Biologically Integrated Farming Systems workgroup meets

The Biologically Integrated Farming Systems (BIFS) Workgroup convened at UC Davis Aug. 16, 2001 for its second meeting. The 45 workgroup attendees included Cooperative Extension farm advisors, farmers, UC researchers, and representatives from commodity boards, grower groups, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and nonprofit organizations.

Cliff Ohmart (Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission), Gary Obenauf (California Prune Board), and Mark Cady (Community Alliance with Family Farmers) led a discussion on factors that ensure that BIFS and other partnership projects have a lasting impact. It was recognized that project life span needs to be longer than three years, and that on-farm demonstration trials should cover large areas and be distributed statewide. Recipes for success included: high levels of grower participation, adequate funding, well-established collaborative approaches combined with leadership, and good field days. It was proposed that future projects broaden their participant base, encompass wildlife restoration and biodiversity and use a whole-farm approach not restricted to any one commodity.

Other presentations focused on research tools used to assess grower practices and project impact commodity-wide. Marco Barzman (SAREP) and Randall “Cass” Mutters (UC Cooperative Extension, Butte County) shared their experience with the implementation of a survey of Sacramento Valley rice growers (see Project Update: BIFS rice survey). Minghua Zhang (UC Davis land, air and water resources department) explained the latest advances in using the California Department of Pesticide Regulation’s Pesticide Use Report data.

Plans for the year include facilitating several workshops on database development for project management using Microsoft Access, statistics for non-traditional experimental designs, and project impact assessment activities. Workgroup members expressed interest in bringing in more expertise from the social sciences and using the BIFS email listserv and the BIFS Web page as a common resource.

Those interested in being added to the BIFS listserv should contact BIFS program assistant Jeri Ohmart by email (jlohmart@ucdavis.edu) or phone (530) 752-5987.