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Posts Tagged: UC Cooperative Extension
Gonzalves begins as new UC Cooperative Extension director for Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties
David Gonzalves started on Feb. 1 as director for University of California Cooperative Extension in Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties. UC Cooperative Extension connects communities across California with UC research and science-based solutions through agriculture, natural resources, nutrition and 4-H youth development programs.
Responsible for the overall operation of UCCE educational and applied research programs in the region, Gonzalves also will build and expand partnerships with county and city governments, public agencies and community organizations.
“David brings tremendous expertise in administration, fostering strong relationships, and building effective teams,” said Deanne Meyer, interim associate vice president for programs and strategic initiatives at UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, which administers UCCE statewide. “His track record of engaging local agencies, business partners, stakeholders and community groups will be invaluable as we explore new collaborations to reach and serve more Californians.”
Gonzalves was most recently a campus building official at UC Merced. Beginning his career at the County of Merced as a fire inspector, Gonzalves worked his way up to supervising building inspector and eventually assistant development services director. Then, for the City of Merced, he filled the role of chief building official and ultimately director of development services, leading the city's Building, Planning and Engineering teams. For three years, Gonzalves served as Tuolumne County's Community Resources Agency director.
“David's past experience as an administrator in county government and at UC Merced makes him the ideal candidate for the work we do at UCCE, as he has demonstrated success in being able to successfully negotiate these two worlds,” said Lynn Schmitt-McQuitty, interim director for county Cooperative Extension at UC ANR.
Gonzalves said he looks forward to meeting with county leaders, members of local boards, growers, UC Master Gardener volunteers, 4-H members and community members to learn how UC Cooperative Extension can help meet local needs.
“My big picture goal is to allow UCCE advisors, administrative teams and local county leaders to have a coordinated approach to our local challenges and successes,” Gonzalves said. “Our efforts will concentrate on freeing up our research teams' calendars to ensure they can continue producing cutting-edge accomplishments here in the tri-county area.”
Based at the UCCE Monterey County office in Salinas, Gonzalves can be reached at dgonzalves@ucanr.edu or (831) 392-5916.
UC ANR to hire 48 more UC Cooperative Extension advisors
From Del Norte, Siskiyou, and Modoc counties south through San Diego and Imperial counties, Californians will be seeing more University of California Cooperative Extension advisors in their communities.
University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources has released 48 more UCCE Advisor positions for recruitment over the next 12 months thanks to increased 2021-22 state funding. This brings the total to 89 new UCCE Advisor positions since July 2021 when Gov. Newsom and the state Legislature provided a historic budget boost for UC ANR. During the last six months of 2021, UC ANR released 41 other UCCE positions that have been filled or are under recruitment. The full list of UCCE positions is posted online at https://bit.ly/CEpositions2021-22.
Additional UC Cooperative Extension Specialist positions will be announced for recruitment in early April 2022.
“We appreciate the people across the state who worked with UCANR to develop the UC Cooperative Extension advisor position proposals,” said Glenda Humiston, University of California vice president for agriculture and natural resources. “Input from community members and partnering agencies and organizations was critical to informing the prioritization of these UCCE positions. Now we hope our supporters will help us recruit the best scientists to work with California's communities.”
The new UCCE advisors will be providing research-based information to residents about nutrition, community development, crop production, forestry, pest management, water management, youth development, landscape management and wildfire.
In addition to traditional issues, some of the new UCCE advisors will be focusing on climate adaptation for Indigenous farmers, cultural burning and Indigenous land stewardship, repurposing green waste, and community development with Californians who are Black, Indigenous or speak English as a second language.
The following UCCE Advisor positions will be staged for recruitment to avoid overwhelming UC ANR's Human Resources colleagues:
- 4-H Community Engagement & Development Youth Area Advisor for Tulare, Fresno and Kings counties
- 4-H Animal Science Youth Advisor for San Benito, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties
- 4-H Youth Development Area Advisor for San Diego and Orange counties
- Agronomy and Weed Management Area Advisor for Merced County
- Agronomy and Weed Science Area Advisor for Tehama, Glenn and Shasta counties
- Climate Resilient Indigenous Farming and Food Sovereignty Area Advisor for San Diego and Riverside counties
- Community Development BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and other people of color) Advisor for Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and San Francisco counties
- Community Health and Nutrition Advisor for San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Merced counties
- Community Health and Nutrition Advisor for Shasta, Trinity and Tehama counties
- Community Health, Nutrition and Food Security Area Advisor for Butte, Glenn, Colusa, Sutter and Yuba counties
- Community Health, Nutrition and Food Systems Area Advisor for Siskiyou, Modoc and Lassen counties
- Community Health and Nutrition Older Adult Area Advisor for Marin, Napa and Sonoma counties
- Cultural Burning and Indigenous Land Stewardship Advisor for Mendocino and Lake counties
- Dairy Area Advisor for Tulare and Kern counties
- Entomology Area Advisor for Ventura and Los Angeles counties
- Environmental Horticulture Area Advisor for Fresno, Madera, Tulare and Kings counties
- Environmental Horticulture and Forestry Area Advisor for Placer and Nevada counties
- Environmental Horticulture and Water Resource Management Area Advisor for Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Clara and San Francisco counties
- Food Safety and Organic Production Area Advisor for Imperial and Riverside counties
- Forestry Area Advisor for Santa Cruz, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties
- Forestry Area Advisor for Shasta, Trinity and Siskiyou counties
- Fruit and Almond Area Advisor for Fresno and Tulare counties
- Horticulture and Specialty Crops Advisor for Humboldt and Del Norte counties
- Indigenous Disaster Resilience Planning and Policy Area Advisor for Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne and El Dorado counties
- IPM (Integrated Pest Management) Area Advisor for Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne and El Dorado counties
- IPM Entomology Area Advisor based at Kearney Research and Extension Center
- IPM Entomology Farm Area Advisor for Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties
- Intermountain Irrigated Grass Systems Area Advisor for Modoc, Shasta and Lassen counties
- Irrigation and Soils Area Advisor for Stanislaus, San Joaquin and Merced counties
- Livestock and Natural Resources Area Advisor for Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne and El Dorado counties
- Orchard Systems and Weed Ecology Area Advisor for Glenn, Tehama and Colusa counties
- Organic Materials Management Area Advisor for Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties
- Organic Materials Management and Agri-Food System Area Advisor for Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and San Francisco counties
- Pathology Area Advisor for Imperial, Riverside and San Diego counties
- Production Horticulture Area Advisor for Ventura and Santa Barbara counties
- Restoration Ecology and Weed Science Area Advisor for Kern, Tulare and Kings counties
- Rice Farming Systems Area Advisor for Colusa and Yolo counties
- Sustainable Agriculture Systems Area Advisor for Mariposa, Merced and Stanislaus counties
- Sustainable Orchard Systems Area Advisor for Sutter, Yuba, Butte and Placer counties
- Urban Agriculture Food Systems and Environmental Issues Advisor for San Diego and Orange counties
- Urban IPM Area Advisor for Sacramento, Solano and Yolo counties
- Urban Watershed Resilience Area Advisor for Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties
- Vegetable Crops Area Advisor for Sacramento, Solano and Yolo counties
- Water and Soil Resources Area Advisor for Sonoma, Marin, Napa and Mendocino counties
- Water Management Area Advisor for Tulare, Fresno, Kings and Madera counties
- Water Quality-Quantity-Climate Change Area Advisor for Mendocino and Lake counties
- Weed Ecology and Management Area Advisor for Fresno, Tulare and Kings counties
- Youth, Families and Communities Area Advisor for Kern, Inyo and Mono counties
Daniel and Sarah Hrdy create endowment to fund UC Cooperative Extension research
The Yolo County walnut growers will provide as much as $100,000 per year for “practical” research
The University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) announced that Dan and Sarah Hrdy, owners of Citrona Farms LLC, a walnut farm in Winters, have established The Daniel & Sarah Hrdy Fund for UC Cooperative Extension Research.
The fund will provide as much as $100,000 in seed funding for early-stage research projects each year for UC Cooperative Extension advisors and specialists, as well as their academic collaborators. Dan, a former clinical professor of medicine (infectious diseases) at UC Davis Medical Center, and Sarah, a professor emerita of anthropology at UC Davis, created the fund to express their appreciation for UC Cooperative Extension's practical yet cutting edge research.
“Over the years, we have hosted a number of researchers from UC ANR, UC Davis and UC Berkeley studying topics related to sustainable agriculture, habitat restoration and wildlife conservation and have benefited both directly and indirectly from the UC Cooperative Extension network,” said Dan Hrdy. More than 20 years of UC research hosted at Citrona Farms is detailed on their website at www.citrona.com.
Research proposals will be selected by the leaders of UC ANR's Strategic Initiatives: Sustainable Food Systems; Endemic and Invasive Pests and Diseases; and Sustainable Natural Ecosystems.
Areas of special interest include:
- Sustainable Agriculture, with special regard to climate change
- Interaction of Natural Ecosystems and Agriculture
- Habitat Restoration and Conservation
- Wildfire and Forest Restoration
"The timing for this donation could not have been better as UC ANR is actively recruiting an extraordinary number of new UCCE advisors and specialists and support for their research is greatly appreciated," Wendy Powers, UC ANR associate vice president, said. “This is a great example of how local relationships build trust and support for UCCE efforts across the state."
The fund will be established with annual gifts as part of a payout from the donor's retirement account, along with a bequest that, when paid, will create a permanent endowment where the payouts will continue to fund this project. The Hrdys hope to make others aware of this method of charitable giving.
"We were able to use required payouts from a retirement account to set up this gift,” said Dan Hrdy. “I hope more people will look into doing this to help support Cooperative Extension.”
Investors who must satisfy a required minimum distribution from their retirement accounts may consider a qualified charitable distribution (QCD), said Greg Gibbs, UC ANR executive director of Development Services.
“A qualified charitable distribution is a direct transfer of funds from your IRA custodian, payable to a qualified charity, like the UC Regents/UC ANR,” Gibbs said. “Once you've reached age 72, the QCD amount counts toward your required minimum distribution for the year, up to an annual maximum of $100,000. It's not included in your gross income and does not count against the limits on deductions for charitable contributions.”
Eight UCCE advisor positions released for recruitment by UC ANR
Eight more UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE) advisor positions have been released for recruitment by Glenda Humiston, University of California vice president for agriculture and natural resources.
The UCCE job titles are followed by the counties they will serve:
- Central Sierra local food systems advisor; Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne and El Dorado counties
- Vertebrate pest management advisor; Napa, Lake and Solano counties
- Specialty crops advisor; Sonoma, Marin and Napa counties
- Viticulture advisor; San Joaquin, Sacramento and Stanislaus counties
- Integrated pest management advisor; San Diego County
- 4-H youth development advisor; Placer and Nevada counties
- Environmental Horticulture Advisor; Los Angeles County
- Fire Advisor; San Benito, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties
Including those listed above, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources has released 28 UCCE positions for recruitment over the past three months and Humiston plans to announce additional UCCE positions in November. The recruitments are being released in stages to avoid overwhelming the Human Resources team.
“This hiring is made possible by the state's historic investment in UC ANR's mission to bring the power of UC to all 58 California counties and improve the lives of all Californian,” said Humiston.
In 2022, Humiston plans to hire 70 more UCCE specialists and advisors to help Californians better address issues including climate change, wildfires, food security and pest management.
Californians go online to be scientists for a day
For the Be a Scientist project, school children, families, community groups and individuals went online to answer three questions: Where is food grown in your community? How are you conserving water? How many pollinators do you see?
People as far north as Del Norte County and as far south as Imperial County participated:
- 10,697 people counted pollinators, including bees, butterflies, birds and even a few bats. (These numbers cannot be added to determine total participants because people could answer more than one question.)
- 9,989 people posted on the map where food is grown in their community – from backyard fruit trees to school gardens to farms
- 8,314 people told how they are conserving water – such as taking shorter showers or letting their lawns turn brown
“It's encouraging to see so many Californians interested in pollinators because they play a vital role in producing food,” said Barbara Allen-Diaz, UC vice president for agriculture and natural resources. “People are conserving water in many different ways, which is important because water is a limited resource even in non-drought years. And, surprisingly, almost half of the people participating in our survey said they grow food.”
Preliminary results show that people counted 37,961 pollinators in a three-minute period. Flies were by far the most abundant, accounting for 79 percent of the pollinators counted.
While most Californians get their food from a store, 45 percent of those responding to the UC survey said they grow their own food too. One-third of the people responding said they get their food only from a store.
To save water, 62 percent of the participants are watering less.
Many people uploaded photos of gardens, pollinators and themselves along with their observations on the map. For details about the survey, visit http://beascientist.ucanr.edu to view the maps and reports.
The statewide science project was part of UC Cooperative Extension's 100-year anniversary celebration. On May 8, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed the legislation creating the system to connect scientific advances in agriculture, nutrition and natural resources from public land-grant universities and communities in each state.
“We will continue to celebrate a century of UC Cooperative Extension and its benefits to Californians with events around the state throughout the year,” said Allen-Diaz.
For more information about the UC Cooperative Extension centennial, visit http://ucanr.edu/100.
