Program News

Award

Ben Faber, farm advisor, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, received a 1999 award from the California Association of Farm Advisors and Specialists for his decade-long work with the avocado and citrus industries. During that time, he has developed new cultural practices in pruning design, nitrogen fertilizer management, and cover crops. He also has studied the use of urban waste mulch to control root diseases. Sabbatical

Aziz Baameur, farm advisor, Riverside County, will undertake a four-month sabbatical leave to China. He plans to tour farms and learn about Chinese agriculture-related language in Shanghai, and study soils and fertility as a visiting researcher at Zeh Jiang University in Hangzhou. He returns to the United States in late December 1999.

Participation in USDA Regional Session

As a member of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agriculture Research, Extension, Education, and Economics Advisory Board, Desmond Jolly, agricultural economist and Small Farm Program director, participated in the Regional Listening Session on Northeast Agriculture held at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, July 11, 1999. The northeast region includes states from Maryland to Maine in the eastern part of the United States.

Visitors

Marianna Alexandryan, marketing and credit assistant, U.S. Department of Agriculture Marketing Assistance Project in Yerevan, Armenia, visited the Small Farm Center recently to consult on agricultural finance and ways to help Armenian small-scale farmers.

Anthony Evans, farmers' market coordinator for the Maryland Department of Agriculture, visited with Small Farm Center staff to gather information about farmers' markets in California and across the United States.

Tours

Paul Vossen, farm advisor, Sonoma County, heads up an educational tour of Greek olive oil production and culture November 27-December 8, 1999. Tour participants will spend 12 days in Greece visiting isolated areas that produce hand crafted olive oils, large cooperatives producing high-volume, lower-cost oils, and both of the major table olive production districts.

Omission

Claudette Cervinka, photographer, should have received credit for photos that ran in the Small Farm News spring issue on pages 4 and 5. She photographed Dru Rivers, Paul Muller, and Richard Rominger at the Small Farm Program's 20th Anniversary Banquet.