About Puja Batra, Ph.D

Puja got her Ph.D. at Michigan State University in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology/Zoology and is now at Batra Ecological Strategies integrating science, policy, economics and communications for ecological solutions. She has devoted several years to resolve social and economic needs without diminishing natural resources. She has recently published ‘Linking Climate-Friendly Farming Practices to San Diego County’s Climate Action Plan’.

Lecture Summary: Climate-Smart Agriculture

In her lecture, Batra delves into the topic of what climate-smart agriculture and how and why it's necessary. According to Batra, Climate-Smart Agriculture focuses on climate risks while aiming to increase production, build climate resilience and reducing GHG's. She introduces the climate challenges that the San Diego region can and will be facing such as longer and hotter summers, extreme heat waves, increase risk of wildfires, and changing precipitation patterns. She further explains how these climate challenges impact agriculture not only the plants, but also within the agriculture ecosystem.

About Andrew Blume, Co-Founder inHouse Produce, Inc

Andrew is an entrepreneur, thought-leader, and community organizer of the indoor agriculture sector. Throughout his modern farming journey, Andrew has collaborated with many notable organizations including Microsoft, Philips, Ikea, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Southern Company, Square Roots, LACI, Agritecture, Green Bronx Machine, Plenty, Crop One, and Aerofarms. A lifelong vegetarian and an Al Gore-trained climate speaker, Andrew is hungry to foster: green jobs, healthy local food, sustainable best practices, and resilient cities.

Lecture Summary: Vertical Farming and inHouse Produce

Blume explains how vertical farming can be a profitable industry and how it can be applied to the economy. He explains how his company inHouse Produce is currently selling their vertical farming models to wealthy companies where it can eventually become affordable and accessible to other companies. He lists the environmental benefits of vertical farming such as zero transportation miles, no plastic packaging, no pesticides, decrease usage of water, and no food waste. Consumer benefits also include novel dining experience, higher nutritional content intake, and more.

About Philippe Rolshausen, Ph.D

Having received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis, Philippe is now a Cooperative Extension Specialist at UCR. He researches biotic and abiotic factors that limit citrus, grapevine and other crops productivity to develop and implement sustainable strategies to improve crop yield and plant health. He is interested in understanding plant-microbiome interactions as part of integrated pest management.

Lecture Summary: Smart Citriculture

Rolshausen explains the importance and the increase of growing perennial crops under net houses. In this talk, he goes into the advantages and disadvantages in growing perennial crops. Climate change will have a direct impact on the quality of crops and by using nets, it introduces a way to adjust effects of weather to ultimately improve fertility and be less dependable on extreme weather conditions. He also talks about the growing of citrus under nets in South Africa.

About Fortino Morales lll, MPP

During his time as an undergraduate at UCR, Fortino hosted urban gardening seminars, helped establish the sustainability engagement fund and founded the UCR community garden. He managed the garden for several years while attending UCR for a Master’s in Public Policy. For his efforts at the garden he was awarded the Global Food Initiative 30 under 30.Now as the new head of the office, Fortino is creating a strong and connected network of sustainable ambassadors, reaching every crevice of UCR culture.

Lecture Summary: Food Insecurity and Promoting Organic Food

Morales breaks down the history and production of the R'Garden at UCR along with the current progress it is making today. He delves into how UCR's student population has about 60% of students identifying as food insecure, a problem prevalent in not only other UC schools but nationwide as well. In addition, he mentions the importance of promoting eating organic food and needing it to be more implemented on school campuses.

About Darrel Jenerette, Ph.D

Jenerette’s research team focuses on the coupling between biodiversity, energy fluxes, and biogeochemical cycling embedded within ecological landscapes. His teams conduct research across wildland, agricultural, and urban land uses. Jenerette research include “Urban heat island and environmental justice”, a project investigating the vulnerability of different neighborhoods and groups of people to negative health effects of extremely hot weather in metropolitan Phoenix and “Urban Water Innovation Network (UWIN): Transitioning Toward Sustainable Urban Water Systems”, a project focusing on advancing fundamental knowledge, building capacity, and forging collaborations needed to find technological and behavioral solutions that promote sustainable urban water systems.

Lecture Summary: Climate-Smart Agriculture & Biofuels

Jenerette talks about Climate Smart Agriculture as two main ideas such as mitigation of GHGs and adaptations to climate challenges. He asks about the possibility of scaling up urban agriculture to actually having an impact on GHGs within a life cycle. In addition, he delves into projects he is currently working on involving the Salton Sea and the Folsom Lake.

About Eric Focht

Eric is a Riverside native and has dedicated himself to agricultural improvement. As a research associate Eric is involved in the UCR avocado breeding program, where he works on developing new and better varieties for commercial and home growers. In addition, he is involved in the UCR R’ Garden, located next to Lot 1.

Lecture Summary: Clonal Crop Systems

Focht explains how avocados are clonally reproduced where instead of planting new seeds, a cloning process is used on the materials. Today, there is a new generation of avocado trees in California that are on clonal rootstocks. These are widely planted in South Africa as well. The rootstock system allows for better resistance to diseases which can lead to better harvests.