate in systemwide activities designed to enhance their leadership skills and enrich their understanding of the food system in California.
[This story was updated Oct. 11 to correct the spelling of Elsa Esparza's last name.]
Making the case for fruits and vegetables
Why do you love fruits and vegetables? Is it their bright colors? Their many shapes and varieties, the way they can makeover your plate with the seasons? The opportunity to taste local terroir in a very fresh bite of fruit or forkful of salad?
Is it more about the juiciness, crunchiness or succulence?
Or do you think more about nutrition? About vitamins, micronutrients and fiber, after decades of being encouraged to eat “5 A Day” to be healthy? Is it about that feeling of righteous virtue when you fill half your plate with fruits and vegetables — and know you're earning a gold star for eating right?
The importance of eating fruits and vegetables has been making headlines again recently, with studies refocusing on the concept of “nutrition security” in a changing climate and pushing for an emphasis on nutrient consumption. The EAT-Lancet commission — while mostly garnering headlines in the United States related to reduced meat consumption — also recommended a diet that would require almost every global region to increase its consumption of fruits and vegetables to meet healthy diet goals.
But there's another reason to love fruits and vegetables that might not be as obvious. Here's a 30-second video clip of what a young farmer in Uganda had to tell me about vegetables, when I had the chance to meet him last year:
“There's no quicker source of getting money in town,” Boaz Otieno explained, when discussing why he chose to farm instead of going to town to find a job. He also talked about the concept that he could grow vegetables like tomatoes on a smaller plot of land and earn as much for those tomatoes as a larger plot of corn or cassava.
"You might even grow (tomatoes) twice while the cassava is not yet harvested, so there's a lot of money in horticulture," he said.
Otieno is a farmer who was also working as a site coordinator for a research project led by Kate Scow in Uganda, which was supported by the Horticulture Innovation Lab, the USAID-funded research program that I work for at UC Davis. Elizabeth Mitcham, director of the Horticulture Innovation Lab and a UC Cooperative Extension specialist, often talks about the “double-duty impacts” of fruits and vegetables, as these crops can be a tool to achieve two major global goals: improving nutrition and reducing poverty.
And it's not just one farmer's opinion that horticultural crops can yield higher incomes. In a white paper about aligning the food system to meet fruit and vegetable dietary needs, the authors pointed out that data from Africa and Asia have shown farmer profits per hectare 3-14 times higher when growing vegetables versus growing rice. The paper also points out that USDA estimates fruits and vegetables account for 23 percent of production value in American agriculture, grown on less than 3 percent of the country's agricultural land. And here in California, fruits and vegetables are a $20 billion industry.
Later this month, the Horticulture Innovation Lab will be hosting a conference in Washington, D.C., focused on making the case for fruits and vegetables with the theme, “Colorful Harvest: From Feeding to Nourishing a Growing World.” The conference will bring together decision makers, international development practitioners, and researchers from universities across the United States, Africa, Asia and Central America to discuss how horticultural innovations can advance global issues of food security, food waste, gender empowerment, youth employment, malnutrition, and poverty reduction.
While the conference speakers and participants will be diverse, we're also working to bring farmers' voices — like Otieno's — into the conference with video clips from our partners in Nepal, Honduras, Rwanda and elsewhere, to explain what exactly it is that makes them love fruits and vegetables.
More information:
- Conference info: Colorful Harvest: From Feeding to Nourishing a Growing World
(Check the conference webpage for more videos and presentation info after the event.) - White paper: Aligning the Food System to Meet Dietary Needs: Fruits and Vegetables
- More about the Horticulture Innovation Lab
Watch a short video clip on what Boaz Otieno likes best about vegetables: https://youtu.be/aEu9BgL9aH4
Two UC graduate students chosen to assist UC ANR Global Food Initiative efforts
Melanie Colvin, a graduate student at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, focuses on addressing nutrition-related diseases through preventative measures. As a GFI fellow, Colvin will work with Nutrition Policy Institute researchers to conduct a secondary analysis of the Healthy Communities Study, a six-year observational study that included more than 5,000 children and their families from 130 communities in the United States. The native of Chapel Hill, NC, will analyze the relationship between household food insecurity and physical activity. Colvin plans to pursue a Ph.D. with a goal of a career in public health research.
"The GFI fellowship allows me to experience many facets of developing meaningful research questions that I will address on my own one day as a principal investigator," Colvin said.
“I am excited to learn from the UC ANR's Strategic Communications team and for the opportunity as a GFI fellow to gain hands-on agricultural research communication experience,” Mueller said.
In addition to their individual projects, the 2018-19 GFI fellows are invited to participate in systemwide activities designed to enhance their leadership skills and enrich their understanding of the food system in California.
The UC Global Food Initiative was launched by UC President Janet Napolitano in 2014 with the aim of putting UC, California and the world on a pathway to sustainability. The GFI fellows are part of a group of approximately 50 UC graduate and undergraduate students working on food-related projects at all 10 UC campuses, UC Office of the President, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC ANR. Each participant receives a $4,000 award to help fund student-generated research, projects or internships that support the initiative's efforts to address the issue of how to sustainably and nutritiously feed a world population expected to reach 8 billion by 2025.
Melanie Colvin, left, and Maci Mueller.
Estudiantes de UC participan en la Iniciativa Global Alimentaria de UC ANR
El enfoque de Melanie Colvin, estudiante de postgrado de la Facultad de Salud Pública de UC Berkeley, es abordar las enfermedades relacionadas con la alimentación a través de medidas preventivas. Como becaria de GFI, Colvin trabajará con investigadores del Instituto de Políticas sobre Nutrición para realizar un análisis secundario del Estudio de Comunidades Saludables (Healthy Communities Study), un estudio de observación de seis años que incluyó a más de cinco mil niños y sus familias de 130 comunidades en los Estados Unidos. La nativa de Chapel Hill, Carolina del Norte, analizará la relación que hay entre la inseguridad alimentaria en el hogar y la actividad física. Colvin planea obtener un doctorado con el objetivo de seguir la carrera de investigación de la salud pública.
"La beca de GFI me permite experimentar muchas facetas en el desarrollo de preguntas de investigación significativas que un día abordaré por mí cuenta como investigadora principal", manifestó Colvin.
“Estoy entusiasmada por aprender del equipo de Comunicaciones Estratégicas de UC ANR y por la oportunidad, como becaria de GFI, de obtener experiencia práctica sobre comunicación en el área de la investigación agrícola”, señaló Mueller.
Además de sus proyectos individuales, las becarias de GFI 2018-19 están invitadas a participar en actividades a nivel estatal diseñadas para mejorar sus habilidades de liderazgo y enriquecer su entendimiento acerca del sistema alimentario en California.
La Iniciativa Global Alimentaria fue lanzada por la presidenta de UC Janet Napolitano en el 2014 con el objetivo de colocar a UC, California y al mundo en vías hacia la sustentabilidad. Las becarias de GFI son parte de un grupo de aproximadamente 50 estudiantes de UC, incluyendo de postgrado, que trabajan en proyectos relacionados con los alimentos en todos los 10 campus de UC, la oficina del presidente de UC, el Laboratorio Nacional Lawrence Berkeley y UC ANR. Cada participante recibe una beca de cuatro mil dólares para ayudar a financiar la investigación y proyectos generados por estudiantes o pasantías que apoyan los esfuerzos de la iniciativa por abordar el tema sobre cómo alimentar a la población mundial, que se anticipa alcanzará los ocho mil millones para el año 2025, de una manera sustentable y nutritiva.