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2011 Grants


Fourteen projects ranging from exploring taco trucks as vehicles to provide healthy food in Central Valley communities with limited food access to a study of an Oakland/non-profit collaboration that develops urban agriculture parks are being funded for a total of approximately $150,000 by the Davis-based University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (UC SAREP).

Funded projects include:

 

Impacts from these kinds of projects include:

  • Educating the urban population about the importance of regional agriculture and providing opportunities for connecting growers and consumers
  • Piloting innovative distribution strategies for supplying schools and other institutions with fresh, locally grown produce
  • Helping ranchers make management decisions based on sustainability principles and environmental performance of beef production systems
  • Involving limited resource farmers in marketing and distribution systems that retain value so that farmers get a higher price for their products in competitive, regional markets
  • Exploring new direct markets for traditional, commodity crops

 

The awards are for county-based UC Cooperative Extension advisors, graduate students and community-based organizations.

Planning

Plumas Rural Services
Elizabeth Powell, Plumas County, (530) 283-3611 ex.839, epowell@plumasruralservices.org. $10,000 for the creation of the Plumas County Food Policy Council (PCFPC). The project will identify successful food policy models, recruit members, draft by-laws and locate funding sources [planning grant].

Applied Research Center (ARC)
Yvonne Liu, Central Coast, (510) 338-4934, yliu@arc.org.
$10,000 to explore how green jobs for women farmworker workforces can improve their working conditions and the well-being of their communities [planning grant].

UC Cooperative Extension, Santa Clara County
Shelia Barry, California-wide, (408) 282-3106, sbarry@ucdavis.edu.
$10,000 to build a broad-based research team that includes beef producers and develop plans for a project to conduct a life cycle analysis of California’s beef production system. This would provide beef producers, researchers and beef marketers with information about the environmental performance of beef production systems in California [planning grant].

Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA)
Deborah Yashar, Salinas Valley/Central Coast, (831) 758-1468, Deborah@albafarmers.org. $10,000 for community food access planning in East Salinas. The grant will develop a three-year program and financing plans to expand a community planning process focused on health. The project will increase market channels for locally grown and culturally valued fresh foods in East Salinas. [planning grant].

Education & Outreach

Sustainable Economies Law Center
Janelle Orsi, San Francisco Bay Area, (510) 649-9956, Janelle.SELC@gmail.com.
$10,000 to provide legal guidance to low-income entrepreneurs interested in urban and suburban farming, home-based food businesses and cooperatively owned agricultural companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. The project will create an online legal resource library and hold three legal clinics/workshops to provide direct legal advice to farmers and food entrepreneurs [education/ outreach grant].

UC Cooperative Extension, Sacramento County
Chuck Ingels, Sacramento region, (916) 875-6527, caingels@ucdavis.edu.
$9,975 to help Southeast Asian and other small farmers in Sacramento connect with processors and buyers. This project helps Southeast Asian farmers find solutions to marketing challenges by facilitating meetings among farmers, wholesalers, food processors, school districts and community food groups [education/outreach grant].

UC Cooperative Extension, Los Angeles County
Brenda Roche, Los Angeles County, (323) 260-3299, bkroche@ucdavis.edu.
$10,000 to support the “Grow and Eat Fresh in LA” program in Los Angeles County. The project will include gardening instruction as well as nutrition lessons and cooking demonstrations. Participants will turn their new gardening skills into productive home gardens that will translate into positive changes in the home, including lower grocery bills and increased access to fresh, affordable, healthy food [education/outreach grant].

UC Cooperative Extension, Sonoma County
Stephanie Larson, Northern California, (707) 565-2621, slarson@udavis.edu.
$10,000 to develop and document opportunities and success stories for ecosystem services – the benefits provided to all of California by good stewardship of rangeland. Rangelands make up one of the largest “land masses” in California. Good stewardship of the land increases water capture and carbon sequestration (storage), and the production of biomass similar to the “services” trees and forests provide. This project will assess the value and ecological and economic impacts of well-cared for rangeland and develop educational materials and outreach efforts to help make decisions on best management practices [education/outreach grant].

LA Food Policy Council
Alexa Delwiche, LA region, (323) 341-5096, alexa.delwiche@gmail.com.
$10,000 to develop a web site that will create an informative and user-friendly website to serve as a focal point for the LA Food Policy Council’s education, outreach and social networking efforts. Features will include food-related news and information, updates on the program and opportunities for people to get involved [education/outreach grant].

Research

California Institute for Rural Studies - 2 projects
Gail Wadsworth, Davis/Central Valley, (530) 756-6555 x 17, gwadsworth@cirsinc.org.
$10,000 to identify a model for mobile food vending that can be implemented in rural farmworker communities in California [planning grant] and $35,000 to evaluate farmworkers’ ability to cool and hydrate after work as well as access transportation, communications and health resources that can help relieve the risk of heat stress [research grant.]

Department of Environment, Science, Policy & Management, University of California, Berkeley
Kendra Klein, Bay Area, (415) 350-5957, Kleinkec@yahoo.com.
$5,000 to examine the role middlemen play in farm-to-hospital initiatives. The project will examine the barriers that arise from group purchasing organization (GPO) contracts and develop lessons learned from hospitals that have successfully navigated GPO contracts to increase the quantity of regionally sourced, sustainably produced food [graduate student research grant].

Graduate Group in Geography, University of California, Davis
Matthew Hoffman, Lodi Region, (209) 200-1803, mbhoffman@ucdavis.edu.
$5,000 to use Social Network Analysis to understand the role that social learning networks play in Lodi’s viticulture and winery supply chains. The project will also provide research that will strengthen a Community of Practice pilot program among Lodi’s wineries [graduate student research grant].

Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz
Jessica Watson, Oakland California, (510) 590-0870, jessicawwatson@gmail.com.
$5,000 to study the collaboration between City Slicker Farms (a nonprofit) and City of Oakland’s Parks and Recreation Department to convert a city park into an urban farm. The project will evaluate this model’s effort to respond to the community’s needs, provide outreach and improve food security in the neighborhood [graduate student research grant].