Food Security

Mitchell Vanagten, executive chef for UC Merced’s Lakeside Catering , has been named Chef of the Year by the Monterey Bay chapter of the American Culinary Federation.

The award from the chapter, of which Vanagten is vice president, recognizes members for exceptional community service and promotion of the culinary craft, and demonstration of a high standard of expertise and leadership in the workplace.

As a result of climate change, the Golden State's farms are expected to face a surge in agricultural pests, which poses a threat to California's specialty crops industry.

Roughly a third of all food worldwide goes to waste.

Outside of the obvious direct costs, that waste has numerous other repercussions: much of it goes to landfills, where it generates methane, a greenhouse gas. Resources such as water and seeds are squandered. And at the same time, one in four people are experiencing food insecurity.

"We're wasting all this food when folks are going hungry," said Erin Meyer, Sustainable Food Programs coordinator for UC Merced.

A new landmark study by the UC Merced Community and Labor Center shows farmworkers across California are facing serious health challenges on a daily basis.

The goal of the Farmworker Health Study was to examine agricultural worker health and well-being, in addition to health care access, local and state policies, and health and training needs.

Adding even a small amount of biochar — a charcoal-like material produced by burning organic matter — to a dairy’s manure-composting process reduces methane emissions by 84%, a recent study by UC Merced researchers shows.

The dairy industry is one of the main sources of methane in California, making up 50% of the state’s methane emissions. Reducing these emissions is a critical part of state and federal efforts to address climate change.

UCs Merced and Santa Cruz became the newest campuses in the system to be named an agricultural experiment stations (AES), UC President Michael Drake announced at today’s Regents’ meeting.

They are the first campuses in more than 50 years to earn the designation.

UC Merced Professor Clarissa J. Nobile has been named a 2022 Innovation Fund investigator by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Nobile and University of Missouri Professor David G. Mendoza-Cózatl have formed one of six interdisciplinary teams chosen for the prestigious award.

The duo is combining expertise from Nobile’s research in microbial communities and Mendoza-Cózatl’s work in plant biology to study how plants and microbes interact in the context of iron uptake and utilization.

The White House announced today (Sept. 2) a $65.1 million award — the largest federal grant ever awarded to the Central Valley — to the Fresno-Merced Future of Food Innovation (F3) Coalition as part of its "Build Back Better" initiative to boost economic recovery after the pandemic.

UC Merced’s Office of Sustainability’s Bobcat Eats Food Waste Awareness and Prevention Program, in partnership with United Way of Merced, Community Initiatives 4 Collective Impact and the 18th St. People’s Garden, has been awarded a $250,000 grant from the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle.)

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the majority of parents struggling to find baby formula have resorted to dangerous feeding practices for their infants, which could negatively impact the health of their young children, according to a new study conducted by the UC Merced Lactation Attachment Technology and Child Health (LATCH) Lab in collaboration with UC Irvine and the