UC Davis Archives - Page 4 of 6 - California Agriculture News Today

World Food Day: Hunger is a Matter of Food Access, Even at Home

By Laurie Greene, California Ag Today Editor

“It is encouraging to see World Food Day observed today, a designation made possible by the inspiring work of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,” says California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross in a statement released TODAY.

The goal of World Food Day is to eradicate hunger. Ross explains the world produces enough food to feed everyone; the ongoing problem is food access.

Globally, reports University of California, Davis, over 800 million people today suffer from malnutrition and hunger, nearly 15.9 million children in the U.S. struggle daily to get proper nutrition and approximately 18% of residents in this region lack regular access to food. Ross states, “In California, almost four million people are food insecure; they could not afford enough food at least once in the previous year.

CDFA addresses access issues daily through its programs. Ross explains that CDFA’s Certified Farmers’ Market program has helped increase the number of markets statewide, providing communities with fresh, nutritious food directly from farms. Many of them now accept CalFresh cards used by California’s low-income families to obtain nutritious food. Likewise, CDFA’s Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program helps provide these foods to needy senior citizens.

CDFA’s Office of Farm to Fork connects school districts with local farmers and also helps teachers provide quality nutrition education to their students. Ross says, “I was very pleased to see these efforts play a role in bringing a truly exceptional honor this week to a group of Contra Costa County students – they were invited to the White House garden to meet First Lady Michelle Obama and help harvest vegetables for the White House kitchen!”

CDFA’s Specialty Crop Block Grant Program provides USDA Farm Bill funds, nearly $20 million in 2014, through a competitive grant process for some specialty crops projects. Projects includ programs in Chico and Sacramento to improve access through community gardens for low-income residents and educational opportunities in both nutrition and urban production.

The California State Board of Food and Agriculture and CDFA collaborate to generate donations to state food banks. “We declare each December as Farm-to-Food Bank Month,” Ross comments, “and ask our farmers and ranchers to make a donation or a pledge.” Last year, donations exceeded 127 million pounds of food, and this year’s goal is 200 million pounds.

Ross continues, “We want to thank our partners at California Grown for its commitment to the food bank effort with its “Snap a Selfie” Program.” California Grown donates a pound of food to California food banks for every #cagrown selfie—a photograph of the CA Grown logo or anything grown or produced in California and is posted with ‘#cagrown’ in the posting on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook by end of this month.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations established World Food Day on October 16, 1981, the anniversary of the organization’s founding in 1945.

The 2014 World Food Day theme – Family Farming: “Feeding the world, caring for the earth” – has been chosen to raise the profile of family farming and smallholder farmers. World attention will focus on the significant role of family farming in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development, in particular in rural areas.

The UN General Assembly has designated 2014 “International Year of Family Farming.” This is a strong signal that the international community recognizes the important contribution of family farmers to world food security.

Eight days after World Food Day, held every October 24th, “Food Day” organized by the Washington, D.C.-based, nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), aims to unite Americans to celebrate and enjoy real food and to push for improved food policies. “Real Food, Just Food”is the 2014 slogan.

Sources: CDFA, UC Davis Dateline, FAO of the UN, CSPI

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:32:19-07:00October 16th, 2014|

Hartnell College Hosts Agroterrorism Training

UC Davis has announced that Hartnell College, in the Salinas Valley, is hosting a series of six agroterrorism training courses. David Goldenberg from the UC Davis, Western Institute for Food Safety and Security will be at the helm of these U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) courses.

Goldenberg, Acting Program Manager and Coordinator for Field Training at WIFSS, pointed out that the Agricultural Business and Technology Institute at Hartnell is partnering with WIFSS to conduct the agroterrorism training courses, which kicked off on September 5. These courses emphasize the importance of awareness of and preparedness for disasters that can affect the agricultural industry. Preparedness includes having a response action plan in which all community members and organizations have a coordinated disaster response strategy.

The remaining classes are:

• Oct. 10, AWR 155: Principles of Frontline Response to Agroterrorism and Food System Disasters, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

• Oct. 17, AWR 156: Principles of Planning and Implementing Recovery (6 hours), 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

These agroterrorism courses delivered at Hartnell are geared toward traditional first responders as well as community emergency planners, public health officials, and members of the agricultural community including county officials, local farmers and ranchers who are interested in training addressing potential threats to food safety and food security.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:22-07:00October 6th, 2014|

Drought’s impact on crops

Source: Dale Kasler; The Sacramento Bee

It’s harvest time in much of California, and the signs of drought are almost as abundant as the fruits and nuts and vegetables.

One commodity after another is feeling the impact of the state’s epic water shortage. The great Sacramento Valley rice crop, served in sushi restaurants nationwide and exported to Asia, will be smaller than usual. Fewer grapes will be available to produce California’s world-class wines, and the citrus groves of the San Joaquin Valley are producing fewer oranges. There is less hay and corn for the state’s dairy cows, and the pistachio harvest is expected to shrink.

Even the state’s mighty almond business, which has become a powerhouse in recent years, is coming in smaller than expected. That’s particularly troubling to the thousands of farmers who sacrificed other crops in order to keep their almond orchards watered.

While many crops have yet to be harvested, it’s clear that the drought has carved a significant hole in the economy of rural California. Farm income is down, so is employment, and Thursday’s rain showers did little to change the equation.

An estimated 420,000 acres of farmland went unplanted this year, or about 5 percent of the total. Economists at UC Davis say agriculture, which has been a $44 billion-a-year business in California, will suffer revenue losses and higher water costs – a financial hit totaling $2.2 billion this year.

Rising commodity prices have helped cushion at least some of the pain, but more hurt could be on the way. With rivers running low and groundwater overtaxed, the situation could get far worse if heavy rains don’t come this winter.

“Nobody has any idea how disastrous it’s going to be,” said Mike Wade of Modesto, executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition, an advocacy group based in Sacramento. “Is it going to create more fallowed land? Absolutely. Is it going to create more groundwater problems? Absolutely.

“Another dry year, we don’t know what the result is going to be, but it’s not going to be good,” Wade said.

Central Valley residents don’t have to look far to see the effects. Roughly one-fourth of California’s rice fields went fallow this year, about 140,000 acres worth, according to the California Rice Commission, leaving vast stretches of the Sacramento Valley brown instead of their customary green.

“We’d all rather be farming, as would everybody who depends on us – the truck drivers, the parts stores, the mills,” said Mike Daddow, a fourth-generation rice grower in the Nicolaus area of southern Sutter County.

Daddow opted to fallow 150 of his family’s 800 acres this year and counts himself lucky. “We did better than a lot of people,” he said.

Last week, Daddow was gearing up for the harvest, which begins Monday. It was pleasantly warm, but the faint smoky smell from the King fire was another unwelcome reminder of the parched season of discontent.

“It affects me, yes, I will have less profit,” he said. “It affects hourly workers. If there’s no ground to till, I can’t hire them to do anything.”

Daddow hired just six workers during spring planting, instead of the usual nine or 10.

Calculating total job losses related to the drought is difficult, especially in an industry in which many workers are transient and much of the work is part time. The state Employment Development Department, drawing from payroll data, said farm employment has dropped by just 2,700 jobs from a year ago, a decline of less than 1 percent.

But experts at UC Davis say they believe the impact is more severe. Richard Howitt, professor emeritus of agricultural economics, said he believes the drought ultimately will erase 17,000 jobs. He bases that, in part, on the increased number of families seeking social services.

The human cost shows up at rural food banks, which are reporting higher demand for assistance from farmworkers and their families. At the Bethel Spanish Assembly of God, a church in the Tulare County city of Farmersville, the number of families receiving food aid every two weeks has jumped from about 40 last year to more than 200. Farmersville, a city of 10,000, is at the heart of a region that grows an array of crops, from lemons to pistachios to grapes.

“Some of them are working … but they’re not putting in the hours,” said the Rev. Leonel Benavides, who is also Farmersville’s mayor. Thanks to state-funded drought relief, the church has been able to meet the increased demand – and then some.

“Instead of just two boxes, we give them three,” Benavides said.

The effect goes beyond the farm fields. N&S Tractor, which sells Case IH brand farm equipment throughout the Central Valley, has seen business tail off as farmers conserve cash.

“It’s not just our dealership,” said N&S marketing director Tim McConiga Jr., who works out of the company’s sales office in Glenn County. “You talk to John Deere, you talk to Caterpillar, everyone is going to tell you their numbers are down.”

The drought has had varying impacts on different areas of the state, depending in part on who has first dibs on the dwindling water supply. Some growers have stronger water rights than others. Generally speaking, Sacramento Valley farmers have had it easier than their counterparts south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where the cutbacks have been more severe.

The Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts are delivering about 40 percent of their usual amounts. The Merced Irrigation District is far worse off, as are many of the West Side areas supplied by the federal Central Valley Project. The Oakdale and South San Joaquin irrigation districts have not had large cutbacks, but leaders worry about a dry 2015.

Regardless of geography, many growers have had to make difficult choices about which fields to water, leaving portions of their farms idle.

Bruce Rominger of Winters, chairman of the California Tomato Growers Association, made the decision to push ahead with his tomato crop at the expense of other commodities. With tomatoes selling for a robust $83 a ton, vs. about $70 a year ago, it was a matter of simple economics.

“Other crops are not getting the water,” said Rominger, who owns and leases a total of about 5,000 acres. “We sacrificed some alfalfa, we sacrified some sunflowers, we sacrificed quite a bit of rice. We fallowed 25 percent of our farm.”

Much of the processing tomato crop goes to canneries in Modesto, Oakdale, Escalon and Los Banos.

Choosing to focus on one crop doesn’t guarantee victory. Even the $4 billion almond industry – the great success story of California agriculture in recent years – could not be shielded from the drought’s effects.

As worldwide demand for almonds has boomed, prices have soared past $4 a pound and farmers have responded with more supply. Orchard plantings have continued unabated, even this year. With water supplies running low, many almond growers set aside other commodities to keep their orchards going.

Even so, the almond yield declined. Blue Diamond Growers, the big farmer-owner almond cooperative based in Sacramento, predicts that production in California will fall this year to around 1.9 billion pounds when the harvest is complete in a few weeks. That compares with the 2 billion pounds harvested last year and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s forecast, released in late June, that this year’s crop would total 2.1 billion pounds.

What went wrong? Almonds are one of the thirstiest crops around, and there wasn’t enough water to generate big yields.

“I don’t think there was anyone who used as much (water) as they normally do,” said Dave Baker, director of member relations for Blue Diamond. The hot spells in June and July “stressed the trees even further” and curtailed production, he said.

With California accounting for 80 percent of global almond supply, Baker said he’s worried about being able to meet demand. “We have a growth industry,” he said.

Blue Diamond has plants also in Salida and Turlock, and several smaller processors are in or near Stanislaus County.

The lack of water last spring likely also has stunted navel orange production in the San Joaquin Valley, where harvest is expected to begin in a few weeks.

“We’re expecting some kind of damage to the crop,” said Alyssa Houtby, spokeswoman for California Citrus Mutual, a grower-owned association based in Tulare County. “We didn’t have the water in those key months.”

Economist Vernon Crowder, a senior vice president with agricultural lender Rabobank, said farmers went into this difficult season with a couple of advantages: Most commodity prices have risen in recent years, and most growers are in pretty good financial shape as a result. But another dry year could bring more serious hardship, he said.

“They have a little bit of cash to withstand this,” Crowder said. “They’re going to get through it. The real question is what is going to happen next year.”

Similar questions are being raised in the California wine industry, which produces much of its volume in the Modesto area. The last two grape harvests were extraordinarily strong, leaving an overhang of product that should help offset the slight declines in this year’s harvest. “Pricing should be steady,” said industry consultant Robert Smiley, a professor emeritus of business at UC Davis.

That doesn’t eliminate fears that next season’s crop could shrink substantially. Craig Ledbetter of Vino Farms, a Lodi grape producer, had enough water this year but said he’s afraid he’ll receive “curtailment notices” from the state signaling significant cutbacks in next season’s water supply.

“I’m very nervous about water,” said Ledbetter, who also raises wine grapes in Sonoma County. “If we don’t have a rainy winter, I can pretty much guarantee we’re all going to be receiving curtailment notices. If that happens, we’re going to be concerned about keeping the vine alive rather than harvesting it.”

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:23-07:00September 30th, 2014|

Three UC Davis students named Switzer environmental fellows

Source: John Stumbos — University of California, Davis

Three UC Davis graduate students—Angela Doerr, Sarah Moffitt, and Meredith Niles—have been awarded prestigious fellowships for outstanding environmental scholarship from the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation. Twenty-two such awards were made this year to students from New England and California.

“We are very grateful to the Switzer Foundation for again choosing UC Davis students for its highly regarded fellowship program,” said Jan W. Hopmans, associate dean in the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. “It is worth noting that all three awardees are conducting research on sustainable management practices for natural or agricultural ecosystems. These students recognize that informed policymaking demands a working knowledge of interdisciplinary science and that our top-ranked graduate groups are the best place in the world to get that education.”

“Today’s environmental issues are increasingly complex and require an ability to translate scientific, ecological, and social knowledge across disciplines and apply it in real-world settings,” said Lissa Widoff, the Switzer Foundation’s executive director. “The 2013 Switzer Environmental Fellows are at the cutting edge of science and policy and will be supported with funding, professional coaching, and a network of leaders to help them achieve results. Their problem-solving abilities and innovation will make a difference.”

The program began in 1986 and now has a network of more than 530 fellows. Each student will receive $15,000 to help them complete their degrees and advance skills and expertise needed to address critical environmental challenges. Their work covers a broad range of studies, including environmental policy, economics, conservation, public health, journalism, architecture, environmental justice, and business law, as well as traditional environmental science such as biology, chemistry and engineering. This year’s fellowship recipients from UC Davis are:

Marine scientist Angee Doerr studies lobster fishery in Bahamas

Angela “Angee” Doerr, a doctoral student in the Ecology Graduate Group, focuses on the sustainable use of natural resources. Her thesis work examines the intersection of policy, resource economics, and marine ecology in the Bahamian spiny lobster fishery. She is one of the first scientists working to develop a baseline of the use of small artificial habitats—locally known as “lobster condos—in the fishery there. She also serves as a subject matter expert for the U.S. Navy Civil Affairs Command, travelling internationally to both teach and present on aquaculture and sustainable fishing practices. Doerr earned her MBA while in the Navy through American Military University and holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from Duke University.

“Angee was a rising star in the Navy before coming to UC Davis to study natural resource policy and I know her commanding officer was not happy to lose her to graduate school,” said Doerr’s faculty adviser, environmental science and policy professor James Sanchirico. “Since coming to UC Davis, Angee has continued her trajectory. She is a natural leader and I have no doubt that Angee will make important contributions to the management of natural resources during her career.”

Coral reef studies lead Sarah Moffitt to climate science

Sarah Moffitt, a doctoral student in the Ecology Graduate Group, is working at the interface between oceanography, earth science, and ecology. Her dissertation research is focused on rapid environmental change in upper ocean ecosystems, specifically the western continental margin of North America. Her goal as an ocean and climate scientist is to improve communication among climate scientists, policymakers, and citizens. She graduated from Western Washington University with a Bachelor of Science in Biology, during which time she worked on coral reefs in the Caribbean region of Costa Rica and in Bermuda. She then spent two years working for NOAA’s Coral Reef Ecosystem Division in Hawaii as a coral reef specialist and scientific diver.

“Sarah truly embodies the word ‘interdisciplinary’ when she approaches a scientific problem,” said Moffitt’s faculty adviser, UC Davis geology professor Tessa Hill. “She sees things from the perspective of an ecologist, an oceanographer, and a climate scientist. With her dissertation work, she is trying to accomplish an admirable task—trying to extract lessons from the recent ‘paleoclimate’ record to understand what future, anthropogenic climate change holds for marine ecosystems.”

Farmer perceptions on climate drive Meredith Niles’ research

Meredith Niles, a doctoral student in the Ecology Graduate Group, examines the variables that cause farmers to adopt climate mitigation and adaptation techniques, and farmer perceptions of climate change and environmental policy. Her research is centered on New Zealand and Yolo County, Calif. She worked with a New Zealand research institute, participated in the Climate Action Reserve workgroup, and served as a board member of the UC Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute. Her ambition is to work in public service at the interface of science and environmental policy. Niles is a summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate in political science and environmental studies from the Catholic University of America.

“Meredith’s research focuses on public policy and decision-making in the context of agriculture and food systems,” said Niles’ faculty adviser, environmental science and policy professor Mark Lubell. “She has completed important empirical research on how farmers perceive and respond to climate change in New Zealand and California. As a Switzer fellow, Meredith is a proven leader with a deep commitment to doing research at the interface between science and policy.”

This is the 27th year of the Switzer Environmental Fellowship Program of the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation.

Fellowships are merit-based and rigorously competitive. Candidates must be recognized for their leadership capacity by their academic institution or by environmental experts. Applications are evaluated based on demonstration of environmental problem-solving, critical analysis and communication skills, relevant work and volunteer experience, necessary scientific or technical background for their field of study, the applicant’s career goals, and the potential of the candidate to initiate and effect positive environmental change.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:25-07:00September 18th, 2014|

Climate change’s impact on restaurants

By Patrick Mulvaney, chef and restaurateur; The Sacramento Bee

When I read about climate change, I learn about rising sea levels and shrinking polar ice caps – problems for 100 years in the future. But when I talk to my friends and customers about climate change, the focus is on what is happening today. It seems little things are already adding up.

As a chef, I have always believed that the completed dish will only be as good as the ingredients used. The bounty of the 12-month growing season is the main reason we decided to open our restaurant here in Sacramento. Because of our close relationships with local farmers, our “supply chain” is basically a truck and the farmer’s market. We can see how the drought has affected their crops.

Three years of drought have taken a toll on the ranchers and farmers we depend on. Lack of rain to refill the state’s reservoirs has reduced water levels to historic lows. Some water allocations have been cut entirely, and most farmers have been forced to scale back on planting. Forty-five percent of rice land went unplanted this year; farmers were forced to sell off cattle this spring. Researchers at UC Davis estimate that drought will prevent farmers from planting nearly 430,000 acres and cost the state $2.2 billion.

This isn’t just a Sacramento problem; it will affect the whole country. California grows nearly half of the nation’s fruits and vegetables, including 70 percent of the lettuce, 76 percent of the avocados, 90 percent of the grapes and virtually all of the almonds. Unfavorable conditions in California mean higher prices for restaurants across the country.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said produce prices could increase 5 to 6 percent this year. Even though beef prices are at historically high levels, the drought has raised the prices of feed even higher, forcing ranchers to sell the majority of their herds. A few years ago, the U.S. had 102 million head of cattle. That number is now under 88 million and dropping. It’s the smallest herd since 1951, so prices keep rising.

In addition to drought, climate change is causing other kinds of severe weather swings. Last winter was unusually brutal in the Midwest, causing an almost complete failure of the cherry crop and raising doubts about harvests for the rest of the tree fruits this summer.

In some ways, we are lucky at my restaurant; our daily-changing menus have allowed us to respond to climate disruptions. And while we continue to serve the best of what’s coming out of the nearby land, some items have become harder to find at a reasonable price. During the past year, restaurants have changed their menus to reflect higher meat prices, sudden collapses in citrus yields and the lack of products as farmers are forced to let their land lie fallow.

I worry that extreme weather, like California’s drought, may become the new normal. Our agricultural partners face the greatest risks. Many businesses will experience climate change through limited supply and poor supply-chain quality.

There’s something we can do about this. California has long been a national leader on clean-energy policies. Gov. Jerry Brown is supportive of the Environmental Protection Agency’s new regulations that will reduce carbon pollution. He said, “Clean-energy policies are already working in California, generating billions of dollars in energy savings and more than a million jobs. Bold, sustained action will be required at every level, and this is a major step forward.”

Now is the time to continue California’s clean-energy leadership tradition by implementing changes that encourage business leaders to use resources more efficiently. This will help prevent more extreme weather events and make our economy more resilient.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:25-07:00September 16th, 2014|

Got ice cream! (Thanks to UC Davis)

By Trina Wood

Chances are when you’re scooping that vanilla bean ice cream into your bowl for dessert, you’re focused on the flavor about to hit your taste buds, not on whether it may give you a foodborne illness.

That confidence in the safety of California’s dairy products — the state’s top agricultural commodity, valued at nearly $7 billion in annual retail sales — results in part from the efforts of the San Bernardino branch of the California Animal Health and Food Safety laboratory system.

This network of laboratories, headquartered at UC Davis and administered by the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine on behalf of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, performs surveillance and diagnostic testing for livestock and poultry.

The San Bernardino laboratory carries out such work on milk and dairy products that are submitted by the state’s Milk and Dairy Foods Safety Branch. The lab’s on-site bacteriology section tests for a variety of disease-causing microbes including Listeria, Brucella, Salmonella, Campylobacter and E. coli O157:H7 — all of which can cause severe illness and even death.

Protecting against foodborne diseases

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that each year roughly one in six Americans (or 48 million people) get sick with a foodborne disease. Of these, 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die from these illnesses.

However, such diseases have almost been eliminated from licensed milk and dairy products, thanks, in large part, to a strong regulatory framework, including adherence to pasteurization and laboratory standards.

Approximately 1,500 samples of milk, dairy products and water arrive monthly at the San Bernardino lab resulting in approximately 4,200 tests conducted by a team of eight technicians. These microbiological assessments monitor bacteria populations and the effectiveness of pasteurization in destroying harmful bacteria.

Partnering with California

“The laboratory system has been a successful partnership between the state and UC Davis since 1987,” said its director, Richard Breitmeyer.

He noted that it was natural in the 1990s to expand the lab’s statewide regulatory testing services to include milk products. Before then testing was limited to samples from only Southern California.

In 2000, the California Department of Food and Agriculture was so impressed with the accuracy and timeliness of the California Animal Health and Food Safety laboratory system that it placed all such statewide regulatory compliance testing in the network of labs, in a move that enabled the state to cut costs, speed analysis and consolidate testing.

The San Bernardino lab

Three years ago, the state asked the laboratory system to also begin testing milk and dairy products for chemical components such as fat and protein content. The San Bernardino lab now provides this service.

“I’m proud of our efficiency,” says Jose Gallegos, the San Bernardino lab’s supervising dairy analyst, who has been with the laboratory system for 20 years and oversees the milk quality testing lab. “Results are rapid and consistent, and reduce the number of people who become ill in the event of an outbreak.”

The San Bernardino laboratory is considered the state reference lab for California and holds the distinction of being the only veterinary facility in the nation set up as a regulatory testing facility. In addition to running tests for the state, the laboratory also is certified by the U.S. Food and Drug administration, under the National Conference of Interstate Shippers program guidelines to run microbiological tests.

Testing dairy products

As part of this testing program, the state sends samples from three sources: the farm, processing plants and retail establishments where the finished product is sold. The lab also tests some exports such as ice cream for microbiological components and dry goods such as powdered milk.

State milk and dairy officials may submit samples from a location if a report comes in that someone has become ill after eating or drinking at a particular business. State and federal investigators also routinely check farmers markets and small establishments for raw or illegally processed milk and dairy products that could pose a serious health risk. Those products are sent to the San Bernardino lab to be tested for the presence of bacteria or improper pasteurization.

Samples sent to the lab must be transported at the proper temperature, arrive within 60 hours of collection and be properly packaged before they are tested for general bacteria populations. If the testing criteria aren’t met, those samples are rejected for testing and reported to the state for recollection. Any test results indicating the products were not produced in compliance with state regulations are reported to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which is authorized to enforce the regulations.

After milk samples have been analyzed for bacteria and other indicators of improper sanitation at a facility, they move on to be tested for drug residue and other unwanted substances such as antibiotics, which may have been used to treat sick cows.

Farmers are required to keep milk out of the supply line until the medication has cleared from the cow’s system and the milk meets strict requirements established by the FDA. Other testing, such as checking for proper pasteurization and possible water contamination, complements the tools used by state officials to ensure the quality and safety of the milk supply.

“We’re always looking at developing better tests and working with our partners to provide the highest level of service,” Gallegos says. “Knowing all the quality testing processes in place, I feel great about drinking milk!”

About CAHFS

CAHFS is a public service program of the university. The primary objectives of the CAHFS are to provide appropriate and timely diagnostic support to safeguard the health of California’s dairy, livestock and poultry industries and to protect the public health from animal disease.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:26-07:00September 11th, 2014|

Drought lessons from a sheep rancher

Source: Brad Hooker, UC Davis

While a severe drought continues to devastate California agriculture, one sheep rancher in Oroville has found a centuries-old solution at the bottom of his wood stove — and researchers at UC Davis are paying attention.

After dumping ash from a weekend cookout in his backyard, Mel Thompson noticed the grass grew a little better. On the advice of Glenn Nader, a UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor based in Yuba City, Thompson took the initiative to research wood ash on his own, going as far as to establish a connection with an Oroville-based energy plant 20 minutes away, which was paying millions to deliver wood ash to the landfill.

Today, the difference in growth from that wood ash can be seen in two adjoining pastures on Thompson’s foothill ranch. One layered in ash three years ago has chest-high grass despite the drought, while the untreated pasture has considerably shorter ground cover.

While the benefits of supplementing crops with ash have long been known, the UC Davis researchers were interested in specifically how it was altering the soil composition to promote plant growth and how it could help other ranchers in this Northern California region.

“It has improved our feed production significantly,” says Thompson. “With that, in conjunction with fencing and the rotational grazing, we seem to be doing OK through this drought period.”

Ken Tate, a plant sciences professor and a Cooperative Extension rangeland watershed specialist, recently surveyed more than 500 ranchers and says Thompson falls into the roughly 5 percent of California ranchers practicing these types of strategies in hopes of gaining more productivity from their land.

“Mel is what we call an early adopter, someone who has a large toolbox and a lot of information that he makes use of,” Tate says. “He’s an innovator and experimenter in the industry.”

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:28-07:00August 28th, 2014|

Native ecosystems blitzed by drought

Source: Alexandra Witze and Nature Magazine; Scientific American

Peter Moyle has seen a lot in five decades of roaming California’s streams and rivers and gathering data on the fish that live in them. But last month he saw something new: tributaries of the Navarro River, which rises in vineyards before snaking through a redwood forest to the Pacific, had dried up completely.

“They looked in July like they normally look in September or October, at the end of the dry season,” says Moyle, a fish biologist at the University of California, Davis.

Blame the drought. The Navarro and its hard-pressed inhabitants are just one example of stresses facing a parched state. From the towering Sierra Nevada mountains — where the snowpack this May was only 18% of the average — to the broad Sacramento–San Joaquin river delta, the record-setting drought is reshaping California’s ecosystems.

It is also giving researchers a glimpse of the future. California has always had an extreme hydrological cycle, with parching droughts interrupted by drenching Pacific storms (see ‘Extreme hydrology’). But scientists say that the current drought — now in its third year — holds lessons for what to expect 50 years from now.

“The west has always gone through this, but we’ll be going through it at perhaps a more rapid cycle,” says Mark Schwartz, a plant ecologist and director of the John Muir Institute of the Environment at the University of California, Davis. He and others are discussing the drought’s ecological consequences at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America, which runs from August 10 to 15 in Sacramento, California. He says that the state’s plant and animal species are at risk in part because California ecosystems are already highly modified and vulnerable to a variety of stresses.

Many of the state’s 129 species of native inland fish, including several types of salmon, are listed by federal or state agencies under various levels of endangerment. “We’re starting from a pretty low spot,” says Moyle. He hopes to use the current drought to explore where native fish have the best chances of surviving.

That could be in dammed streams such as Putah Creek near the Davis campus, where water flow can be controlled to optimize native fish survival. Another focus might be on spring-fed streams such as those that flow down from volcanic terrain in northernmost California and can survive drought much longer than snow-fed streams.

In the late 1970s, Moyle discovered that native fish in the Monterey Bay watershed recolonized their streams relatively quickly after a two-year drought. But today’s streams face greater ecological pressures, such as more dams and more non-native species competing for habitat.

Other challenges arise in the delta where the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers meet, north-east of San Francisco. An invasive saltwater clam (Potamocorbula amurensis) has taken advantage of warming river waters and moved several kilometres upriver, says Janet Thompson, an aquatic ecologist with the US Geological Survey (USGS) in Menlo Park, California.

Potamocorbula out-competes a freshwater clam (Corbicula fluminea), and accumulates about four times as much of the element selenium from agricultural run-off and refineries as its freshwater cousin does. When endangered sturgeon feed on Potamocorbula, the fish consume much more selenium than is optimal. “That’s the biggest shift that we’ve seen that’s of environmental concern,” says Thompson. “These are the kinds of things that can have a lasting effect on a predator species.”

Teasing out the drought’s effects on terrestrial animals is tougher. Researchers have documented drops in various California bird populations this year, such as mallard ducks (Anas platyrynchos) and tricolor blackbirds (Agelaius tricolor). But many other factors — especially habitat loss — also come into play, so it becomes hard to isolate the effects of drought.

The drought’s effects on larger animals such as bears are also uncertain. Anecdotal reports suggest that more bears than usual are showing up closer to people this year, says Jason Holley, a wildlife biologist at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in Rancho Cordova. Within the space of six weeks this spring, four black bears appeared along the Sacramento River corridor, much farther out of the mountains than normal. “Those sorts of calls definitely pique your interest,” says Holley, who thinks that dry conditions in the mountains might be pushing bears closer to populated areas.

The longest-lasting effect could be on California’s forests, including its iconic giant sequoias. The drought has handed forest ecologists an unplanned experiment, says Phillip van Mantgem, a forestry expert at the USGS in Arcata, California, who is speaking at the Sacramento meeting.

Researchers are gathering data to examine whether thinning of plots in the forest, in part to reduce fire risk, might help trees do better under drought. Tests may also help to reveal the main mechanisms by which drought kills different tree species, whether by interrupting the flow of water within the tree or by starving it. “I’m really curious to see how this turns out,” van Mantgem says.

There should be plenty of time to gather data. Climatologists expect an El Niño weather pattern to form in the Pacific this year, which usually brings more rain and snow to parts of California (see Nature 508, 20–21; 2014). But the pending El Niño looks to be weaker than first expected, and may not have much, if any, influence on ending the drought. Chances are that the state will remain dry well into 2015.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:31-07:00August 14th, 2014|

Caifornia drought transforms global food

Source: Jeannette E. Warnert; ANR News Blog

Due to the California drought and what scientists believe will be a drier future, the state’s farmers will likely move away from commodity crops to focus on high-value products like almonds, pistachios and wine grapes, according to Richard Howitt, agricultural economist at UC Davis. Howitt was used as a source in a lengthy story on Bloomberg.com about repercussions worldwide of the three-year dry spell in the Golden State.

Another source was Dan Sumner, director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center. He said shifts in California ag trends reverberate globally.

“It’s a really big deal,” Sumner said. “Some crops simply grow better here than anyplace else, and our location gives us access to markets you don’t have elsewhere.”

California is the United States’ top dairy producer and grows half of the country’s fruit. In 2012, almonds became the state’s second-most valuable ag crop. The Washington Post reported that in the U.S., almond consumption has grown by more than 220 percent since 2005. In the late 2010s, almonds surpassed the long-running nut leader peanuts (not including peanut butter) in per capita consumption.

The Bloomberg article opened with the story the Fred Starrh‘s family farm in Kern County. The Starrh family was a prominent cotton grower for more than 70 years. The shifting global market and rising water prices prompted the family to replace more of their cotton plants with almonds.

“I can’t pay $1,000 an acre-foot (of water) to grow cotton,” said Starrh, 85.

California grows four-fifths of the world’s almonds, the Bloomberg story said, using enough water to meet the needs of 75 percent of the state’s population. An advocate for bigger water supplies for cities suggests in the story that farmers should be profitable, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of urban water ratepayers.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:32-07:00August 12th, 2014|

Water Use in California – Analysis from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC)

Source: Jeffrey Mount and Jay Lund, UC Davis, and Emma Freeman, PPIC

Water in California is shared across three main sectors. Statewide, average water use is roughly 50% environmental, 40% agricultural, and 10% urban. However, the percentage of water use by sector varies dramatically across regions and between wet and dry years. Some of the water used by each of these sectors returns to rivers and groundwater basins, and can be used again.

Environmental water use falls into four categories: water in rivers protected as “wild and scenic” under federal and state laws, water required for maintaining habitat within streams, water that supports wetlands within wildlife preserves, and water needed to maintain water quality for agricultural and urban use. Most water allocated to the environment does not affect other water uses.

More than half of California’s environmental water use occurs in rivers along the state’s north coast. These waters are largely isolated from major agricultural and urban areas and cannot be used for other purposes. In the rest of California where water is shared by all three sectors, environmental use is not dominant (33%, compared to 53% agricultural and 14% urban).

Agricultural water use is holding steady even while the economic value of farm production is growing. Approximately nine million acres of farmland in California are irrigated, representing roughly 80% of all human water use. Higher revenue perennial crops—nuts, grapes, and other fruit—have increased as a share of irrigated crop acreage (from 27% in 1998 to 32% in 2010 statewide, and from 33% to 40% in the southern Central Valley).

This shift, plus rising crop yields, has increased the value of farm output (from $16.3 billion of gross state product in 1998 to $22.3 billion in 2010, in 2010 dollars), thereby increasing the value of agricultural water used. But even as the agricultural economy is growing, the rest of the economy is growing faster. Today, farm production and food processing only generate about 2% of California’s gross state product, down from about 5% in the early 1960s.

Despite population growth, total urban water use is also holding steady. The San Francisco Bay and South Coast regions account for most urban water use in California. These regions rely heavily on water imported from other parts of the state. Roughly half of urban water use is for residential and commercial landscaping. Despite population growth and urban expansion, total urban water use has remained roughly constant over the past 20 years.

Per-capita water use has declined significantly—from 232 gallons per day in 1990 to 178 gallons per day in 2010—reflecting substantial efforts to reduce water use through pricing incentives and mandatory installation of water saving technologies like low-flow toilets and shower heads. Coastal regions use far less water per capita than inland regions—145 gallons per day compared with 276 gallons per day in 2010—largely because of less landscape watering.

The current drought exposes major water use challenges. In the Central Valley, where most agricultural water use occurs, the failure to manage groundwater sustainably limits its availability as a drought reserve. The increase in perennial crops—which need to be watered every year—has made the region even more vulnerable. In urban areas, the greatest potential for further water savings lies in reducing landscaping irrigation—a shift requiring behavioral changes, not just the adoption of new technology.

Finally, state and federal regulators must make tough decisions about how and when to allocate water to the environment during a drought. They are faced with balancing short-term economic impacts on urban and agricultural water users against long-term harm—even risk of extinction—of fish and wildlife.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:33-07:00August 11th, 2014|

Previous 345 Next