A new agricultural video series provided by the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) takes an in-depth look at vegetable production. The series debuted on May 13 and consists of a total of 26 episodes which will be released on every Monday through November 4 on the UC ANR YouTube page.
“The series itself is covering the entire production chain,” said UC Cooperative Extension Cropping Systems Specialist Jeff Mitchell. “Everything from preparation, marketing, establishment of crops, in-season management, harvesting, post-harvest management, and quality.”
The videos themselves range from seven to 47 minutes in length, with topics such as post-harvest handling and quality control efforts, the importance of transplants, and state of the art techniques including robotics. Some of the vegetable crops that are highlighted in the agricultural video series include conventional and organic processing tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce and other leafy greens, onions, and sweet corn. “It is, dare I say, comprehensive, and it is systems oriented, I think. And many of the farmer people who are showcased in the video series themselves will talk about the importance of the entire production system,” Mitchell noted.
The concept for a video project highlighting multiple aspects of vegetable production was initially pitched three years ago to the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). The purpose of the series is to help attract and train the next generation of farmers and ag workers. A team of professors from UC Davis, CalPoly San Luis Obispo, Chico State, and Fresno State worked together with multiple California vegetable growers to develop the video series with financial support from the CDFA Specialty Crops Block Grant Program.
“Several of the farmers who ended up being involved in the videos themselves, really stressed to us right at the outset, they want this to be real, they want this to be real-world, they want it to show the challenges and the dynamic aspects of vegetable crop systems which are very intensive,” said Mitchell.
Listen to Mitchell’s interview below.
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