UC Blog
New food alliance to 'tell the real story' of food production
A consortium of 52 food-related organizations yesterday announced the formation of the "Alliance to Feed the Future," according to a news release posted on the alliance's new website.Two of the organizations involved are connected with UC Davis - the California Institute for Food and Agricultural Research and the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science.
The news release said misperceptions about modern food production and technology have become increasingly common. The alliance was formed to better articulate how food is produced.
"In an effort to meet the world’s increasing food needs responsibly, efficiently and affordably, the members of the Alliance to Feed the Future share the common goal of building understanding and promoting the benefits of modern food production, processing and technology," the article said.
Strategic initiative conferences dates set
The Healthy Families and Communities Strategic Initiative Conference is scheduled for May 17 - 19 at ARC at UC Davis. More information about the HFC conference will be posted at http://ucanr.org/sites/HFC as it becomes available. The final version of the HFC strategic plan is posted at http://ucanr.org/sites/HFC/files/57631.pdf.
The Sustainable Natural Ecosystems Strategic Initiative Conference is scheduled for Sept. 20 - 22. The location and other details about the SNE conference will be posted at http://ucanr.org/sites/SNE as they become available.
The Sustainable Food Systems Strategic Initiative Conference is scheduled for Oct. 18 – 20 at the ARC at UC Davis. More information about the SFS conference will be posted at http://ucanr.org/sites/SFS as it becomes available.
As previously announced in ANR Update, workgroups will be aligning under the appropriate Program Teams. The first opportunity for Program Team meetings will be in conjunction with the Strategic Initiative conferences.
View or leave comments for the Executive Working Group
This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.
UCCE expert featured in public TV video series
The public television affiliate in Los Angeles County, KCET, has posted a series of videos in its Departures series featuring UC Cooperative Extension natural resources advisor Sabrina Drill.
Departures is part of the KCET's Youth Voices digital literacy program, which engages high school students through workshops to become multimedia producers.
In this latest series of five videos, Drill and Camm Swift, a fishery biologist with the Natural History Museum, are filmed on the bank of the Los Angeles River chatting about the significant impact urban development, channeling, damns and introduction of non-native aquatic species has had on the ecosystem.
No native species still swim in the LA River and many riparian habitats - such as mudflats and wetlands - no longer exist.
"There's actually a big effort right now to do some large scale restoration of the LA River. The City of Los Angeles is heading that up," Drill said on the second video. "It's a long, long process, but they're in the feasibility study phase right now."
The student who produced the series, Mike Cadena, said in a commentary about the video series that joining the biologists on the riverbank was an amazing experience.
"What I was most amazed about was the river's potential for recreation. One of the biologists said that a long time ago there'd been plans to build all sorts of rec. centers and parks all along the river and this really got me thinking about what that would mean to all of Los Angeles," Cadena wrote.
KCET online series "Departures."
A Chinese slowdown is 'imminent'
UC Berkeley economics professor Barry Eichengren supplied three reasons in a Business Insider blog why he believes a slowdown in the growth of the Chinese economy is on the horizon.
For one, slowdowns are more likely in countries where the manufacturing sector’s share of employment exceeds 20 percent, since it then becomes necessary to shift workers into services, where productivity growth is slower, Eichengren said.
Further, slowdowns come earlier in economies with undervalued currencies. Currency undervaluation, he said, may boost economic growth in the early stages of development, when a country relies on shifting its labor force from agriculture to assembly-based manufacturing. However, it may work less well when growth becomes more innovation-intensive.
“Finally, maintenance of an undervalued currency may cause imbalances and excesses in export-oriented manufacturing to build up, as happened in Korea in the 1990s, and through that channel make a growth deceleration more likely," Eichengren was quoted.
Author of the Pragmatic Capitalism blog, Cullen Roche, concurred with Eichengren's assessment. The Chinese slowdown is not a matter of if, but when, the post concluded.
Ag is a key part of California communities' identities
News stories from around the state demonstrate the role of UC Cooperative Extension in helping define California's agricultural "sense of place."
Salinas research corridor
Officials are working together to create a "research corridor" in Salinas to work in concert with existing agricultural and construction technology centers, said Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue in his state-of-the-city address. "I want to acknowledge the very real and sustained efforts to make a Research Corridor a reality by Dr. Phoebe Helm at Hartnell, Sonya Varyea Hammond of the UC Extension and Congressman Sam Farr," Donahue said, according to a transcript of his speech on the Fox 35 news website. "The City will continue to stand with and actively support their efforts to help move the public sector's role in the future we envision. The marketplace will ultimately move the agenda forward but the public sector plays a crucial role."
Organic agriculture
California is the No. 1 place for organic agriculture in the nation, according to a survey analyzed by UC Cooperative Extension agricultural economist Karen Klonsky. UC Davis news service issued a news tip about the analysis that was picked up widely in the media. The survey found that California leads the United States in the number of organic farms, the amount of land in organic production and in organic sales. California is home to 19 percent of the nation’s organic farms and accounts for 36 percent of the country’s organic sales.
Rural identity
The U.S. census reports that population in Yolo County has grown, but the place maintains its "rural" designation, reported the Woodland Daily Democrat. Government agencies usually identify counties as rural if the population is under 200,000, the story said. Even though Yolo County, the home of UC Davis, topped that number by 849 individuals, it is still considered rural because of the important role of agriculture in the community, county administrator Patrick Blacklock told the paper.