California Report

SARE Professional Development Program Annual Report for California
January 1 - December 31, 2010

State SARE Coordinator:

Summary of 2010 PDP Activities and Results

In 2010, California PDP funds were used to hold a meeting between Cooperative Extension (CE) advisors and specialists and the UC Davis Agriculture Sustainability Institute (ASI) and another meeting addressing conservation tillage in organic cropping systems. The ASI-CE meeting was attended by 22 CE advisors, 9 CE specialists, 7 AES faculty and 8 ASI staff members. The purpose of the meeting was to exchange information, especially to inform CE academics of the ASI mission and priorities, and to understand how ASI and CE could and should collaborate on sustainable agriculture and food system programs. The conservation tillage meeting was structured to bring farmers, extension educators and researchers together to discuss conservation tillage experiences and to generate ideas for future research. This meeting was attended by 2 USDA-ARS researchers, 5 USDA-NRCS field staff, 2 CE specialists, 2 CE advisors and 12 farmers.

Context and Overview

Sustainable agricultural/food systems is a core theme throughout the University of California’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR). In fact, the ANR Strategic Vision 2025, released in April 2009, outlines a new structure for ANR programs built around four new strategic initiatives, two of which are titled Sustainable Food Systems and Sustainable Natural Ecosystems.  The College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences at UC Davis is also host to the Ag Sustainability Institute (ASI), which has maintained a strong affiliation with the Western SARE PDP program. The PDP program in California strives to extend information on sustainable agricultural practices to extension educators throughout the state and to facilitate collaborative relationships between ASI and UC extension educators. Unfortunately federal and state budget constraints have severely limited funding for professional development activities for both NRCS and state universities, which increases the importance of PDP activities in California.

Since starting as the PDP coordinator in 2009, I have struggled to develop an effective and efficient protocol to implement PDP activities for extension educators in such a large and agriculturally diverse state and have settled on a mini-grant process that the PDP advisory panel will help guide beginning with the 2011 PDP grant.

Activities and Methods

The first activity was a meeting titled “Ag Sustainability Institute and Cooperative Extension Joint Symposium: Building Collaborations for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems.” This meeting was held on October 26, 2010 and attended by 46 people from across the campus-county continuum. This meeting was designed to bring ASI and CE people together to improve knowledge and understanding of mutual purposes and to develop ideas on strategies to improve collaborations between the two groups. The morning session was spent describing ASI, its mission and primary initiatives and communicating information gathered from a pre-meeting survey. The purpose of the survey was to gather general information participants had about ASI, CE and methods of collaboration. The afternoon session was spent brainstorming specific mechanisms that will promote collaboration between ASI and CE.

The second meeting was titled “Conservation Tillage in Organic Production: Challenges and Opportunities in On-Farm Application”  (http://ucanr.org/sites/csinosw/). This meeting was held on November 15, 2010 and was attended by 24 people from ANR, NRCS, ARS and private farms. Bob Newhall, from Utah State University, was the keynote speaker and provided information on Western SARE grant opportunities. The meeting focused on exploring strategies to utilize conservation tillage practices in organic cropping systems. Combining these agronomic systems is challenged by the common use of tillage in organic systems to incorporate soil amendments and to control weeds. Participants spent the day learning of practical experiences from farmers and researchers on conservation tillage and then identified research priorities that will address the costs, benefits and challenges of conservation tillage practices in organic cropping systems.

PDP-funded Publications/Educational Materials and Products

Presentations and summary documents were created for each meeting, but not published or reproduced as educational material.

Changes in Ag Professionals’ Knowledge, Skills and Action

ASI-CE Meeting: This meeting was successful in bridging a gap between ASI and CE academics. ASI is a new program and has not been well understood by many CE academics while ASI academics and staff have not been informed on how to best engage campus and county-based CE academics. This general lack of understanding has limited collaboration where many research and outreach opportunities exist that could benefit both units and California clientele.

Prior to the meeting, non-ASI participants indicated that they generally have little understanding of ASI. By the end of the meeting non-ASI participants reported: 1) a large improvement in the understanding of ASI, 2) 67% thought the meeting was helpful in creating linkages between the two units, and 3) that they saw opportunities to collaborate within the next year (57%) and the next three years (29%). Other meeting outcomes included the identification of several specific mechanisms that will improve communications and collaboration between ASI and CE academics. The ASI steering committee has resolved to address these topics within the six months following the meeting.

Conservation Tillage Meeting: The meeting was instrumental in addressing critical issues concerning the use and adoption of conservation tillage in organic cropping systems. Meeting participants expressed many benefits to using conservation tillage practices that include reduced operational costs, reduced emissions and improved soil quality. In organic systems, participants felt that conservation tillage is a very important (75%) or somewhat important (25%) sustainable agricultural practice. Enthusiasm about conservation tillage was buffered by challenges, most of which revolve around the risk of using alternative practices to tillage. Several cultural practices and technologies were identified as possible research topics to address challenges that limit adoption. By the end of the meeting, 75% of participants felt that the meeting enhanced their understanding of the application of conservation tillage in organic agriculture and indicated that they will be more likely to apply, recommend or conduct research on this topic. Overall, participants felt the workshop was useful (60%) or very useful (40%) in developing sustainable agricultural practices.

Unintended Outcomes

Following the ASI-CE meeting, I was approached by several CE specialists (who are typically hard to please with such meetings) and given their verbal praise of the meeting structure and outcomes. I believe that the meeting was timely in that many people within ANR felt a need for the direct communication between ASI and CE in order to build relationships and collaborative opportunities and to prevent duplications of efforts and competition between each unit.

Another unintended outcome that came from the conservation tillage meeting was the desire of participants for further discussion and follow up. The ANR conservation tillage workgroup and the PDP coordinator will be involved in organizing follow up activities to this meeting.

Involvement of others in state PDP planning and implementation:

The Western SARE PDP advisory committee for California currently has three members while three additional members are being sought. The current committee consists of: 

• Diane Holcomb, State Resource Conservationist, NRCS State Office
• Holly George, UCCE Livestock & Natural Resources Advisor, Plumas-Sierra Counties
• Ramiro Lobo, UCCE Small Farms Advisor, San Diego County

The role of the committee is to provide input and direction to the annual PDP plan and to participate in the selection criteria and review of mini-grant proposals.