UC Launches COVID-19 Prevention Survey on Farms

UC Conducts Survey of COVID-19 Prevention on Farms

By Pam Kan-Rice, UCANR, Assistant Director, News and Information Outreach

All California growers, ranchers, farm labor contractors and ag supervisors are invited to complete a short survey about their experiences addressing COVID-19 in the workplace. The survey is being conducted by the UC Davis Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety.

The survey is anonymous, should take less than 10 minutes to complete, and is available in English and Spanish at https://bit.ly/agCOVIDsurvey.

“At the UC Davis Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety, we are working to respond to the COVID-19 crisis with practical resources for growers, ag employers, and farmworkers,” said Heather E Riden, agricultural health and safety program director. “The goal of this survey is to understand what practices farms are implementing to prevent COVID-19, where they have seen success, and where there may be challenges. We will take this information to assess whether there are new resources, trainings or information that we can provide.”

Respondents are given the opportunity to share their contact information at the end of the survey.

“We plan to share any findings as well as new materials with anyone who expresses interest,” Riden said. “We will also summarize the results and post them on the WCAHS website.”

For more information about the survey, contact aghealth@ucdavis.edu.

Visit https://aghealth.ucdavis.edu/covid19 for COVID-19 training resources and employer guidance. The center’s COVID-19 website offers farmers many resources, including an employer checklist and tailgate training discussion guide.

California Ag Today2020-06-12T10:26:20-07:00June 12th, 2020|

Emma Thorpe is CAL FFA VP

FFA Vice President Discovered a Passion for Food Science in the Organization

By Tim Hammerich, with the Ag Information Network of the West

Emma Thorpe was recently elected to state Vice President FFA office. The graduating senior from El Capitan High School outside of the San Diego area was first encouraged to join the organization by her sister. But it was a competition during her freshman year that ignited her passion for the organization and also her career choice.

“The agriscience FFA competition. Mr. Meade really pushed me my freshman year because I came in wanting to do science, but I didn’t know how we can incorporate that with agriculture, because I thought our program was primarily focused on farming. And so he told me about the idea of a science competition,” said Thorpe.

Not only did she compete in agriscience, but won it on both the state and national levels in the food science category. This led her to competing again for the next three years, and it will come as no surprise what she hopes to do career-wise after her year as a state officer.

“That’s what I want to major in college now is because I was so involved with it the last four years that I developed a huge passion for food science. And so after this year of state office, I really want to pursue that in college,” said Thorpe.

Helping other students find what they’re passionate about will be a focus for Thorpe as she spends the next year serving over 80,000 California FFA members that span over 320 high schools.

California Ag Today2020-06-12T08:19:53-07:00June 12th, 2020|

Ranchers Face Slowdown in Moving Market Ready Food

Ranchers Need Processing Capacity as Pastures Dry

By Tim Hammerich with the Ag Information Network of the West

Each week during the pandemic, we have been sharing a few updates on how the agriculture industry is being affected around the state.

This would typically be a prime marketing time for California cattle ranchers, but pandemic-related slowdowns at meat processing plants have created a bottleneck in the beef market. Ranchers say the situation is forcing them into tough decisions about their market-ready animals. One rancher describes the situation as a waiting game, as ranchers monitor cattle markets and the status of grass on drying pastures.

People who need food assistance during the pandemic have started receiving California-grown food through a new federal program. The Farmers to Families Food Box program from the U.S. Department of Agriculture buys fresh produce, meats, and dairy products to be delivered to food banks and other nonprofits. The program intends to help both people in need and some of the farmers, ranchers, and food distributors who lost business due to stay-at-home protocols.

Rural sections of the University of California, Davis, campus are attracting more visitors, as people look for new outdoor recreation spots during the pandemic. But the university says the additional foot and vehicle traffic threatens to harm habitat and agricultural research. Officials say increased dog walking or jogger activity could unknowingly disrupt sensitive research projects and harm farm animals housed on the Davis campus.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:17:07-07:00June 11th, 2020|

Almond Leafout Problem Is Not Widespread

Leafout Problems In Almonds Not New

By Patrick Cavanaugh with the Ag Information Network of the West

The leafout problem in almonds has been around a couple of years, throughout Northern California, said Luke Milliron, a UCANR orchard system, farm advisor serving Butte, Glenn, and Tehama Counties.

Milliron explained that the leafout problem in almonds is not exactly new. “Some of these orchards have actually had the problem for a number of years now. Dani Lightle former advisor in Glenn County observed a number of orchards in Tehama County with the problem and going back to those same orchards this year, she said some of those growers say that it’s been getting worse in those blocks and the trees really don’t look good,” Milliron said. “But it’s certainly not something that’s affecting, for example, every Monterey tree, which is usually more susceptible to the problem.”

“There are orchards across the state that looked fabulous, so it’s highly variable between blocks and within blocks it might only be a low percentage of the trees being affected,” Milliron noted.

The reason for this disorder is not really widely known, but there are theories.

“Having warm winters and potentially this problem being in those varieties because of some genetic predisposition. Plus, why are we seeing it on some trees and not others? Well, maybe those trees had other stresses such as Anthracnose or mites or some other stressor at play that led them to be pushed into this stress, vegetative leaf failure state,” Milliron said.

California Ag Today2020-06-10T08:27:30-07:00June 10th, 2020|

Bridging the Gap from Farm to Table

FFA Reporter Hopes to Bridge the Gap from Farm to Table

By Tim Hammerich, with the Ag Information Network of the West

Taylor Sollecito is California FFA’s State Reporter elected about a month ago. She’s from Salinas FFA, but her love of agriculture stems from her time at a family farm in Fresno County.

“My grandfather and my mom’s whole family has a family farming operation in Fresno County. So I really derived a lot of my passion for agriculture and my connection to it from my grandfather and that side of the family. Even just getting to see their hard work and dedication on the operation, just when I would go visit them in the winter and the summer. truly just inspired me and sparked that interest in my mind,” said Sollecito.

“And then coming to high school, I really entered with the mindset of, I just want to raise and show livestock and that’s all I’m ever going to do at FFA. But now coming to my senior year, I’ve found that I really have an interest in bridging that gap between production agriculture and the general community around us. Because there is a general disconnect that I can see between my peers and the community that surrounds me. And those that are producing the livestock and the produce, and those products that are coming from farm to table,” Sollecito noted.

Taylor hopes to bridge that disconnect this year as she travels the state serving 10s of thousands of California FFA members. After her year she plans to move closer to that extended family to attend Fresno State University.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:17:07-07:00June 9th, 2020|

CA FFA Treasurer Reese Gonsalves Promotes Careers in Ag

FFA Treasurer Instills Confidence to Pursue Agriculture

By Tim Hammerich with the Ag Information Network of the West

Reese Gonsalves was elected state FFA Treasurer at their virtual convention in April. She is a 4th generation family farmer and 3rd generation Modesto FFA member. Through her experience she found a love for the marketing and communications side of the ag industry.

“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve helped more with my family’s sale, kind of in the media side of things. So we have a bull sale every year and our sale is all online,” said Gonsalves. “We record videos and take pictures of the bulls, and then have it in a catalog and stuff. So I’ve helped a little bit more with that. I really like helping photograph the bulls and doing the sale management as well. So it’s kind of shifted as I’ve gotten older, which has been really cool because I found that my passion is actually more with the media and meeting with customers side of the production.”

Gonsalves said the FFA has given her confidence, and she hopes to spend this state officer year instilling a level of confidence in others.

“If I can help one member, and help them get the confidence to be able to help other people, I think that that would be amazing and to be a really great chain reaction of members helping other members,” said Gonsalves.

Her FFA experiences have inspired her to pursue degrees in Agricultural Communications and Agribusiness. She will attend Oklahoma State University after her year of service to the organization.

California Ag Today2020-06-06T12:45:44-07:00June 8th, 2020|

SmartFresh™ Helps Bring Fresh Melons to Distant Markets

Fisher Ranch Expands Its Business Using AgroFresh’s Flagship Technology to Deliver High Quality Melons

AgroFresh Solutions, Inc. (“AgroFresh” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: AGFS), a global leader in produce freshness solutions, and family-owned grower and shipper Fisher Ranch recently partnered to deliver ready-to-eat, ripe melons from California to global markets using SmartFresh™ technology.

With the use of SmartFresh technology, California-based Fisher Ranch has created new business opportunities by extending the storage window and gaining improved inventory flexibility. The grower reported excellent freshness results using SmartFresh™ SmartTabs™ on cantaloupes and Golden Dewlicious™ honeydew melons. According to Fisher Ranch, AgroFresh’s industry-trusted post-harvest solution enables melons to ripen on the vine, allowing the fruit to retain great firmness and sugar content despite longer transit time.

SmartFresh SmartTabs helps growers and shippers maintain fresh and firm fruit during transit, which results in longer retail shelf life. SmartFresh has also been proven to help control skin disorders on melons for 26 days in cold storage.

“After the successful completion of our commercial trials last year, SmartFresh enabled us to deliver great-tasting, aromatic, high quality melons to global markets, which was a new achievement for us,” says Mike Farrage, sales manager at Fisher Ranch. “With this success in mind, we’ve increased our export volume this year and we’ll now apply SmartFresh to our entire shipment of export melons.”

SmartFresh SmartTabs is a convenient, easy-to-use solution for transport containers and small storage rooms. There’s no need to manually insert sachets in each box of produce.

“We’re excited to help our customers optimize the quality of their fresh produce and grow their business, at potentially higher margins, in distant markets that they otherwise could not access,” says AgroFreshcommercial development manager Fernando Edagi. “We’re thrilled to help growers such as Fisher Ranch deliver melons that provide a great eating experience with consistently high quality, flavor, sweetness and firmness.”

“In our industry, we’re noticing an increasing shift to long shelf-life (LSL) melon varieties that lack aroma and flavor,” says Farrage. “By using SmartFresh, we’re able to enjoy the same shelf-life benefits offered by the LSL varieties, but with enhanced characteristics such as aroma, flavor, firmness and texture that consumers prefer.”

SmartFresh technology empowers growers, packers and retailers from around the world to preserve quality and freshness for a wide range of crops including: apple, pear, avocado, banana, melon, tomato, broccoli, mango*, peach, nectarine, plum, persimmon, kiwifruit, lime* and watermelon.

SmartFresh SmartTabs is registered by the US EPA; Registration No. 71297-3. Always read and follow label directions.

California Ag Today2020-06-03T22:04:41-07:00June 4th, 2020|

State FFA Sentinel Wants Inclusiveness in Ag

State FFA Sentinel Spreads the Message of Inclusiveness in Agriculture

By Tim Hammerich, with the Ag Information Network of the West

Maico Ortiz from Galt was elected State FFA Sentinel last month. For the first time, the association had to move their elections online due to COVID-19 restrictions. Throughout his year of service, the newly elected state officer hopes to spread the message of inclusiveness.

“Inclusiveness is something that has really just stuck with me. At Galt High, we were very adamant about making sure everybody felt included and making sure everybody felt like they had a home in the ag department. And I know California FFA has done a ton of work in terms of moving into that direction,” Ortiz said. “But we also have a lot of work to do, and that’s okay because I mean, not everything’s going to happen overnight. But, we offer so many pathways for students in order for them to find a career or be successful. I was very attracted to the science aspect of it and the leadership aspect of it, but we have mechanics, we have horticulture,” he noted.

“There’s just so many different parts of it that students can really find their passions within it,” Ortiz. “So I want to make sure that students always know they have a home in their ag departments or in the association as a whole and to make sure that they find their passions and regardless of what they decide to do after high school, that they can always look back on their time and be like, that was worth it, And I’m happy that I got to be a part of it,” he said

Ortiz, who is already a student at Chico State, will take the year off from college to serve the youth agricultural leadership organization.

California Ag Today2020-05-31T17:09:16-07:00June 3rd, 2020|

Almond Board Has New Board of Directors

Almond Board of California 2020 Results

The Almond Board of California has released election results for the Board of Directors positions whose terms of office will run from August 1, 2020 through July 31, 2021. The names of the following nominees have been submitted to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture for selection:

Independent Grower:

Member Position One (one-year term):
Paul Ewing, Los Banos

Alternate Position One:
Joe Gardiner, Earlimart

Independent Handler:
Member Position One (three-year term):
Alexi Rodriguez, Caruthers

Alternate Position One:
Ron Fisher, Modesto

Member Position Three (one-year term):
Darren Rigg, Le Grand

Alternate Position Two:

Chad DeRose, McFarland

Cooperative Grower:
Member Position One (three-year term):
George Goshgarian Jr., Fowler

Alternate Position One:
Christine Gemperle, Ceres

Cooperative Handler:
Member Position Two (three-year term):
Bill Morecraft, Sacramento

Alternate Position Two:
Alicia Rockwell, Sacramento

ABOUT THE ALMOND BOARD OF CALIFORNIA
Almonds from California are a healthy, natural, wholesome and quality food. The Almond Board of California promotes almonds with a research-based approach to responsible farming, production and marketing on behalf of the more than 7,600 almond growers and processors in California, many of whom have third- and fourth-generation family operations. Established in 1950 and based in Modesto, California, the Almond Board of California is a non-profit organization that administers a grower-enacted Federal Marketing Order under the supervision of the United States Department of Agriculture. For more information on the Almond Board of California or almonds, visit Almonds.com or check out California Almonds on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the California Almonds blog.

California Ag Today2020-06-02T11:14:46-07:00June 2nd, 2020|

Livestock Carriers Get Some Flexibility in Service Rule

U.S. Transportation Dept. Updates Final Hours of Service Rule

By Russell Nemetz, with the Ag Information Network of The West

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration published its final rule updating the “Hours of Service” rules designed to increase safety on America’s roads. The department updated multiple existing regulations for commercial motor vehicle drivers.

“America’s truckers are doing a heroic job of keeping our supply chains open during this unprecedented time,” says Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao (Chow). “These rules will help give them greater flexibility to keep America moving.”

The FMCSA says the changes were made based on thousands of comments they received from Americans across the country. There are four key changes to the existing hours of service rules, all of which do not increase driving time and will continue to prevent operators from driving for more than eight consecutive hours without at least a 30-minute break. The agency says the trucking industry is a “key component” of the national economy, employing more than seven million people and moving 70 percent of the nation’s domestic freight.

The new hours of service rule will be implemented 120 days after publication in the federal register.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:17:07-07:00June 1st, 2020|