Posts Tagged: farmers

UCCE is helping CalFresh shoppers double food dollars at farmers markets

Across California, CalFresh shoppers can use their EBT cards at most farmers markets and double the value of their benefit, up to $10 per family each market day.

“This benefit is underused,” said Chutima Ganthavorn, nutrition, family and consumer sciences advisor in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. “There may be a perception that farmers market prices are higher than in regular grocery stores.”

The Market Match program makes high quality produce more accessible.

To help promote the Market Match program that makes shopping at farmers markets more affordable for CalFresh customers, Ganthavorn worked with the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources news and information outreach in Spanish office to develop videos in English and Spanish that clearly explain the program for potential users.

“Our program, CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE, provides nutrition education to CalFresh-eligible participants in Coachella Valley to promote increasing consumption of locally grown, fresh fruits and vegetables,” Ganthavorn said. “Increasing buying power at farmers markets helps participants incorporate delicious, local produce into affordable meals for the whole family.”

To use Market Match, CalFresh recipients visit a kiosk at the market and use their EBT card to purchase $10 in wooden tokens. The program provides an additional $10 in tokens for purchase of fruits and vegetables only. The $20 can then be used to purchase items at all the farmers' booths that day at the market. Shoppers can look up participating farmers markets by going to FMFinder.org.

Extra tokens allow CalFresh recipients to purchase more fresh fruits and vegetables.

“Wow! These (videos) are terrific,” said Megan Goehring, the manager of the Palm Springs farmers market. “Will share on social media today.”

Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program vouchers and Women, Infants and Children vouchers can also be used at participating farmers markets.

Below are the videos and their YouTube URLs for easy sharing:

Spanish - 

https://youtu.be/SgQHqdrMsco

English - https://youtu.be/dz6R_l123AE

Supporting farmers markets in the time of COVID-19

Farmers markets are essential community food sources and important for promoting social connection, which are especially needed now in small towns and counties.

As the nutrition, family and consumer sciences advisor for UC Cooperative Extension in the Central Sierra, my primary mission is to help connect foothill residents with healthy food, especially fruits and vegetables. One of the best ways to do that is to support farmers markets. I know that our foothill growers want to feed the people in their communities, and I know that many people want to eat locally and support local businesses. Especially now that the COVID-19 crisis has caused cracks in the national structures we use to distribute food, farmers markets' role as essential sources of healthy food has only increased.

Farmers markets are testing new approaches to keep vendors and customers safe at farmers markets. (Photo: Pamela Kan-Rice)

Strawberry stands sell berries fresh from the field

Nathan Punh, left, talks with UCCE farm advisor Margaret Lloyd, who works with about 60 Mien farms in the Sacramento area.

Slugs, snails, ants, aphids, spider mites and inclement weather conspire against strawberry growers harvesting perfect red berries to sell. 

“Farming is hard work,” said Fam Lee, as she pulled a weed from a row of strawberry plants. Lee and her husband Nathan Punh are among about 60 Mien farmers in the Sacramento area who call on Margaret Lloyd, a UC Cooperative Extension advisor, for farming advice.

Fam Lee examines a strawberry for insect and slug damage. “Although we are not organic farmers, we always want to go with organic,” she said.

“Although we are not organic farmers, we always want to go with organic,” said Lee. “For example, we have slugs and ants, I asked Margaret if it's okay to put organic slug bait around the plant as long as it doesn't touch the berry. She said that's the best way to do. We work closely with our extension staff.”

In the Sacramento area, many of the Mien-owned farms are husband and wife teams. The typical couple farms an acre or two themselves, picking berries to sell the same day at a roadside stand, which provides the family's primary source of income.

Mouang Saetern harvests strawberries.

“Many of them grew up on farms in Thailand or Laos growing vegetables or growing rice or soybeans,” said Lloyd, who serves small-scale farmers in Sacramento, Solano and Yolo counties. “A lot of them come from farming backgrounds so when they came to this country, they also sought out an agrarian lifestyle.”

Some Mien growers had never seen a strawberry before arriving in California, but chose the high-value crop to maximize returns on their small plots of land.

To help Mien growers develop successful strawberry farms, Lloyd updates them on regulations and shares growing tips at an annual extension meeting, visits them at their farms, and records videos demonstrating how to do things such as using compost to fertilize the crop.

Visiting Mien farms makes it easier for Lloyd, right, to demonstrate practices for farmers who aren't fluent in English.

“Because of language barriers, coming out to the farm regularly is a big part of the job,” said Lloyd, who partners with staff from the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) to assist Mien farmers.

“Once we're on the farm, we can communicate in-person more easily,” she said. “Often times it involves pest identification, so I'll show them how to use a hand lens and how to identify spider mites, aphids and lygus bugs, for example.”

“A lot of them have children who speak English fluently so if they don't speak English fluently, sometimes the children come out and help.”

The UC-patented strawberry cultivar Albion produces large, sweet berries.

For the past five years, Lee and Punh have been growing and selling strawberries at a farm stand on Bond Road, between Bader and Bradshaw, in Sacramento. They grow Albion, Chandler, Santa Rosa and Seascape – sweet, delicate varieties, some of which aren't found in supermarkets because the berries don't store and ship as well. They typically begin harvesting berries at the end of March and pick through July or August, depending on the weather. This year, the first berries were ruined by spring rain and frost.

Savvy consumers will ask for certain varieties by name, Lloyd said. “Chandler is well-loved by consumers for its delicate flesh and sweet flavor. Albion produces larger berries that are also very tasty.”

Established farm stands, like this one on Florin Road at South Watt Avenue, develop a loyal following of customers who eagerly await their opening to buy strawberries.

Because berries sold at the roadside stands are picked fresh daily, the farmers wait until berries are perfectly ripe before picking them.

Monday through Saturday, Lee begins harvesting her strawberries by hand at the break of dawn.

“We start at 5:45, the minute we can see, and we pick until 8 o'clock. That's our goal,” Lee said. “By 8:30, we want to open our stand and we sell until all the berries run out.”

Lee's parents often drive up from Alameda to help pick berries.

Some farm stands offer vegetables, like these red onions, to complement the strawberries.

To extend the farm stand season, some Mien farmers supplement the strawberries with other berries, strawberry jam and vegetables. They grow blueberries and blackberries, tomatoes, peppers and green beans and sometimes specialty vegetables such as bittermelon.

“Growing strawberries isn't easy, but it's enjoyable work,” Lee said.

Lloyd has updated a map showing locations of about 60 strawberry stands in the Sacramento area at http://bit.ly/strawberrystands.

To help consumers find the Mien farm stands, UC Cooperative Extension has created a map showing locations in the Sacramento area at http://bit.ly/strawberrystands.

Investment in training new farmers is paying off

Rob Bennaton, UC Cooperative Extension advisor, (in white t-shirt) talks with beginning urban farmers at the UC Gill Tract Community Farm. 

Training people to farm is successfully preparing them for careers, according to a new report from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. Their report, “Cultivating the Next Generation,” evaluates the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, which was funded in the 2008 Farm Bill.

According to a national survey, Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program-funded project leaders estimated that over half of their participants are now engaged in a farming career, and that nearly three-quarters of them felt more prepared for a successful career in agriculture after completing the program.

The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program has also helped nonprofit and community-based organizations, along with their academic partners, to build their capacity and serve more farmers with better services.

In California, UC Cooperative Extension has been providing beginning farming and farm business planning training in Placer and Nevada counties for over a decade. In a 2016 survey of Placer and Nevada county producers, 72 percent of respondents said they had taken one or more business classes from UCCE and another 9 percent had taken other business training. The training appeared to make a difference in their success.

“In a survey of local producers, over 90 percent were profitable as compared to 25 percent on the last national ag census,” said Cindy Fake, director of UC Cooperative Extension in Placer and Nevada counties.

Roger Ingram, UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor emeritus, teaches livestock grazing techniques.

In Sonoma County, UC Cooperative Extension offers "FARMING 101" workshops on the second Tuesday of the month. Experienced farmers, ranchers, and business specialists share a broad range of practical skills that new farmers and ranchers need to know. They also have resources at http://cesonoma.ucanr.edu/New_to_Sonoma_County_Ag to help new farmers and ranchers create a business plan and connect with mentors.

“For me, the full-time job I received is the direct result of my participation in the class,” wrote one Sonoma County participant. “Our products there provide 20 dozen eggs to three restaurants weekly in Healdsburg, and an average of 60 tons of wine grapes to two wineries annually.”

Workshop participants observe safe pruning techniques for fruit and nut trees.

Jennifer Sowerwine, UC Cooperative Extension specialist at UC Berkeley, served on an advisory board for the USDA program's evaluation. The report gave her ideas for improving training for California's aspiring farmers and ranchers.

“There is an opportunity for UC ANR to take more advantage of Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program funding to increase our support for beginning farmers and ranchers,” said Sowerwine.

According to the report, more beginning farmer training programs are led by the nonprofit sector than by land grant universities – 56 percent of all programs were led by nonprofits, 40 percent were led by land grant universities and 4 percent were led by other universities.

“There is an opportunity to deepen UC ANR support for beginning farmers in accessing land, capital and farm business management training,” Sowerwine said. “In addition to UC ANR's valued expertise in providing technical assistance to beginning farmers, we can also foster more farmer-to-farmer mentoring and networking opportunities for beginning farmers and ranchers to enhance their support systems.”

She also sees opportunities to incorporate more principles of adult education – such as engaging participants in the design and evaluation of the training and offering more hands-on, experiential learning activities using multisensory techniques – which were found to be highly effective practices in training beginning farmers.

Jennifer Sowerwine describes how to make a sanitizing solution for harvest buckets for food safety.

Sowerwine is wrapping up a three-year beginning farmer and rancher project titled, "Growing Roots: Deepening Support for Diverse New Farmers and Ranchers in California.” Christy Getz, UC Cooperative Extension specialist at UC Berkeley, and Rob Bennaton, UC Cooperative Extension urban agriculture advisor, and Sowerwine, together with their nonprofit partners, have trained 340 beginning farmers and ranchers in 10 counties to help improve the economic viability and ecological sustainability of their agricultural operations.

The training is offered in Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, Merced, Monterey, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Stanislaus and Yolo counties. Most of the participants are Southeast Asian, Latino and other immigrant farmers in urban, peri-urban and rural areas, along with low-income urban farmers.

By partnering with National Center for Appropriate Technology, Sustainable Agriculture Education, the Alameda County Resource Conservation District and UC Cooperative Extension colleagues in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, the team has been offering in-depth, culturally and regionally appropriate workshops and technical assistance. They also developed materials about business planning and marketing, hosted field days and farmer tours to observe organic and sustainable farming and ranching practices, and provided opportunities for the new farmers to network with other farmers.

“Collectively our project has reached 5,050 participants to date,” Sowerwine said, noting that many are people who have attended multiple events. Of the 3,485 who filled out evaluations, 89 percent reported an increase in their knowledge of workshop and field day topics and 73 percent reported plans to change their farming or business practices based on what they learned.

“We are in the process of evaluating how many have adopted practices based on what they learned,” Sowerwine said. “Based on what we learned, we are developing culturally relevant training tools in various languages.”

To download the Cultivating the Next Generation report, visit http://sustainableagriculture.net/publications/bfrdp.

Future looks bright at UC Ag Field Day

More than 3,500 FFA and 4-H high school students from California and surrounding states will gather on March 6 and 7 at UC Davis for the annual Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Field Day. The smart, passionate youth will compete in two dozen agriculture contests, from livestock judging, to agricultural mechanics, to floriculture, to computer applications, and more.

FFA (formerly known as Future Farmers of America) and 4-H are youth development programs that help prepare young people for careers in the rapidly changing world of agriculture. 4-H, which is offered in California by UC Agriculture and Natural Resources Cooperative Extension, allows members to choose from projects in science, engineering, technology, animal science education, nutrition, healthy living and many other experiential learning activities.

Each year the young competitors spend countless hours preparing for the field day, the largest of its kind in the state.

Meat judging is among the competitions at Ag Field Day.

“Competing in Ag Field Day instilled in me the importance of a strong work ethic, the value of research, and the benefits of scientific methods for solving real-world problems in agriculture,” said Yousef Buzayan, a 2011 Ag Field Day participant now double-majoring in Managerial Economics and International Agricultural Development at UC Davis.

Ag Field Day is run and managed completely by UC Davis students who gain valuable experience in leadership, communication, and teamwork.

“Of all my experiences at UC Davis, managing Ag Field Day was definitely the biggest challenge, and with it came the biggest rewards,” said Mary Kimball, executive director of the Center for Land-Based Learning in Winters, California, who helped organize Ag Field Day as a student in 1992. “I learned how to manage many moving parts, and I learned that the best way to get things done well is to do it as a team.”

So if you're in Davis and see thousands of high school students on campus, you'll know who they are: tomorrow's leaders striving and thriving in Ag Field Day competitions. The future of agriculture is in good hands.?

Read more