This month's program was arguably about the most diversified
farming operationin Northern California, the 800-acre Paul L.
Byrne Memorial University Farm. Many people knew that the
University farm has animals and orchards, a Meat Lab and a U-pick
peach orchard. We learned about some unique programs and saw
how the food produced may make a major change in the future.
While at the luncheon we signed up for a special SIRs farm tour
on Thursday, April 28, which involved some of these very unique
programs on the tour and the Meat Lab was open.
The losses of arable land and shortage of water in combination with
a growing population have been the impetus for developing new approaches
for growing food effectively. We learned about Aquaponics, a combination
system of hydroponics (cultivating crops in water) and aquaculture (fish
production). We also learned about the Soldier Fly that will take your
table scraps to produce larvae to feed the fish so you can do everything
in one loop. Lee Alter oversees this project, and we were very interested
in his presentation. We learned about the organic vegetable project growing
about 50 varieties of vegetables and how you could become a member and get
a box of produce every week. Many of the wide variety of row and field crops
are grown to feed the livestock like alfalfa hay and corn, but others are
grown for contract for feed companies such as safflower and wheat. Some of
us were very familiar with the products that the Meat Lab puts out such as
cuts of beef, pork, lamb, as well as sausage, cured meats and beef jerky.
We learned about the 70 acres of almonds of which 30 of them are in
a varietal trial. We heard about the 75 acres in walnuts and their varieties,
the 10 acres of the pecans, and the 10 acres of high density olives for oil
production. We will also heard about the 40 purebred Angus cows that calve in
the spring and, whether that will be part of our tour on the following Thursday.
Coordinating this program was Sarah DeForest who is the Director of
External Relations. She's a proud Chico State graduate who returned to work at
the Farm in 2007. Also presenting information was Dr. Lee Altier (aquaponics)
and Dr. Crystal Waters (meat science) who is also a Chico State graduate.