Posts Tagged: Virginia Bolshakova

Demand grows for UC Master Food Preserver classes

Californians' growing interest in where their food comes from has revived the art of putting up food – canning, drying, freezing and pickling – for later. People who didn't learn food preservation from their parents or grandparents are flocking to UC Cooperative Extension Master Food Preserver classes. 

Although UC Cooperative Extension started offering the program in a few counties in the 1980s, its parent organization UC Agriculture and Natural Resources recently designated it as a statewide Master Food Preserver Program.

UC Master Food Preservers are volunteers who teach people in their communities about food safety and how to preserve food. Certification entails about 50 hours of instruction and a commitment to volunteer service to the program.

In the fall, UC Cooperative Extension held a course to train and certify UC Master Food Preservers in Los Angeles.

“I had 86 applicants for 18 spots,” said Drusilla Rosales, a UC Cooperative Extension advisor who oversees the program in Los Angeles County. “It's very much in demand. I get requests almost daily from people who are either looking for a class or wanting to become certified as a UC Master Food Preserver.”

In the Bay Area, UC Cooperative Extension is holding its second training in San Mateo County in March and inviting residents of San Mateo, Santa Clara and San Francisco counties.

“People are chomping at the bit for this course,” said Virginia Bolshakova, UC Cooperative Extension director for San Mateo and San Francisco counties, who is trying to build the local Master Food Preserver Program slowly. “I have a feeling we're going to have to turn away 75 percent of the people that apply this time around! Our phones are ringing off the hook about this program.”

The program is currently located in 16 counties and expanding.

“We are hiring a staff person to move things forward and expect to have more resources for existing UC Master Food Preserver programs in the near future,” said Missy Gable, UC Cooperative Extension statewide Master Food Preserver Program co-director and UC Master Gardener Program director.

“One of our priorities is to increase diversity among volunteers in terms of ethnicity, language and the areas of Los Angeles they're from, this way we'll be better suited to reach a broader audience and serve the needs of our community” said Rosales, a UC Cooperative Extension nutrition family and consumer sciences advisor in Los Angeles County.

Most of the 46 MFP volunteers are in west Los Angeles and hold workshops at farmer markets, do demonstrations at community gardens and staff booths at the Los Angeles County Fair. They have begun reaching out to low-income residents and high school students.

“Some of our UC Master Food Preserver volunteers are working with high school students,” said Rosales. “A lot of schools now have gardens and one of the high schools has a culinary arts program and a beautiful new kitchen to prepare students for careers in the food industry. MFP volunteers have been teaching students how to dehydrate herbs and cook with herbs and dehydrate kale to make kale chips. They are also teaching jams and jellies classes.”

In Orange County, UC Master Food Preserver volunteers are working with UC Cooperative Extension's 4-H Youth Development Program to create a Junior Master Food Preserver Program for youth. One goal of the program would be to give students an opportunity to earn a certificate in food preservation that they can put on college or job applications.

For more information about the UC Cooperative Extension Master Food Preserver Program, visit http://mfp.ucanr.edu. To find an MFP program near you, visit http://mfp.ucanr.edu/Contact/Find_a_Program.

In the video below, Missy Gable, talks about plans for UC Cooperative Extension's statewide Master Food Preserver Program.

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To watch Susan Algert, UC Cooperative Extension advisor, demonstrate safe canning practices in a video, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeoymcsLWlg.

California pitahaya potential, and other recent news

Reporter Cary Blake of Western Farm Press wanted to take part in the mini pitahaya festival last week in Indio. An invitation from UC Cooperative Extension advisor José Aguiar said the first item on the agenda was pitahaya ice cream tasting. A schedule conflict kept him away, but that didn't stop Blake from speculating about the potential for pitahaya production in the Golden State in the Farm Press Blog.

According to the CDFA (2012 statistics), he wrote, the Top-10 commodities produced in California are, in order, included milk, grapes, almonds, nursery plants, cattle and calves, strawberries, lettuce, walnuts, hay, and tomatoes.

Pitahaya must be WAY down the list, but worth a taste, Blake wrote.

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Other recent news:

• UC Cooperative Extension hosted an "Insect Blitz" on Sept. 13 at UC Cooperative Extension's Elkus Ranch, which featured the opportunity to consider bugs as a delicious food source, reported the Half Moon Bay Review.
  
  The event also included a "bio blitz," in which participants were encouraged to venture off on the 150-acre site and collect samples of plant and insect species. Elkus Ranch Director Virginia Bolshakova, UC Cooperative Extension advisor and San Mateo-San Francisco County Director, said the event gave the public a chance to learn about the biodiversity of the area.

• The San Jose Mercury News and Contra Costa Times reported on the spread of bagrada bug to the San Francisco Bay Area. The pest was introduced into Southern California six years ago and has been marching northward and eastward ever since.
  
  "This bug is highly nasty," said entomologist Shimat Joseph, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Monterey County. "It can make a crop unmarketable.
  
  The story also quoted Virginia Bolshakova.
  
  "Everybody is keeping their eyes open as it travels up the coast," she said. "It is likely just a matter of time" until it reaches the rural farms along the edge of the Pacific."

New UC advisor is already making a positive impact

Virginia Bolshakova, a UC Cooperative Extension 4-H Youth Development advisor for less than a year, has received praise from a farm bureau director for her contributions to local agriculture, reported Julia Hollister in Capital Press.

“She brings enthusiasm, high energy, intelligence and a passion for agriculture to her job," said Bill Gass, executive director of the San Mateo County Farm Bureau.

No day is average for Bolshakova, who is also the county director for San Mateo-San Francisco counties UCCE and the director of Elkus Ranch, a place for hands-on learning experiences for Bay Area children.

One morning she is working with concerned citizens about beekeeping policies, collaborating with scientists at UC Berkeley about eradicating aphids in gardens, and in the afternoon herding students around Elkus Ranch teaching about rangeland, the story said.

“I think the biggest challenge facing San Mateo County agriculture is urban-rural interface, and that goes in both directions,” she said. “I work with many youth who never thought about plants or planting a seed and watching it grow. I worry that people are becoming disconnected to their food and where it originates.”

Bolshakova was born and raised on a 450-acre pig and crop farm in southwestern Michigan where her parents still work the land. Her childhood experiences nurtured a passion for the environment and a keen awareness of the interdependency between people and nature.

Bolshakova has a bachelor's degree in biology from State University of New York, Buffalo, a master's degree from the University of Toledo, and a Ph.D. in ecology from Utah State University.

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