Fresno State Helps Hungry Students

Fresno State Program Helps Hungry Students

By Brian German, Associate Editor

California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) recently began a multi-initiative program to support students who are struggling with food insecurity. Jessica Medina, coordinator of the “Food Security Project” at Fresno State, said, “The project has five initiatives: an on-campus food pantry, education and resources, an app titled, “Catered Cupboard,” that shows students where on campus they can receive free food, complimentary meals at the university dining hall and the Good Samaritan Fund,” she explained.

Medina said the on-campus food and hygiene pantry, named, “Student Cupboard,” provides students with access to free food and hygiene on a daily basis. We also provide them with education—how to cook those things, how to budget, how to make sure they can afford different things as a student, and connections to resources such as CalFresh, the WIC program and other agencies in the community they can benefit from. We offer emergency funding if they ever need things, as well as lots of other initiatives that access fresh nutritious food,” she noted.

Medina said Fresno State is also a member of the College and University Food Bank Alliance (CUFBA), a professional organization of campus-based programs focused on alleviating food insecurity, hunger, and poverty among college and university students in the United States. As of TODAY, there are 257 active member institutions of CUFBA.

Medina said such CUFBA members are growing in numbers. “We are starting to pop up on other campuses,” she stated, “and we are excited the chancellor of the CSU system, Chancellor White is going to be supporting a conference to have these conversations and create a model for other institutions for the future.”

Medina said students who go hungry are less likely to do well in their studies, “There are a lot of studies on what students are like in the elementary classrooms, but [food insecurity] continues on to college and beyond as well. When you don’t know where your next meal is coming from, when you don’t have that food access available to you, it is hard to concentrate. It is hard to focus. It is hard to be successful as a student. And that is what this program is—a ‘student success’ program for our students.”

Hired as a fulltime employee by Fresno State to coordinate this, Medina commented, “I think we are one of the first campuses to create a full-time position to coordinate this effort. I graduated from Fresno State with both my undergraduate and master’s, and I am very fortunate to continue on here and be a part of this.”

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Links

CalFresh

California State University, Fresno

Catered Cupboard

College and University Food Bank Alliance (CUFBA)

Food Security Project

Food Security Project Resources

Good Samaritan Fund

Students Covered

WIC program

California Ag Today2016-05-31T19:26:58-07:00January 15th, 2016|

Calif. Profs Win Irrigation E3 Leader Awards

Irrigation E3 Leader Awards Go to Two California Faculty

The Irrigation Foundation has named 15 outstanding students and faculty as winners of the 2015 Irrigation E3 Program. The Foundation selected two faculty 2015 Irrigation E3 Leaders, both in California, Florence Cassel, Fresno State and Tim Ellsworth, West Hills College Coalinga.

This year’s class of faculty and students will receive an all-expenses-paid trip next week to the Irrigation Show & Education Conference, Nov. 9 – 13, in Long Beach, Calif.

Founded in 2012, the E3 program provides students and faculty with exposure, experience and education in the irrigation industry. Academics nominate outstanding students for consideration as E3 Learners and/or apply to become E3 Leaders themselves.

To qualify to apply for Irrigation E3 Leader status, an instructor must be teaching, or will be teaching within the next six months, irrigation-related coursework at a North American community college, university or similar institution of higher learning. Prior winners may not reapply.

Chosen faculty will have the opportunity to participate in education classes, industry sessions and networking events. Working with academics is essential to the Foundation’s mission of attracting people to careers in irrigation by supplying the irrigation industry with educated professionals. Faculty members help shape the future career paths of their students and keeping instructors up-to-date on the latest and greatest in the irrigation industry is a must.

“This is the fourth year of the program, and the Foundation is sending a record number of students to the show,” said senior foundation manager Janine Sparrowgrove. “We are excited to give the students and faculty the opportunity to attend classes and gain exposure to industry companies and technologies.”

Florence Cassel Sharma, Assistant Professor Irrigation/Water Management, Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Department of Plant Science, California State University, Fresno researches optimizing water use efficiency through low and deficit irrigation practices, improving irrigation scheduling, and utilizing remote sensing techniques for water resources management, crop water use, and soil salinity assessment. Assistant director of research of the Center for Irrigation Technology, Sharma is a recipient of the 2009 Outstanding Research and Scholarly Activity Award for the Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology.

Tim Ellsworth, agriculture technology instructor at West Hills College Coalinga, researches primarily soil science with a focus on precision agriculture and nutrient management. He currently serves on the advisory board for the Canadian Biochar Consortium.

Prior to West Hills, Ellsworth was a professor and faculty director of the online master’s program for the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Science at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, a soil scientist with the USDA U.S. Salinity Laboratory, a visiting faculty member at the Centre for Water Research, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Western Australia in Perth and a senior scientist performing hazard assessments and hazard evaluations for the U.S. Army with regard to management of the U.S. Army Chemical Weapon Stockpile.

This year’s Irrigation E3 Learners are:

Samia Amiri, Oklahoma State University
Garrett Banks, Colorado State University
Colton Craig, Oklahoma State University
Spencer Davies, Brigham Young University
Daniel Greenwell, Auburn University
John Hawkins, Alamance Community College
Tsz Him Lo, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Michelle Mbia, Prairie View A&M University
Ryan McBride, Brigham Young University, Idaho
Alan Rourke, Kansas State University
Daniel Selman, Brigham Young University
Amandeep Vashisht, Colorado State University
Christopher Weathers, Mira Costa College

Toro Company is the lead sponsor and the Carolina’s Irrigation Association is a supporting sponsor for this year’s program.

Links:

Irrigation E3 Program

Irrigation Foundation

California Ag Today2016-05-31T19:27:04-07:00November 5th, 2015|

The Peril of Smoke Taint on Winegrapes

Wildfires Threaten Smoke Taint on Winegrapes

By Charmayne Hefley, Associate Editor

There are at least two dozen major fires burning in the wilderness of California. Many are now contained, while others are only minimally contained. One recent serious fire, known as the “Rocky Fire” in Lake, Yolo, and Colusa counties burned nearly 70,000 acres before firefighters extinguished it last month.

But smoke from that fire may yet cause problems for the wine grape industry in Napa, Sonoma, and Lake counties. James Kennedy, chair of the Department of Viticulture and Enology and director of the Viticulture and Enology Research Center at California State University Fresno, explained the threat of smoke taint on winegrapes. “Anytime you have wildfires near vineyards,” Kennedy said, “there is a concern about how that smoke might become associated with grapes, and as a result, become associated with wine.”

Kennedy said they learned a lot about this problem from the Australian wildfires in 2003 that tainted their wine. Kennedy explained,“grape growers are oftentimes not aware of the extent to which smoke can damage fruit. In a sense, it is a two-edged sword. When wine is made from smoke-tainted grapes, it will have characteristics reminiscent of ‘the morning-after ashtray’ that is quite obnoxious and certainly not desirable. The other side of the sword occurs when smoke compounds interact with the grapevine and grape berries, it is modified by the grapes. Like an iceberg in the ocean, the ice above the water suffers the apparent smoke taint; whereas, the massive chunk underneath the ocean, though not initially as obviously smoke-tainted, reveals obvious taint over time.”

Kennedy said, “Winemakers in Australia realized that while you can treat that initial smoke taint, you don’t resolve the long-term taint problem. We, as an industry, are trying to identify vineyards with smoke taint problems before their fruit is made into wine. By testing grapes in laboratories, we are trying to prevent those wineries from wasting significant investment in converting tainted fruit into tainted wine.”

The Napa Valley Vintners nonprofit trade association reported on its website yesterday, “So far no vineyards or wineries in Napa County have been threatened by any of this season’s wildfires. Most of the time the fires were burning, the smoke blew away from Napa County due to the typically prevailing winds from the southwest. The weekend of August 15/16, we did experience very hot temperatures and a wind shift that caused our air to be hazy and smoky as a result of the many fires burning throughout CA. However, there were no reports of smoke taint affecting Napa Valley wine grapes as a result.”

“Most reports on smoke taint indicate that it exists only after an extended period of close contact with smoke; conditions that have not, to our knowledge, existed within Napa Valley this summer. Furthermore, Napa Valley is known for the highest standards of fine wine production and our winemakers will be paying very close attention to this situation as they harvest grapes for the 2015 vintage.”

California Ag Today2016-05-31T19:28:05-07:00September 3rd, 2015|

Forest Fires Could Be Impacting Winegrapes

Smoke Taint Could Cause Off-Flavor Vines

Many forest fires throughout California have been near or upwind from many winegrape vineyards and could be causing problems for the grapes.

Jim Kennedy, a professor and chairman of the Department of Viticulture and Enology at the California State University of Fresno, explains a particular serious problem due to smoke enveloping vineyards.

“A lot of these fires are getting very close to the wine industry, and that’s a problem because the smoke that these fires generate, they come in contact with clusters of fruit. The compounds that are smoke get absorbed onto the fruit and the plant likes to modify these compounds, because it can be quite toxic to plant cells,” said Kennedy. “The wine gets made from that fruit and the wine ages, the smoke compounds become released again, and it’s a real problem. Your wine starts to resemble an ashtray, its smell and character,” he added.

Kennedy said the tragedy is that the fruit is exposed to the smoke and it’s not readily and obviously upfront as problematic.

“A winemaker goes through the wine-making process thinking their fruit has escaped the problem, and low and behold a year down the road its become an ashtray. And that is something as the grape and wine industry we’re really keeping an eye out on these forest fires, and consulting with winemakers in these different regions so they are aware that this is a potential issue,” said Kennedy.

Kennedy said that this problem, also known as “smoke taint” has been seen many times.

“The classic sample is Australia. With the bush fires in Australia a lot of the vineyards are very close to eucalyptus groves, and so there’s a lot of research that has come out of Australia in terms of how to measure the potential for smoke taint in fruit and how to deal with it once you got it. The Australians tend to be on the front-end of it because it’s an issue that has much more potential for disaster in their industry,” said Kennedy.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:31-07:00August 15th, 2014|

Record Crowd of Tree Nut Growers in Turlock

Big Crowd in Turlock for Tree Nut and Vine Expo

More than 800 growers and PCAs were at the Stanislaus County Fairgrounds TODAY, to hear from many speakers, visit with hundreds of exhibitors, talk about tree nuts and grape vines, and enjoy breakfast and a barbeque Tri-Tip lunch.

“It was the 18thannual event and with a record crowd. All growers were upbeat following a good harvest and good nut prices. Also, both domestic and export sales are increasing,” said Patrick Cavanaugh, editor of Pacific Nut Producer magazine and co-host of the event.

Exhibitors speak with tree nut growers about products and services

“We are pleased that both the nut and grape industry are doing well in California. All we really need is a lot of rainfall this winter,” said Dan Malcolm, publisher of Pacific Nut Producer as well as American Vineyard magazine, and co-host of the show.

Crowd gathers outside to look over equipment.

Speakers came from UC Davis, Stanislaus County Ag Commissioner’s office, UC Cooperative Extension, Almond Board of California, California Walnut Board, Stanislaus County Farm Bureau, and CalAgSafety.

“We appreciate the support of the event sponsors and the record number exhibitors,” said Cavanaugh.

Ryan Genzoli with Cal Ag Safety speaks.

Sponsors Included: