Summer 1998 (v10n2)
  New PAC/TAC Members Join SAREP

UC SAREP was created almost 12 years ago, the product of legislation carried by State Senator Nicholas Petris of Oakland in response to farmer, consumer and researcher concerns that California farming practices be more ecologically sound, economically profitable and socially responsible. Senate Bill 872, the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Act of 1986, that requested the Regents of the University of California establish the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SAREP). The legislation charged SAREP with administering a competitive research grants program for sustainable agricultural practices and public policies, developing and disseminating information on sustainable practices, and coordinating long-term farmland research.

The program found a home at UC Davis and the first public and technical advisory committees were selected. After a national search, Bill Liebhardt was selected SAREP director; soon after his arrival the first grants were awarded to eight projects.

"We have always used the enacting legislation as our blueprint," said Liebhardt. "In the last 12 years, SAREP has awarded more than $3.5 million to approximately 260 basic and applied research projects, economic and public policy projects, seminar and field demonstrations and graduate student awards.

Since 1995, SAREP has administered a second funding program to help farmers reduce their use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, called the Biologically Integrated Farming Systems (BIFS) program. A separate, 13-member BIFS advisory committee makes recommendations about BIFS grants.

SAREP's enabling legislation requires it to have both public and technical advisory committees to advise the university on program goals and make recommendations on the award of competitive grants. The Public Advisory Committee (PAC) includes individuals actively involved in agricultural production, as well as representatives from government, public organizations, and institutions of higher education. The Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) is made up of UC and California State University and makes recommendations about the scientific merit of grant applications. PAC and TAC members generally serve three year terms. New members in 1998 are:

Public Advisory Committee

  • RON ALVES is an instructor in the Agriculture and Environmental Science Division at Modesto Junior College, where he has taught biology, soil science, environmental conservation, food processing, ag business and worked with the lab technician program since 1974. Previously he taught high school in Yuba City and Japan. Raised on a family farm in Stanislaus County, he and his wife and three children operate a small farm in Modesto where they raise sheep, swine and walnuts. Alves is interested in land use planning and sustainable food systems, and is particularly concerned about educating the urban population about rural issues and problems. To that end, he and other instructors at Modesto Junior College are involved in educational programs at local elementary schools.
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  • ROBERT BORNT is the owner of Bob's Organics, an organic food production and distribution company in San Diego. The company produces hot sauces and cooking sauces and markets family grown, fresh organic vegetables. He is also the director of Farm Hands, a non-profit organization dedicated to farm gleaning and low-cost fresh food production for distribution into low-income communities. He is particularly interested in sustainable, healthy lifestyles - sustained with the availability of fresh, healthy food and consumer education-especially for low-income/ no-income families.
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  • FRANK DAWLEY and his wife Vicky have been managing her family's cattle ranch in the foothills of western Tehama County since 1975. Practicing Holistic Management since 1984, they have been working toward their goal of a prosperous cow-calf operation on an ecologically improving landscape producing high-quality beef for consumers to enjoy. Dawley is particularly interested in livestock production, watershed stability, direct marketing, and wildlife. He served on SAREP's Public Advisory Committee in 1993-95.
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  • DEBRA DENTON is an environmental scientist for the US Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 (San Francisco) in the Water Management Division. She assists with permitting guidance, enforcement actions, data interpretation and test methodology issues related to effluent toxicity testing. She has worked on national Whole Effluent Toxicity (WET) issues for EPA's Office of Water, and was on special assignment to the EPA's Office of Research and Development laboratory to develop the echinoderm sperm cell fertilization test method. She has also worked for the State Water Resources Control Board providing technical support to testing laboratories on quality assurance and statistical analysis and for the Department of Food and Agriculture performing pesticide monitoring studies in air, sediment, groundwater and surface water throughout California. She recently served as the chair of the City of Davis Pesticide Taskforce Committee. She is currently working on a Ph.D. in hydrobiology at UC Davis, where she is looking at the effects of pyrethroid insecticides used in Delta orchards on larval fish.
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  • JEFF DLOTT is currently the Executive Director of Collaborative Research and Designs for Agriculture. His work focuses on collaborating with farmers, farm managers, agricultural consultants, researchers and others in the design, execution, and evaluation of environmentally sound and economically feasible farming practices. In California, Dlott is working with the raisin, winegrape, lettuce and celery industries. He also has worked as a consultant to the Pew Charitable Trusts and the C. S. Mott Foundation in project and program evaluation. He recently accepted a position as Senior Program Officer in the Agricultural Initiative at US Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 (San Francisco). In this new position, he will be working with the agricultural industry on developing alternative pest management strategies in response to the implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act.
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  • AN PEISCHEL is a partner in Goats Unlimited in Butte County. The meat goats are grazed in organic olive orchards, and are also used in three counties for fuel load reduction in ponderosa pine plantations, firebreaking in forests and land cleaning. The range-fed goats are marketed to San Francisco restaurants. She also teaches an holistic range livestock management class at CSU, Chico. Goats Unlimited has been grazing meat goats in Hawaii and California for 13 years.
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  • TIM O'NEILL is the ranch manager for the family operation O'Neill Farming Enterprises in Five Points, Fresno County, which includes some certified organic row crop fields. He is also a vineyard owner, and an advocate for sustainable and organic farming systems.
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  • JIM RIDER is a partner with his brother Dick in Bruce Rider & Sons, which grows, packs and ships organic apples near Watsonville, Santa Cruz County. They have been growing organically for eight years, and their whole operation has been organic for the past three years. He also is a partner with his wife Barbara in Rider Flowers, a farming operation which grows and ships 150 varieties of field-grown specialty cut flowers.
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  • BETH VON GUNTEN is the Ventura County- based field representative for the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) and is responsible for the Ventura County Lighthouse Farm Meetings, for any growers interested in reducing chemical use and developing more biologically based methods of farming. She has a strong interest in the economic viability of sustainable production, especially in areas under pressure from urban development; the impact of various production and processing methods on the nutritional value of crops; and issues raised by the introduction of biotechnology into agricultural production systems. The recipient of the 1997 CAFF Beacon of Light Award, she is also an organic farm and processing inspector.
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    Technical Advisory Committee

  • ERNST L. BIBERSTEIN is a professor emeritus from the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. His specialty is veterinary microbiology, particularly bacterial and fungal diseases of animals.
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  • HOLLY BROWN-WILLIAMS is associate director of the California Policy Seminar (CPS), a University of California program that applies UC research expertise to the analysis, development, and implementation of state policy. Based in Berkeley, CPS represents all nine UC campuses and affiliated units. Her academic background is in business administration and industrial relations. She is particularly interested in the role of public policy in enhancing environmentally sustainable and economically viable agricultural approaches.
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  • RACHEL MABIE is the UC Cooperative Extension director in Los Angeles County. Before accepting that assignment, she was the urban horticulture advisor in Los Angeles, and directed the Los Angeles Urban Garden Program, known locally as Common Ground. A former Peace Corps volunteer with a background in agronomy, she is fluent in Spanish. Her specialty is urban horticulture, including community, school and market gardens. She is particularly interested in small-scale and intensive agriculture, the urban/agriculture interface, and backyard horticulture. She has worked with Cooperative Extension since 1988.
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  • PAUL SIRI is the associate director of the Bodega Marine Laboratory in Bodega Bay, Marin County and has been a UC researcher and administrator for 21 years. His specialty is water quality treatment and reuse for intensive culture of marine, freshwater and anadromous fishes; fish behavior, population biology and ecology of endangered salmon; and environmental effects of cultured fishes. He is also a consultant to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on the environmental effects of intensive fish culture.
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  • DOREEN STABINSKY is an assistant professor of environmental studies at California State University at Sacramento. She was trained as a molecular geneticist, and now works in the field of biotechnology policy. Her present research is focused on the environmental effects of the release of genetically engineered organisms into the environment, as well as the social, political and economic consequences of the use of genetic engineering in agriculture.
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  • CAROLYN STULL is the UC Cooperative Extension animal welfare specialist in Veterinary Medicine Extension at UC Davis. Her specialties are animal welfare issues including veal calf welfare, dairy calf housing, horse starvation, transport, and appropriate care practices for beef, sheep, dairy and poultry. She is particularly interested in the integration of environment, animal welfare and food safety; alternative production systems; and stress reduction in agricultural animals. She responds to public issues concerning agricultural animal welfare through research projects providing scientific data.
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  • JO ANN C. WHEATLEY is a professor of crop science at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. An entomologist by training, her specialty is the biological control of arthropods, and Integrated Pest Management in coastal wine grapes. She is particularly interested in evaluation techniques for examining stream, creek and river health, aquatic insect complexes, and mealybug and leafhopper management in wine grapes. She is active in fly fishing organizations and is a registered pest control adviser.
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    Continuing PAC/TAC

    Public Advisory Committee: Cynthia Cory, Leonard Diggs, James Liebman, Michael Straus and Brock Taylor.

    Technical Advisory Committee: Edith Allen, Steve Blank, Caroline Bledsoe, Robert Gottlieb, Blaine Hanson, Tim Hartz, Donald Klingborg, Craig Kolodge, Janet Savage, Rob Thayer and Joan Wright. [Note: Edith Allen is serving a second three-year term.]

    Biographies of continuing PAC/TAC members appeared in the Summer 1997 (Vol. 9, No. 2), Summer 1996 (Vol. 8, No. 3), and the Summer 1995 (Vol. 7, No. 3) issues of Sustainable Agriculture.

    Retiring PAC/TAC

    The following advisory committee members rotated off the PAC or TAC in 1997. PAC: Catherine Brandel, David Costa, Marion Kalb, Ron Mansfield, Andrew Rubin, Bryte Stewart, Don Villarejo, Angus Wright. TAC: Tom Shultz and Lucia Varela. UC SAREP is very appreciative of the work that advisory committee members do for the program.
     
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