UC Blog
Agriculture scientists positive about grazing
The Modesto Bee ran a story over the weekend with a headline that proclaims, "Experts positive about effect of grazing on land." It is remarkable, in my opinion, because scientists are so rarely "positive" about anything and are very adept at using conditional wording, such as seemingly, may be, could be, almost, nearly, etc.
On the other hand, the headline writer may have been using the meaning of "positive" as merely the opposite of "negative."
The story was based on reporter John Holland's take on a recent Tuolumne County Resource Conservation District seminar, in which participants learned that grazing enhances the foothill environment by controlling wildfire fuel and keeping imported grasses from overwhelming the native species. Cattle grazing also preserves open space.
"These are all privately owned landscapes that you are all managing for the greater good of everyone else," the reporter quoted UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Scott Oneto.
According to the article, experts at the meeting said perennial native plants can thrive on grazed land because the cattle thin out the annual European grasses that have dominated the landscape since the 1800s. This improves habitat for squirrels and other small wildlife that sustain bobcats, golden eagles and other predators. Cattle, the story said, have taken on a role similar to that of buffalo on the Great Plains.
4-H summer camp for military kids continues in '09
A news release about UC Cooperative Extension's involvement this year in "Operation: Military Kids" was picked up by the News Blaze, a northern California community newspaper. The story said UCCE's 4-H Youth Development program has teamed up with the Operation: Military Kids once again this summer to host camps throughout California for the children of military men and women deployed all over the world.
Operation: Military Kids was launched in April 2005. Since its inception, OMK has touched 88,000 military children. The summer camp is just one part of a support system for military youth. Camp participants are enrolled in 4-H and local 4-H clubs are encouraged to reach out to the military youth to get them involved in activities year round. For more on 4-H Operation: Military Kids, see the 2005 news release and the OMK Web site.
"As a token to some of our nation's most patriotic citizens -- the children of military members -- we want to offer camping opportunities that bring military kids with local youth from their communities together for a fun filled week of activities that will build leadership, coping and youth development skills," the story quotes Chanda Gonzales, the UCCE 4-H military liaison.
"We want to help military youth know that the 4-H Youth Development program and local community partners appreciate them," Gonzales said.
A patriotic craft made at summer camp.
More green news to close out Earth Week
Changing the way people look at food was one of the goals of this month's Symposium On Sustainable Agriculture at UC Davis, an event covered by Sacramento ABC affiliate News 10. The report included an interview with conference participant Lia Huber of the Nourish Network. Huber pointed out that people interact with food at least three times a day.
"People in our rushed society try to get through meals as quickly as possible. When we garden, or go to a farmers market, we have these personal interactions with the land and people who are producing our food. There are ways to connect with food to make the experience much richer," Huber said.
The television report also included an interview with Margaret Llyod, a UC Davis graduate student who was named one of three "White House Farmers" by whitehousefarmer.com. Llyod maintains a garden at UC Davis that provides free greens to anyone who brings a salad bowl. In order to eat fresher food, she said, it must be grown where we work and live.
"There is a great sense of pride when you've grown something yourself. It begins to have a domino effect in your life...how we make our food choices and how we nourish ourselves," Lloyd told the reporter.
Lloyd was among 111 "nominees" to be "White House Farmer." The Web site tallied 56,000 votes during February polling.
The White House farmer project was one of several movements launched by grass roots groups to encourage the new administration to make changes in how food is grown and distributed in the U.S.
In March, a 1,100-square-foot vegetable garden was established on the White House south lawn.
"People were so excited about our First Family growing a White House farm," Lloyd said in the News 10 story. "Within a day (of my nomination), the media was interested. It spoke loudly to people and they were very interested in a White House farm."
The senior public information representative for UC's Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, Lyra Halprin, said she isn't sure that the people's-choice honor means anything specific, "but I'm sure it contributed to the excitement and buildup and pressure to really do this."
Margaret Lloyd waters the Salad Bowl Garden at UC Davis.
Searching for green strawberries
Most consumers like their strawberries bright red and juicy through and through, but some seek fruit that is a little bit green, at least in the ecological sense. Fresno Bee food writer Joan Obra ran a front-page column in the paper's food section yesterday that makes it easier to find the local low-input strawberries.
To determine why strawberry stands are scarce in Fresno, Obra turned to UC Cooperative Extension small farm advisor Richard Molinar. He said Fresno County's strawberry acreage has dropped from about 500 to 100 acres in the past nine years. Only about 25 local strawberry farmers are left.
"The processors aren't paying a premium, and they're not buying as much from local farmers as they used to," Molinar was quoted in the story.
But if you can find them, eating Valley-grown strawberries will probably shave a few pounds off your carbon footprint. Molinar said Valley strawberry growers, because of the drier climate, use far less pesticides and fungicides than growers who produce the fruit on the coast. Coastal berries are sprayed at least half a dozen times. Fresno strawberries, on the other hand, "if they're even sprayed, they might only be sprayed once," Molinar was quoted in the story.
Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey
Earth Day dawns with good news
At its Earth Day celebration today, the USDA will share expanded plans for a People's Garden at the department's Washington Mall headquarters that will encompass all of the facility's grounds, according to an article in the Washington Post. The plan includes a 1,300-square-foot organic vegetable garden, ornamental flower gardens and bioswales (mini-wetlands designed to reduce pollution and surface water runoff).
According to the Post story, written by Jane Black, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack got the idea to include the entire six-acre facility in his plans on one of his daily runs on the Mall. Originally, he planned a small vegetable garden in Washington and some type of garden at every USDA facility across the country. The positive public response to the idea and a March meeting with horticulture and garden groups convinced him to broaden the plan, he told the reporter.
One of the people at that March meeting was UC Cooperative Extension's own Rose Hayden-Smith, the director of the Ventura County office and an enthusiastic advocate for the resumption of a national Victory Garden movement. Victory Gardens were an important source of vegetables for Americans during World War II.
Black quoted Hayden-Smith in her article:
"I kept having to pinch myself in this meeting. We're not the kind of people who have been invited to Washington, D.C., before. We're the guerrilla gardeners, the pollinator people, the seed savers. It wasn't our usual cast of characters. People were grinning from ear to ear."
The USDA's Peoples Garden plan.